The Good Shepherd and Cast Sheep

      Ugh.  This week I guess either I was crazy or God was really wanting us to pay attention to Psalm 23.  I shared with those present at Jean’s funeral that it is always dangerous to preach on Psalm 23.  I suppose it comes down to John 3:16 or Psalm 23 as to which piece of Scripture is best known in the Church and in the wider unchurched world.  I am certain by way of conversations since Jean’s funeral that I preached exactly what God wanted me to preach.  People said I captured Jean perfectly, describing to me how she set a table in the midst of their enemies.  At the time, many never understood what she was doing, let alone that it was a faithful ministry on her part.  But they shared their stories of her work with them and how that sermon resonated.

     I had hoped I was done with Psalm 23 for a while, but God seems to have other ideas.  Before I launch into this sermon, though, I need to remind Adventers, and those new to Advent, that Good Shepherd stories are never my own.  My pastoral care professor, the now Dean of the Cathedral in Albany, NY—which means he gets the title of “Very Rev” so you know he is more Rev than I, first served Christ’s Church as a bi-vocational priest.  He was an Episcopal priest in northern Maine and a shepherd.  As he taught our classes, he would often drop stories about being a shepherd.  The most famous of those stories I turned into a sermon that most of us know as “Away to Me.”  I see many nods and some confusion.  For those long attending, it is the sermon about the sheep dog rescuing the sheep trying to swim from an island in New Brunswick to Portugal.  It was in my mind again because I was asked if I would preach that sermon again by Adventers.  It’s a good story and good sermon, but I am not big about repeating sermons.  It seems lazy to me and fails to recognize how we engage at times with God’s Word.  Feel free to search for it on my blog, though, if you are wanting a refresher or your curiosity is piqued.  

     One of the great images of Scripture is that of God being a shepherd.  It was a common metaphor in the ANE.  Kings liked to call themselves the shepherds of their people in the ANE.  God used the familiar image to illustrate His relationship with His people.  Jesus, unsurprisingly, picked up on that image and refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd.  Since today is Good Shepherd Sunday, it makes sense that I would need to delve into my memories of Leander’s classes to illustrate the sermon, right?  Good.  For those who like to read the focused Scripture, I will be preaching on Psalm 23, mostly on verse 3a, but before we get to the text, has anyone ever seen a sheep laying on its back with hooves in the air as you have been driving in the country?  Awesome.  I know it sounds kind of crazy, but there are a few others who have seen it, so you know it’s not some crazy, AI generated story, right?

     There is an uncommon issue for shepherds, rather than rare, where sheep will end up stuck on their backs.  Imagine a turtle upside down on the top of its shell.  With me so far.  The sheep is literally on its back with its hooves splayed up and out.  Driving by when it first happens, it may be wiggling.  I think that action is not unlike a cat that is trying to scratch its back when the human refuses to do the job for which the cat chose it.  I know, I know, you dog people think you choose your pets.  Cat people know better!  That position is called cast, as in spelled the same and sounds the same as the plaster we put around broken bones.

     Now, imagine you are driving through the country and you see a cast sheep, on its back with hooves in the air, should you be concerned for the sheep?  It’s ok, none of you are shepherds.  Lol.  I like the “since you are asking us, we probably should be concerned” answer.  For us non-shepherds, does their seem to be anything dangerous about the position, apart from whether a predator is nearby?  No.  That’s why you and I are not shepherds, let alone good shepherds.

     It turns out the position is fatal to a sheep, if it stays in that position for about a day.  It turns out that sheep, because they are ruminators, are producing gas in their stomachs as they digest their food.  Most of us remember our introduction to this from our study of the biology of cows way back in elementary and junior high.  Good.  Some people paid attention.  Everything works great for a sheep when it is nightside up.  But when it gets turned upside down, often the result of wet wool and a sloping hillside, the fermentation in the fourth? stomach becomes dangerous and deadly.  Upside down, they are unable to pass the buildup of gasses.  So the pressure keeps building, sort of like a balloon is being filled up inside them.  That expanding bubble of pressure begins to push organs around.  Ladies that have been pregnant can describe this even better.  Good.  More nods.  If the sheep is not righted in time, the pressure and the dislodging of organs eventually kills the sheep.

     OK.  Knowing that a cast sheep is in danger now, how would you respond to a sheep on the side of the road in a cast position?  I heard two good answers:  Tell the owner (the shepherd) and roll them over.  For us softies, is there any other answer that seems possible?  We cannot drive past endangered or suffering animals like our hard-hearted friends, right?  Lol. See, I told you, this shepherd business is important to God.

     For those of us determined to roll the sheep over, how do we do it?  Grab the wool and pull it over.  Makes sense, right?  We may have just traumatized the sheep more doing it like that.  Imagine if someone pulled our hair to move us around.  How would that feel to us?  Ouch, indeed.  Remember, sheep typically weigh 250-350 pounds, and often cast sheep are wet, which adds more weight to the problem.  So there is more weight attached to their wool than we have to our hair.  And even if we don’t accidentally pull the wool out trying to right the sheep, we still run the risk of inflicting pain by pulling and by irritating the skin of the sheep by pulling, right?  That’s why shepherds grab under the sheep’s shank and roll the whole body over, creating torque with the hind end.  Don’t forget, topography often plays a part in a sheep being cast, so the shepherd has to figure out how to use the slope to help right the sheep.  Everybody feel like cast sheep experts now?  Good.

     Once the sheep is upright, we can hop back in our cars and continue our journey, right?  Wrong.  Remember the buildup of gasses from rumination and the organs being displaced internally as a result?  It turns out that such a condition is not unlike a inner ear infection for us.  That’s right.  The center of balance for sheep is knocked off by being cast.  If the shepherd, or Adventer in our example, leaves quickly, there is a significant likelihood that the sheep will lose its balance, fall over and roll over.  The longer the gasses build up, the more likely that is the outcome.  So, if you and I stop and do our good deed and hop right back in the car, we might not have changed the prospect for the sheep we just rescued.  Kind of depressing and sad, huh?  Now you know why shepherds are always checking their flocks and why they go looking for those not with the flock.  Is my sheep in a bramble?  Was my sheep taken by a predator?  Did my sheep eat something poisonous?  Is my sheep cast?  Hard work, isn’t it?  You might also begin to understand the difference in attention paid by the hired hand and by a good shepherd, right?  And yet God and Jesus remind us they are the Good Shepherd.  Unlike the hired hands who may not be too concerned if a sheep or two is lost, God and Jesus are incredibly focused on the lost sheep.

     Now, I told you earlier I would be focusing on verse 3a.  That danger of which I spoke in the beginning will now be more obvious to us all.  Anybody have any idea what “He restores my soul” means?  Cleanses us from sin?  Good guess.  He gives us rest to restore us?  That’s a good guess, too.  The Hebrew is rather deeper than the guesses I am hearing.  I get it.  We have all heard this psalm as “He restores my soul” for so long, we have ingrained ourselves to think it is wonderful, even if we do not understand it, right?  With all due respect to those who speak Hebrew far better, like Deacon Suzie, the Hebrew is something like napsi yeshobeb.  I know, I know, hillbilly Hebrew is a rare dialect.  Those of you who have been in Bible studies with me, though, can probably hear the root words of nepes and Yeshua in those words.  Now, I am not a Hebrew expert, by any stretch of the imagination.  But nepes is that Hebrew word which gets translated into the Greek by the Rabbis 300 years before Jesus’ birth as psyche and which we loosely call soul.  The problem for us is that we diminish the word because of our culture and our history.  I won’t ask us to define soul, but most of us would say its the animating force or the valuable spiritual thing in which God is interested, right?  For the Hebrews, though, nepes was a much more meaningful word.  Nepes was what made you and me us.  When God formed us in the womb and breathed life into us, He stamped us, breathed into us, those characteristics which make us distinct from others.  In fancy western language, we would say this was the image of God that each of us bears, reflecting in some shadowy way the glory and character of God.

     The second word sounds somewhat like Yeshua, the covenantal Name God gives to His people, right?  So there is a double meaning in this verse that I would suggest is not well captured by “He restores my soul.”  On the one hand, the psalmist is claiming that He restores me to me.  Put in better English, God reminds me of who I am in Him and strengthens me to do His Will or God reminds me of my nepes.  Pretty cool, right?  It makes sense.  God gave us those characteristics He knew those around us would value, but sometimes we forget the intention with which He created us.  This is the psalmist’s way of saying that God reminds us who we are and encourages us to live as He created us to live.

     But, in the reminder of His covenantal name, you and I can simultaneously hear this verse as reminding us that God calls us back to Himself.  What usually causes us to forget that we were created in His image is the fact that we sin.  The more we sin, the less attuned to God we become.  None of this is new to us, right?  After all, we have all been taught over and over how repentance had a physical component, literally turning ourselves, back to God.  The more we sin, the more we go our own way.  And the psalmist is reminding us today that God calls us back to ourselves and back to Him.  In truth, we cannot be ourselves unless we are following Him.

     Do we think “He restores my soul” captures the breadth and depth and nuance of the Hebrew?  Look at the second half of the verse.  Which interpretation makes the second half seem more fitting, more appropriate?  Why does God create us intentionally with nepes or psyche?  To glorify Him in the world around us!  What mars that effort on our part?  Sin.  But the Good Shepherd calls us to repentance, calls us to ourselves.  Like sheep with a shepherd, we hear His voice and turn.  And so long as we heed His voice, so long as we work to attune ourselves to Him, we glorify Him in our lives!  But even better, and the Gospel is always better, in that act of repentance you and I are made righteous.  The path that we walk following Him is covered in repentance.  And because Jesus did His work for us on the Cross, you and I can be restored to ourselves and to God.

     We all know this, even though we often forget.  When we are baptized, or someone else is using our liturgy, we vow among other things that, when we fall into sin, how will we respond?  Good.  Y’all remember.  We confess our sins and absolved.  We are specifically reminded that Jesus has made it possible for to be restored to ourselves and to God.  Then we share the peace, being at love and at charity with our neighbors, and what happens?  That’s right, we are intentionally reminded of Christ’s Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and Second Coming in the Eucharist.  We literally ask God that we are made one body with Him, right?  Whoa, that’s a lot of thoughtful nods.

     I expect that for most of us, the image of the cast sheep is now rather apparent for God’s purposes today.  How often do we find ourselves stuck or in ruts or unable to remember, let alone save ourselves?  Too many times.  And yet it is the Good Shepherd who promises this day that He will restore His sheep!  Many times, even at our best intentions and efforts to help one another, we are too often like hired hands.  In our efforts to help one another, we often do harmful things like grabbing a 250 pound sheep and pulling it over by the wool, and then thinking we have done our good deed, we leave them to their own devices, not recognizing their center of balance is so confused they roll right back over and into a position that leads to death.

     It is low hanging fruit, but think of those Christians who promise that finding Jesus will eliminate all of one’s problems.  Find Jesus and your addiction will be healed.  Find Jesus and your relationship issues will be swept away.  Find Jesus and your problems of privation will become immediate abundance.  But there are subtle ways we sometimes act like hired hands.  I know many Christians who claim they are pro-life, yet are better described as pro-birth.  Too many are in politics, but they get voted into office by people like you and me.  They constantly cut spending that helps those most marginalized in our society.  They constantly rail against the idea that the government should be in the business of providing food, clothing, medical treatment, and good education for those born who grow up to be toddlers and then children and then teens.  Oooh.  That caused some interesting expressions.  Too close to home?

     Let’s go closer and easier.  How many times do people in this congregation fight with me, with Hilary, and Nancy about us teaching the food insecure in our midst to be lazy, or worse, help them take advantage of us?  It was not too long after this work was established that volunteers began to learn that many of those whom we serve are the very definition of “not lazy.”  We serve a few school teachers and other Metro school employees because, you know, they get that incredibly high pay for being teachers and waste their money on classroom supplies.  For those of you visiting, that was my sarcasm voice and the snorts you heard came from our many educators in the parish.  How many people have we met who work two, three, or four part-time jobs and still cannot make ends meet?  How many people have we served who use us when there is a medical emergency in their family because they have no healthcare because, you know, those part time jobs offer no benefits.  How many documented immigrants do we serve because, when they were settled here by our government for their service to us in their home countries, their professional certifications were not accepted by us.  We have watched physics professors and accountants and other esteemed professionals work night shifts at WalMart local grocery stores to pay the bills as they work to get re-licensed and to learn our language.  How many of those whom we served fled their country because of civil unrest that made simply living in their home country dangerous, often because of our stated policies and, worse, because of our clandestine efforts to undermine their governments?  What would we do if we were in their shoes?  Let our kids be killed?

     Pick any issue used by politicians to divide us and the media to generate headlines and income.  Somehow it is controversial to think or to express that Jesus hates the humiliation and murder of civilians in the current Middle East conflict or in Ukraine.  God breathed a napes into every Palestinian, every Hebrew, every Ukrainian, and every Russian just like He did us; yet where are the hired hands who remember that?  Somehow it has become controversial for us to think that a living wage is important.  Somehow it has become controversial for us to be able to weigh work from home versus work in the office costs and benefits or other work life balance issues.  Heck, wearing masks in the middle of a pandemic that was killing people in our very congregation was a controversial issue for those in other flocks without the medical expertise and experience we have in our own flock.  

     I wish I had a video camera set up at the altar to capture facial expressions and body language during this sermon.  I get it.  Like those cast sheep, our equilibrium is off.  We have mistaken party platforms for the voice of our Good Shepherd.  We have mistaken capitalism for the economy of our Good Shepherd.  And such loss of equilibrium, such forgetting the voice of our Good Shepherd, has disastrous consequences for us and for our efforts to glorify Him in our lives.  When we follow other voices, we are led from ourselves, we dishonor Him and we lose ourselves.  Think of how the world mocks us for “thoughts and prayers.”  Think of how the world thinks Jesus Christ is the new n-word.  Think of how some of still struggle as adults from the effects of the voices of hired hands in our faith lives today.  Think of whatever other example the Good Shepherd’s voice is placing before you this morning.

     The glorious news of the Good Shepherd’s teaching today is that He knows you.  He knows the wonderful intention of God with which you and I and everyone in the world were created.  He knows the awe inspiring intention for which God fashioned you and me and everyone in the world in the womb.  And He came to make it possible for you and for me and for everyone we encounter in the world around us to live intimately with the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit!  Best of all, He knew, even as we joined the crowds and mocked Him for that death, that we were like cast sheep, that our balance had been so thrown off, we had no idea what we were doing.  And still he hung there.  Still He gave up His life for us, that we might have the possibility of the abundant life for which the Father created all of us.  And He showed His love for us when He asked His Father to forgive us because we did not know what we were doing.  

     But this helping cast sheep is ongoing.  How many times would you and I, as hired hands, continue to try and right that sheep that insists on turning over?  How many times might we start to have less care and concern for that sheep the more times we would restore it?  Yet how many times have each of us been restored by Him?  How many times have we sinned and been endangered of drifting from ourselves and from God only to have Him seek us, tend us, and bring us back to the flock?  How many times have we experienced the tender care of the Good Shepherd and been placed back on the path of righteousness for His Name’s sake, just as the psalmist proclaims today?  Reminded of those times and His teaching, and soon to be fed by His Body and Blood, how well are we prepared to walk those shadowy paths through which He leads us!

In His Peace and Tender Care,
Brian+

On Setting Tables in the Midst of our Enemies -- The Life and Testimony of Jean

      On behalf of Stuart and the rest of the family, and all of us at Advent, thank you for joining us today as we remember the life and faith of Jean and of God’s promises to her.  Before I get started on the homily, though, I need to remind us all of a great gift—consider it a commercial of sorts.  Unsurprising to many of us, Jean planned every bit of her funeral service.  The hardest part of planning this service was Stuart having to flip through a folder of notes and other documents to find her planned service.  To put it bluntly, this is Jean’s last testimony to all of us.  She picked the music; she picked the readings; she picked the volunteers; you name it, she picked everything.  If you feel you hear something in her voice, as you gather with us today to remember her impact on you, there is a good reason you do.  This is what she wanted. 

     I even have to chuckle a bit at a memory of Jean and this planned service.  Some years ago, after the death of another beloved Adventer, Jean took my hand in both of her hands and firmly, but smiling, said that I had to do her funeral.  I reminded her that such things were out of our control, but she would not hear it.  She just patted my hand and reiterated what she wanted.  So, when I say she got everything she wanted in this service, I mean she got everything she planned for! 

     And before we go any further, I just want to point out to Stuart his error.  As we gathered last week for him to grab her service plans, Stuart remarked that there would not be many people in attendance.  Too many of her friends, and their friends, he said, had already died.  Stuart, look around.  I knew how important she was to your neighbors and to members of this church, and I underestimated the number of people who would choose to come to the service.  In those dark days ahead, as you deal with the grief of losing your sweetheart, I hope you remember this army of those who loved her and love you and would gladly do what they can to minister to you and your family. 

     Part of the reason I demurred about preaching the homily at her funeral, of course, is the challenge of preaching a sermon that honors the faith and life of a woman like Jean.  As we continued our discussions about this over some years, I shared with her my opinion that the life of the deceased made funeral sermons and homilies good or bad.  My job, like it or not, is to remind us of Jean’s faith in God’s promises and how she lived her life confident in God’s redemptive power.  In her case, nothing I could say would ever catch peoples’ attention in the way her life and manner had.  Good, I see nods.  In some sense, a homily for Jean is easy because she did all the hard work.  I’m just putting the bow on it. 

     Those of you who like to read the Scripture for funerals can turn to Psalm 23.  In particular, I was drawn to one aspect of Psalm 23 that most of us gathered today know but forget in the midst of this famous psalm.  Psalm 23 might be the best known piece of Scripture in the West, meaning Europe and America.  Adventers will tell you, sometimes under their breath, that part of my job the last 9 years has been to remind them that Psalm 23 comes right after Psalm 22.  The proximity of the two psalms were important to God when He caused the Scriptures to be gathered and organized by His people. 

     Many of us gathered here have been to church during Holy Week and Easter, but not all of us have.  I mention that because Psalm 22 is famously recorded as among Jesus’ last words as He gives up His life on the Cross.  The first words of Psalm 22 are “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”  Those who do not pay close attention to the psalms may think Jesus’ cry from the Cross was a cry of desperation or a feeling of abandonment.  True, the psalm starts out that way.  But we need to remember the importance of the psalms in worship of God.  Most of the psalms, we believe, were sung in worship.  Many were likely associated with particular holy days or great feasts.  Just as many of us gathered for her funeral know the song, Lift High the Cross, those who watched Jesus die on the Cross knew the words and tune of Psalm 22.  What would have stood out to them was the fact that Jesus was quoting a song of re-orientation even as He was clearly dying, clearly subject to the authority of Pilate and of Rome. 

     If you are not intimately familiar with the psalm, the psalm begins with those famous words and continues with feelings of abandonment.  The psalmist or singer wonders aloud whether God knows of his or her suffering, whether God cares about the suffering, and even, we might say, whether God can do anything about the suffering.  As the psalm continues, though, the one saying the psalm reminds himself or herself of God’s redeeming acts in the life of the individual and of the lives of God’s people.  More amazingly, the psalm ends with the vow to proclaim the saving works of God to the great congregation of His people. 

     Those standing at the foot of the Cross would have been utterly confused at Jesus’ use of this psalm with His dying breaths.  How can a dead man proclaim the saving works of God?  It makes no sense.  Then, the psalms immediately move into our psalm today.  For those of us gathered here today, the words equally make no sense, absent the truth of the Resurrection.  Why would Jean make this one of the verses to be read after her death, unless she truly believed the testimonies of our Lord’s Resurrection and the resulting promises? 

     Those of us who knew Jean knew her grounding in reality.  She knew there was suffering in the world around her.  She knew that death was the enemy over which none of us would ever be able to conquer.  Yet she selected this psalm to remind each of us of God’s promises. 

     For my part, I was drawn particularly to the fifth verse as I prayed over a homily for Jean’s funeral.  You might think it a weird place to focus, but it described Jean’s life.  As some of you shared with me over in the parish hall during the visitation, you have expressed a similar focus.  Jean was the kind word or shoulder to cry on during particular troubles.  Jean was the encouraging voice for some who saw no way out of the shadows.  Jean was the calming presence in the face of anxieties.  Good, I see lots of nods. 

     We do not think of fears and anxieties and failures as enemies, but often they are the tools of God’s enemy.  They are the events and imaginations in our lives which God’s enemy uses to convince us we are beneath God’s notice, unworthy of God’s love.  And Jean took it upon herself, or, I would claim, God gave her eyes to see and ears to hear where her family, where her friends, where her neighbors, where her co-workers, where those with whom she was engaged in life were beset by enemies.  Some of us were beset by economic privations; some of us were beset by relational issues; some of us were beset by health issues; some of us were simply beset by isolation.  And it was in that work that Jean excelled. 

     I suppose, to use modern analogies, I would describe Jean as a caterer or hostess for God’s table, the table that God promises to prepare in the midst of our enemies, that we might remember His promises and know the security and power of His love and redemptive grace.  In the midst of that work, Jean worked hard to help us know we were loved, help us know we were valued, both by her but more importantly by God.  That so many of us showed up today is testimony of her work, and of God’s calling and empowering of her to do the work He gave her to do.  Because we knew her, because we experienced her kind words or words of encouragement or a needed hug or a piece of advice, none of us gathered here today are particularly surprised to see this psalm as her chosen psalm for her funeral.  Like our Lord, she knew the suffering of the world all too well; but she patterned her life after her Lord’s, trusting that His Father, her Father, would keep His promises to her, and that she will dwell in His house forever and sing of His praises to the great congregation, even though to those outside these walls, such a claim, such a faith, may seem misplaced. 

     For Stuart and the family, of course, the loss is far more acute.  They have lost a wife, a mother, a grandma, a loving woman who knew the proper use of a rod and a staff.  But for a short time, you and I, all of us who have gathered here today to pay our respects and to offer stories of our love and appreciation for Jean’s work and ministry among us, have been drawn into her work, intentionally by her, that her most treasured family is reminded of the same promises by God.  You and I are the caterers or hosts or hostess for the table that God is preparing for them in this midst of this terrible shadow of her death.  But, like Jean, we are reminded that God’s promises to all those who call Him Lord will one glorious Day be fulfilled.  That when He returns to finish the re-Creation He began that Easter Sunday two thousand years ago, He will call all His sons and daughters to Him, and that, like her, we will dwell with Him in His house for ever! 

 

In His Peace and His Promises! 

Brian+