Everlasting Still Waters (Audio)

Sermon for The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Saint Peter's | Arlington, VA

Good Shepherd Sunday

Psalm 23; Acts 4:5-12; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10: 11-18

The Good Shepherd's Voice—Rev'd David

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“The Lord is my shepherd... he makes me lie down in green pastures...

    ...leads me by still waters...

    ...revives my soul...   

    ...guides me along right pathways...”

I wonder: can you recall a time when these words spoke to you—when they moved something within you. Can you remember the very first time you heard them?

Perhaps it was while kneeling at your bedside as someone taught them to you, or maybe it was at a funeral services—or maybe they’ve just become so familiar you simply can’t remember not knowing them.

Psalm 23 is rich with much beauty and meaning—and time and again many have turned to these words for comfort or to lift them up as a prayer.

Now, consider this: these very same words were uttered from the lips of Christ. Truly. As a religiously devoted “child of the house of Israel” with a deep knowledge of scripture: Jesus not only knew these words, they were certainty also a source of personal comfort.

“The Lord is my shepherd... [and] Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for though art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

This is the prayer written by the Psalmist and former shepherd boy, King David—who even as the great earthly ruler in all of his royal might subjects himself to divine authority. And this too is the prayer of the crucified Christ—who “at the hands of Pontius Pilate” entered into and experienced the fullness of human suffering and death.

Eventually, Jesus will live this prayer. So, when he invokes the image of the “good shepherd,” it comes with more than a little personal familiarity. Now, wether that was specific to the King James Version or not, I really can’t be sure…

When Jesus claims this moniker as his own, it takes on a completely new meaning. Because the way he defines it is quite different from how others have. Unlike a king or even a typical shepherd, the “good” shepherd is not motivated to ensure the prosperity of his flock (or kingdom) in order to preserve his own economic welfare or as a means to maintain order.

Rather, the actions of this “good” shepherd are solely concerned with an interest in the wellbeing of the sheep... And in this we see the critical thing Jesus knows about being a “real” shepherd which even benevolent Kings only grasp in part: the source from where “real” power comes...

Power that is exerted to coerce or control the flock one is entrusted is neither transformative nor is it sustainable. This is the kind of claim to power made by would-be strong men—but it is illegitimate and fleeting. Real power, the kind that revives souls and leads along right pathways through valleys, the kind that fills Peter and the apostles to perform acts of miraculous healing, is made known through a strength the world so-often mistakes as weakness.

And this is just what the first epistle of John has in mind this morning: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another...”

As our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is known to say, “If it ain’t about love, it ain’t about Jesus!” And as Bishop Curry is quick to add, so, that we make no mistake about it: “love is the way.”

Love is what defines the “good” shepherd, it is the flock’s foundation, and it is the source of new life we proclaim in Easter. The Good Shepherd we follow has himself walked through the valley—and knows the way to the green pastures we desire.

So, it’s worth pausing to ponder for a moment just what kind of sheep we are…

Are we the sheep who know the shepherd’s voice? Are we the sheep who, in faithful obedience, have learned to abide in the protection, security, and love provided? The sheep who love “not in word or speech, but in truth and action?”

...Or are we the sheep who, as the hymn goes, are “prone to wander, prone to leave the [Good Shepherd] we love?” Are we the sheep who find ourselves wandering aimlessly through the valley, far from the fold, stuck on some rocky cliff’s edge?

In short: yes. We are both. As we affirm each week in our invitation to communion: we are the sheep who have tried to follow and we are those who have failed.

Whether we are faithfully obedient in walking this way of love or we completely miss the mark, we can be assured that “surely the [Good Shepherd’s] goodness and mercy shall follow [us] all the days of [our lives].”

Now, truthfully: I do not know much about sheep.

Unlike King David, who wrote Psalm 23 informed by the events of his own life, I really don’t have much personal knowledge to draw from. I could give you plenty of anecdotes, though—all of which you’ve likely heard many, many times before. I don’t know much about what it is like to be a sheep; however, what I do know, is my life experience…

I know about about the desire for safety and belonging within a flock, about skittish and trigger-happy fears and anxieties... I know about the loneliness that comes in being separated from the flock, wondering if a return is possible... I know about the temptation to affirm how I measure up against other sheep... And I know what it is to wander, with seemingly no direction, while praying these words written by Thomas Merton:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you...”

...I don’t know much about sheep—and I suspect from your own experience navigating this life: each of you know just as much as I do.

Even when we think we have wandered off too far, confined to some unreachable place or reality, Christ—having know the anxieties, fears, loneliness himself—meets us there with mercies that are new every morning.

This love of the Good Shepherd is relentless and holds a preferential option for the “Lost Sheep”—leaving behind the safe majority to search out the single sheep in need. The one left outside on the margins, the one most vulnerable, the one caught in some destitute predicament without food and starving... And when he comes to embrace that lost sheep, as another of Jesus’ parables tells us, “he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.”

In this morning’s gospel lesson, Jesus declares there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Within it we will surely find ourselves beside each and every person we have, at one time or another, deemed as the “other.” Because no one exists outside the fold—and there is always space for another. Regardless of socioeconomic level, educational background, nationality or immigration status, political party—and even more urgently: how one loads the dishwasher, and whether they cut their PB&J across or diagonally...

Wherever we construct barriers to belonging, deciding who’s in and who’s out, we discover in God’s flock those borders are artificial. All are welcomed in. Even those whose toilet paper rolls under rather than over.

Even up to the final moment before he lays down his life in love, Jesus continues to extend this radical welcome. We hear it in the words spoken to a “lost sheep” dying on his own cross beside Jesus. The convicted criminal who has no claim or merit of any kind on which to stand. The one who has been long-astray yet recognizes the Good Shepherd’s voice when he hears it. And to this “lost sheep,” God says: yes, even you, come home, belong, abide with me.

Friends, these are the same words are spoken to each of us and to all of God’s precious children. Somehow the boundaries just keep expanding. More and more are invited into the fold—so that they too might experience the peace of everlasting still waters.

And in the fullness of time, as our gospel lesson assures us: All of us will find ourselves there. Dwelling in lush, green pastures, together. Known. Abiding in the eternal love of the Good Shepherd.

Thanks be to God.