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Fourth Sunday After Easter, 5/03/2020 | Sermon on Psalm 23 and John 10:1-10 (ESV) | The Rev. Paula L. Murray |

Psalm 23

¹The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not be in want.

²He makes me lie down in green pastures

and leads me beside still waters.

³He revives my soul

and guides me along right pathways for His name’s sake.

⁴Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil;

for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

⁵You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me;

You have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over.

⁶Surely Your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Gospel: John 10:1-10

¹Jesus said to the Jews, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. ²But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. ³To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. ⁵A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” ⁶This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what He was saying to them. ⁷So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. ⁸All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

I’m going to begin this morning’s sermon with a bit of a lecture before we get to the meat of the Gospel. Where proclamation and teaching begin and end when it comes to the Gospel of Jesus Christ can be unclear. But it is clear that the two often blur into one another, and that is especially the case when we have a Sunday the Scriptures of which are themed. Those “themes” for want of a better word each represent some dogma relating to the nature and work of God as Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. The fourth Sunday after Easter is one of those themed Sundays, Good Shepherd Sunday, and on this Sunday we recite the 23^rd Psalm and hear the Gospel from the tenth chapter of John where Jesus is portrayed as the Good Shepherd. Good Shepherd Sunday is usually a pretty sweet experience for God’s lambs because we all maintain this image of Jesus, crook in one hand, tenderly cradling a lamb in the other. But it is a minor Sunday in the grand scheme of things related to the Christian calendar even though it comes to us in the middle of the season of Easter. The third day after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ will always be the single most important day of the year for Christians for their worship and adoration of God, because on this day the full power of God was put on view for the world to see through the resurrection of the crucified, and deceased, Jesus Christ.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

For 50 days after Easter Sunday the Scriptures reveal to us the fullness of the salvation won for us by Christ crucified and risen, and we begin to see what this means for us as followers of Christ who live in between the time of His rising from the dead, His ascension that follows 40 days later, and His return on an unknown future date.

On their face, the readings for Good Shepherd Sunday assure us that we can count on the risen Jesus Christ to keep us safe from external foes, our own unrighteousness, and from death. From the 23^rd Psalm we learn that God the Good Shepherd provides for our essential needs, lays out for us the pathways of righteousness so that all may go well with us, takes us safe through the valley on which falls the shadow of death, thwarts our enemies, provides for us a feast in the Lord’s House, and allows us to dwell there forever. The Apostle John tells us that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, the One sent by the Father to shield us lambs of God from the wolves that would mislead us and take us away from our God and destroy us.

The images the Good Shepherd texts inspire are old school, and were old school in the days Jesus walked the earth, so it is not unfaithful to wonder if these images and the texts that generate them work in the same way for us who follow Jesus today as it did for those who followed in Him in days long past. After all, who knows what it is to shepherd lambs and kids these days, with the exception of the Baer clan, that is.

Let’s dive into the lessons a little deeper, beginning with the shepherding described in the 23^rd psalm. The Good Shepherd provides for our wants, leads us to safe pastures, revives us when we are tired, guides us along the right paths and not the wrong, protects us from death, comforts us, treats us like honored guests, and gives us a home in His own home. St. John speaks not of a home in the usual sense but of a sheepfold, a walled enclosure with a gate or door through which the good shepherd enters and the sheep enter or leave as necessary. The bad shepherds are bandits or robbers who vault over the fence rather than enter through the gate so they can be seen, and who care nothing for the well-being of the sheep. They will steal them away or leave them to be ripped apart by the wolves should wolves hunt the flocks rather than risk their own lives for the sheep. But the Good Shepherd knows His sheep and they know Him, and He preserves their lives against all of the threats of the world even to the shedding of His own precious blood.

The sheepfold, or sheep pen which is what we’re more likely to call it, is where the sheep learn their shepherd’s voice and then learn to respond to it. In the intertestamental time, the period of Jesus’ earthly lifetime, shepherds would take their flocks to graze during the day. The sides of hills and valleys could be covered with sheep, each shepherd keeping an eye on his flock with the help of his dogs, sons or hired hands. In the evening, the sheep would be brought into a single sheepfold for safety’s sake, a holding area secured with a fence made of brush or rocks and punctuated by a gate or two. Over the course of the night, the shepherds would eat their dinner, settle their lambs, and then take turns keeping watch over the sheep in the sheepfold to protect the sheep from predators, two-legged and four-legged. In the morning after they broke their fast, the shepherds would go to the gate and call their sheep out. Their sheep, knowing their shepherd’s voice, would follow their shepherd out into the fields to graze again.

As noted before, most of us do not raise sheep. We do not shepherd flocks of Ovis aries, which is one of the fancy dancy names for sheep. We have not seen a sheep pen. Nonetheless, we do have a sheepfold and it is this Sanctuary here. This is where we come to hear the Lord’s voice and to learn His Word. This is where we come to know Him, and His saving presence among us. From this Sanctuary, this sheepfold, we who are given over into the care of Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, are kept safe and made secure against a world outside the gate that is not safe and not secure. That world is full of predators, both two-legged, four-legged, and viral all of which who would steal us from our Good Shepherd only to abandon us to sin, destruction, and death.

The world is not a safe place. This latest pandemic only reinforces this truth. We huddle behind our doors because we have been commanded to do so and because we want to be safe. We want to be alright. We have, for the most part, done what we were told to do although I do not know how much longer that will last. The one thing I’ve heard repeatedly from every set of lips this week is, “I’m so over the coronavirus.” But we have not accomplished the end of the virus’ march through our population; we’ve just slowed it down a bit. So yeah, even after the shutdown people will continue to get sick. You have surely heard way too many times the phrase, “So it never happens to anyone else again.” That phrase, beloved of the Lord, is a tarradiddle, which is a wonderful word for a lie of dramatic proportions. Of course this crap is going to happen again, and again, as well as will earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, car accidents, falls off rocky cliffs, falls off our very own porches or down our very own stairs, cancer, heart disease and plain old, old age. The world is broken, all things including all life are temporary, and the only place we are truly safe is in the arms of our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

“For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls,” says St. Peter. We all stray, even those of us disciplined enough to show up every Sunday for worship. We steal out of the sheepfold and follow our own way until we can no longer deny that we have strayed and need someone to find our way for us again. Our Good Shepherd will be our guide through the challenges of this life and our journey to the next. In Him only do we trust, for all human beings no matter how dedicated they are to healing or public safety are fallible and short-term. The CDC sends contaminated test kits to the states, ventilators break down, ambulances crash, doctors fail for reason of exhaustion. There is no vitamin regime, no off-label medication, no diet, no investment strategy and no bunker in a hidden place that can guarantee our safety. Our friends and our kin can stand alongside us as we face life’s difficulties and we praise and love them for this, but they cannot save us. Only Jesus can.

So let us during this time of isolation and all other times as well, devote ourselves “to the Apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Let our souls be filled with awe as we stand before the cross of Christ and we shout with one spirit and one voice,

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Let signs and wonders happen among us, and may we be generous with one another, with the church, and with the poor. Most of all, let us live as much as is possible for inhabitants of a broken creation without fear, cowardice, or moral weakness, but instead look to the future with all the courage, the heart, and the power the Holy Spirit can give us. Let us divine new ways to be a blessing for our neighbors and a joy to our Father in heaven. Give us tongues to witness to the grace of God, that we may patiently and lovingly draw others to the sheepfold where they will be kept in the protective and loving arms of the Good Shepherd of the sheep.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

The Rev. Paula L. Murray

smotly@comcast.net