04/25/21 - Sheepish - Westminster Presbyterian Church Westminster Presbyterian Church | Serving God and others with open mind, hands and heart - 04/25/21

04/25/21 – Sheepish

SHEEPISH

April 25, 2021
4^th Sunday in Easter
Acts 4:5-12; Ps. 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10: 11-18
Rev. Denise Clark-Jones

In Israel, during biblical times, shepherds were an essential part of economic capital. Sheep provided wool, milk, meat, and religious sacrifices. Sheep are known to be affectionate, passive, easily startled, and always hungry. They are inclined to wander off and are vulnerable to predators. In the age when cattle and sheep farmers worked neighboring land, sheep were deemed stupid, but that was a description perpetrated by the cattle farmers. Cows aren’t known for their mental brilliance either. Sheep are usually smart enough to go only where someone else has gone before them. Today, on what preachers refer to as “Sheep Sunday,” we, sheepishly claim our need for the Shepherd.

The common usage of the word, sheepish, is to be embarrassed from shame or lacking in confidence. The word, shepherd can be either a noun, one who tends sheep, or a verb, to guide in a particular direction. The noun, shepherd, is frequently used in the Old Testament to refer to either God or a king. God was the Shepherd of Israel. In the New Testament, Jesus is referred to as “The Good Shepherd.” For ancient, agrarian cultures, the shepherd and sheep metaphor for God and humanity was a clear and effective metaphor.

One of my favorite commentators on American politics is Jon Meachem, a historian who brings American history into his analysis of current affairs. Meachem, an Episcopalian from the Bible belt, also includes the bible and Christian history in his commentaries. This past week he brought John Calvin, the forefather of Presbyterianism, into his perspective of the week’s events. Many of you are aware the system of government prescribed in our constitution is based on the Presbyterian system of church government. Meachem noted that the Constitution itself is a Calvinist document with its checks and balances on the three branches of government. The authors recognized that without those checks on power, one branch would likely be led astray from democracy to gain control for the sake of their own power.

Calvin’s theology was based on the premise that all human beings, by their very nature, will sin. We call this the “Doctrine of Original Sin.” You’ve often heard me say that the only theological doctrine that can be proved is Original Sin. You can tell I was brought up in Calvin’s Reformed theology. The traditional confession we recited earlier, “we are like sheep who have gone astray, each to his own way,” from Isaiah 53:6, illustrates the Doctrine of Original Sin, which Augustine clarified in his writings in the third century. When you say the word, Calvinism, most people think about the rigid Puritans that decided what was sinful and forced their will on others. This is not what Calvin’s idea of Original Sin was all about. Calvin applied his belief in God’s grace liberally. With God’s help and Christ’s guidance we can heed what Abraham Lincoln called, “our better angels.” We will inevitably sin, no matter how hard we try to avoid doing so, but we are also forgiven and led back on the “right paths” by God’s grace.

Psalm 23 extols God’s grace with the affirmation, “He leads me on right paths.” The Hebrew word translated as “path,” literally means a “rut,” the deep marks made by wagons on a road. These ruts are impossible not to see and if you walk in them your stride is bound to follow the course they set. As Christians, we look to Jesus as the one who has shown us the right way to reach our destination – the kingdom of God. The psalmist announces his trust: “⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. Goodness and mercy are characteristics of God and God’s relationship with humanity. Because of God’s innate goodness and steadfast love, God is merciful in dealing with us – even when we sin. The “house of the Lord” can refer to the temple or any place where God is present. Jesus referred to the place and the nature of God’s presence as “the kingdom of God.” When we do good, when we are merciful, just, and loving as God is, God’s kingdom enters the world.

The Psalmist stresses the role of fear in steering us away from God’s “right paths:” ^“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me.” Many of us know the King James Version of Psalm 23, which translates: though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The Hebrew word used in Psalm 23 translates more literally as “the death shadow,” not death. This word appears many times in the book of Job. It refers to fear itself, not the event one might fear. Because it is only a shadow the “sheep” can continue on its journey led by the Shepherd. The psalmist writes: ^“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” The word translated here as “prepare” can also be translated as “arrange.” The Shepherd goes before the sheep to secure grass-filled pastures for the sheep. As Christians reading this psalm, we can say that there is no place we can go that Jesus has not gone before us.

Even when enemies surround the green pastures – that which threatens, intimidates, or causes distress — the Shepherd protects the sheep. Not only that, but the Shepherd also anoints the head with oil, a gesture of hospitality toward visitors in ancient times. The cup of God’s blessings is not just full; it is overflowing so there is no need for desiring anymore. It appears that in Psalm 23 the psalmist has had a transformation of desire. What the psalmist wants is now in line with what God wants for him.

We are seeing the consequences of people in our society who are obsessed with fear. Fear of people different from themselves and fear of groups conspiring to hurt them, which make them susceptible to being led by the “hired hands” of whom Jesus spoke. These hired hands, who feed others’ insecurities, exploit that fear for their own political, social, or economic power. Unlike the Good Shepherd, the hired hand only cares about himself and what the sheep can do for him. At the first sign of any needed sacrifice on his part, he abandons the sheep. Believing that God created the world and called it good makes it possible for us not to take a defensive or even paranoid stance. This attitude makes it possible for us to live our lives with the functional assumption that the world God created is a place that is supportive of, not indifferent or threatening to, us. This perspective allows confidence, courage, generosity, and resilience to become our nature. The psalmist has taken that journey from fear to trust in God.

First John 3:23 is a powerful summary of the two great themes of John’s gospel: 1) we should believe in Jesus and 2) we should love one another as he has loved us. How do we know God’s love? We know through God’s action, sending Jesus Christ to show us the “right paths” and his laying down his life for us. We usually think of laying down one’s life for someone else as something heroes do – soldiers, firefighters, etc. Yet, the author of 1 John tells us that self-sacrifice should be every day — not exceptional, but a way of life. We lay down our lives when we put others first when we take time for others when we really see others and their needs. It is a reorientation toward God and others rather than exclusively on ourselves.

We can’t claim God’s love for us without claiming it for others. Faith and love are inextricably bound. Even though we Reformed folks say “faith alone” is all that is required for salvation, faith is not a single entity. Faith in Christ is faith that transforms the believer into one who does acts of mercy, justice, and love. Believing and loving come from God’s grace and empowers one to obedience. Jesus is the love of God incarnate and so is always present in our acts of love. As it is written in John 17 “we know these things because the Spirit is in us, making us one with Christ.”

In our reading from John’s gospel, Jesus takes on the metaphor of God as the Shepherd of Israel found in the psalms, Isaiah and Ezekiel. This is one of the seven “I am” statements in the gospel. “I am the Good Shepherd, I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” He is the Good Shepherd because he has experienced the good shepherding of the Shepherd of Israel. Jesus walked through death shadows. – suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead, and was buried. No matter where or what form our dark valley appears, we have not gone where Jesus has not been before.

In our reading from Acts, Peter and John faced down hypocritical religious folk when they defended their actions in healing a lame beggar. They faced imprisonment or worse by declaring the man was healed by their invoking the name of the resurrected Messiah. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, nor did they believe Jesus was the Messiah. But they were boxed in by the inconvenient truth that the man had been healed in front of witnesses and Peter declared that he was not the healer, but merely the instrument by which Jesus healed. The religious leaders did not care about the important issue — that a man, who did not live the fullness of life because he could not walk, had been given new life. The once lame man had experienced the love of God and his neighbor in such a profound way, that he was risen from death to life.

Psalm 23 recognizes life will bring setbacks, handicaps, and injustices. Yet the psalmist walks through life, its ups and downs, with trust and confidence that God is with him, leading him, caring for him, shepherding him. The psalmist’s outlook does not offer us the prospect of a perfect world or a life free of danger, hardship, or pain; it sees the world without illusions but at the same time as a world in which we can live courageously and do what is good for both ourselves and others. The psalmist’s trust and confidence in the Lord overcomes fear, so much that he imagines not his enemies, but rather goodness and mercy, pursuing him all the days of his life. The Johannine community puts forth Christ-like, sacrificial love as an anecdote for fear. The first Christian communities, founded by Peter and Paul, encouraged good deeds accomplished out of love and the lack of fear for worldly security as the “right path” Jesus created for us to reach the kingdom of God.

May we, like sheep, turn to and trust in the Good Shepherd, naming him as the source of our strength and demonstrating our trust by following the path he sets before us. Amen. May it be so!

My Story

“Throughout the week, there are many worldly things pulling me away from my commitment to God. I come to church on Sunday at Westminster to reconnect and renew my relationship with Him. Part of my worship is to ask him for forgiveness for my lack of faithfulness. I leave, reminded that he loves me, forgives me, and walks beside me every day. What a profound blessing that is!”