The Fourth Sunday of Easter | April 30, 2023 | Psalm 23 and John 10:1-10 | Dr. Ryan D. Mills |
[Jesus said:] 1“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go 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.” (John 10:1-10, NRSV).
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” How many times have we heard those words, the words of the 23rd Psalm? So holy, so powerful…but sometimes almost overdone, mechanically said by rote repetition, made into a religious tchotchke. It’s easy to lose sight of what God is giving us in these words.
I learned the importance of the comforting words of the 23rd Psalm while I worked as a hospital chaplain intern one summer in Chicago. One night, my first week there, I was paged to a dying man’s beside. He said, “Pray for me Father,” so I took out my little contemporary pocket Bible and prayed the 23rd Psalm in a translation which began something like, “God is our animal caretaker, I will not have any unmet needs.” And the poor dying man listened politely, and when I got to the end said, “Thank you, Father. Now why don’t we pray again? But this time do it the right way.” Sometimes I think our biggest danger as church is that we forget who we are, we forget our words, we forget The Word!
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”—how can that be? We want everything! We want more money, more education, more prestige, a better car, a better-looking body, we want it all, we want everything, our way, now! But the Psalm says with the Lord God as your Shepherd, with him carefully and lovingly providing for you, you have all you need! In our discontented culture of a million wants, Christians can say, “I have a grace-filled God—so I don’t ultimately want for anything else. God alone is enough.”
And God leads you and me, the Psalm says, as a shepherd to green pastures, beside still waters, beside the still waters of holy baptism when he claimed you as his own, he leads you into a places where we will be given green pastures for our souls. We don’t know how to provide for ourselves! We eat spiritual junk food if it’s up to us, and yet God leads us and provides us with the rich nourishment we need, feeding us with his living Word, giving us his body and blood, keeping us together as his little flock at Trinity whom he lovingly cares for. As one of our lifelong members used to say, “We’ve had our challenges, but God is always good to us, always.”
And he restores our soul, the Psalm says, restores what is wearied and worn down in us, a Shepherd assumes we’ll get weary, he knows sometimes we will falter and fall, so we don’t have to be strong all the time, he restores us, taking our burdens onto his own shoulders, carrying us when we need it, leading us in paths of righteousness, because this Shepherd makes us righteous, he makes us worthy to stand before God as a gift, by grace alone.
And when we walk through the darkest valley, when that final valley of the shadow of death overcomes us, I will fear no evil, the Psalm says, for thou art with me.
In the original Hebrew of the 23rd Psalm there are 26 letters before, and 26 letters after that one word: “Thou”. Thou—You, You God are the center, you are the center of each one of our lives, you are at the hidden center of this world, you are the heart of this community, you, God, are at the beating heart of all things in heaven and on earth. “Thou art with me”. That is the Gospel—“Thou art with me”, is the Name of The Good Shepherd: Emmanuel, God with me, God with us. When times are tough, when we are wearied, when we don’t know what to do next, when there is no easy answer, and no guaranteed future, there is only this one thing at the center to trust through death and hell, one thing that lasts, one thing to trust in: “Thou, Lord”—“Thou art with me.”
Then, “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me,” the rod and staff of the Shepherd’s wooden cross, proving how far this shepherd Jesus will go to find us, he will leave all things behind, he will put himself in mortal danger, he will give his life for the sheep, he will bear any danger and take upon himself every punishment, this shepherd will stop at nothing in order to bring us back to himself.
A pastor friend of mine in Minnesota took his church youth group to the County Fair years ago. A church member came along with them, a farmer who raised sheep, and this shepherd brought a few of his prizewinning sheep to display in the fair barns. But while the farmer and the youth group were at the fair, someone broke into his sheep barns at home, and stole his entire flock of sheep. A lifetime’s work of building a herd—gone! Of course, when the farmer returned home he was devastated. So he set out to find his sheep, to get them back. And so he traveled from one county fair to the next, all summer long, until finally at the end of August he walked into a sheep barn, and 10 pens over, a bunch of sheep started bleating and jumping and crying out–whether by smell or by sound, they could tell it was him! The sheep had been re-tagged, falsely identifying them as belonging to someone else, but they were his. And he knew it, and the sheep knew it too. Someone he was telling this story to later said, “Oh come on, how could you be sure? They’re just sheep.” And this farmer got quiet and said, “No! I know my sheep. And they know me. And those are my sheep.” And he took them home, to feed and water them. The Shepherd knows you, and you all know his voice, and together we follow him, we follow by continuing in the things the make for Christians that the Book of Acts tells us today, continuing in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers. Studying, teaching, preaching, showing, living all about the Good Shepherd who gave his life to take away the sins of the world. And continuing to live together in fellowship, sharing in all things in life together, sharing our lives in common, together as one united flock. And then gathering around the breaking of the bread, sharing in the Holy Communion where we are united with our Shepherd and each other, and then caring for the other sheep and our neighbors and the whole world through our prayers–when we do these things then we are living as his flock, then we are following, then we know the life that he has come to give us: “I came so that they may have life,” the Good Shepherd says, “I came so that they may have life and have it abundantly.” God has come to give us, to give you overflowing, supersized, everlasting abundant life.
“And thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies”—no matter the burdens you face this day or this week, no matter who wants to take you away, giving you a false tag that says you belong to something else, God prepares a table before you today, a feast before you today, right here. Yes, your enemies may gather round you but God lays on a feast. He is not worried so why should you be? Most shepherds kill the sheep to eat them. Our shepherd lets himself be killed, and lets us feed upon him. A feast laid out, a six-course heavenly banquet right here as a way to show what he thinks of our enemies.
And if that wasn’t enough, then thou anointest my head with oil, precious olive oil as a sign of the Holy Spirit at work in the prophets, priests, and kings of old; oil that was used as medicine in the ancient world; oil that we still anoint the sick with, and that we forgive sins with, and anoint those who are newly baptized with, oil that is poured out on you, you who have a job to do for God, you who have been healed, forgiven, chosen as his own, shining with sweet dripping down oil.
And then finally, the psalm promises us, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord, forever.”
Several years ago Frank and Annie’s foster daughter Leslie died. Frank was there for her birth, and sat beside her as she died. What do you do at a moment like that? What do you say? Frank told us that he spoke the only words that can stand up in a moment like that, he began, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” He spoke a line, and then she repeated. He came to the last line, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” and she closed her eyes, and went home to be with the Lord.
When the day comes for you and I close our eyes for the last time, and draw our last breath, then you who know the Good Shepherd, you who have been tended and carried and led by him all the days of your life, then the last promise of the 23rd psalm shall at last come true for us all: “And I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.”
For Alleliua, Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
And the Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Amen.
—
The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills
New Haven, Connecticut
Pastor@TrinityLutheranNH.org
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