May 3, 2009: Easter IV

The Rev. Connie Reinhardt

How many of us are familiar with the 23rd psalm?

Can anybody say it by heart? Or could recite it if the people around you were saying it? (In the old King James version, of course!)

So here's a question for us: why this particular psalm? Why do we know this one? There are a hundred and fifty psalms, after all. What is it about this one that makes it special?

Maybe because it's short?

Maybe because it's got one central image, of shepherd?

Is there something about this image of shepherd that is particularly compelling?

Let's think about this: Who is this psalm about?

Who would Jesus have prayed this psalm about?

This psalm was written long before Jesus ever existed.

This psalm is about the community's experience of God.

What if we prayed this psalm reflecting on Jesus' experience of God?

God offers Jesus green pastures, still waters - rest and comfort and what is needed to sustain life, in other words.

God revives Jesus' soul.

(Interesting thing about this verse: The Hebrew word doesn't actually mean soul - it means, literally, life breath. One translation I read of this verse says, God brings me back - the image being one who has stopped breathing and is revived, brought back to life. So God brings Jesus back to life.

God guides Jesus along right pathways.

Jesus doesn't have to fear darkness or death, because God is with him.

All of God's abundance is offered to Jesus.

God's goodness, God's loving-kindness, God's mercy follows Jesus.

So. Reflecting on this familiar psalm from Jesus' perspective - does it highlight anything for us? Does it shift our understanding at all?

The central image of this psalm, of God as shepherd, is one that one Jesus knew and would have used himself about God. Jesus may have identified with this central image of God as shepherd long before anyone started thinking about Jesus as shepherd. We should remember that it starts with God. The psalm was always about God first.

In this psalm, it's striking how many action verbs are found in those six verses: God leads us and revives us, guides us and takes away our fear, comforts us and feeds us, anoints us and shares abundance with us. These are God's actions, God's saving actions. We know God's love through actions, particularly through God's sending Jesus to be with us. So we understand that Jesus does all of these things too: Jesus leads us; Jesus revives us; Jesus guides us and takes away our fear; Jesus shares God's abundance with us. So for many Christians, when we hear those words 'the Lord is my shepherd' we do think of Jesus, Jesus as shepherd.

Then in the gospel this image is expanded, built on: the shepherd - Jesus - lays down his life for the sheep, gathers all of the sheep together, from different folds. The shepherd that started out as God now becomes Jesus, for us, who continues God's saving actions that we saw in the psalm. In the gospel Jesus expands this image and speaks about the good shepherd. This word that is translated 'good' has a whole nuance of meaning that we miss. It's way beyond simply 'good'. It means model, ideal. It means true and faithful; it means worthy of praise. For Jesus, God is the shepherd, true and faithful and praiseworthy. For the early Christian community, Jesus is the good shepherd. Jesus is the model; is faithful; is worthy of our praise. I am the good shepherd, Jesus says. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Jesus scholar Marcus Borg suggests that the 'I am' statements Jesus makes in John's gospel - I am the light of the world, I am the bread of life, I am the good shepherd - may not have been made by Jesus himself. They may be more suggestive of how the early Christian community experienced Jesus - they understood Jesus to be the light of the world. They knew Jesus as the bread of life. They experienced Jesus as the good shepherd. This language then, is language of their faith in and commitment to Jesus Christ, because they had personal and intimate experience with Jesus as one who died - laid down his life - and one who was raised - took it up again. They were personally and intimately familiar with Jesus as the one who shared risen life with them, offered them new life.

They had personal and intimate experience with Jesus as the one who cared for the sheep, who didn't run away and leave the sheep without any protection. They experienced all of God's love in Jesus, and this image of good shepherd was an important part of that experience.

For us, this image can have less resonance - not the reality of who Jesus is for us, but the image of shepherd. We are far from that agrarian culture that made sheep and shepherds a familiar and compelling image to the gospel's original audience. We have to do more translation than Jesus' early followers to 'get' the power of this image.

But there are other things we may be able to get out of it. We may get that we sometimes feel that we have only the care of a hired hand. We may long for the security and protection of a shepherd who is willing to lay down his life for us. Members of our communities - our parishes of St. James and St. George's - may feel like this at this particular moment. Who is taking care of us, we may ask. Who is protecting us? Where is the good shepherd who would lay down his life for us? We may resonate with these questions. They may feel very real to us at this moment.

But Jesus promised not to leave us comfortless. He promised that the good shepherd would be there, present with the sheep. How, in what is a confusing and difficult time for some of us, do we experience that presence?

Part of the answer may be that we experience Jesus Christ in our communities. As part of the merger exploration process, you may have had the opportunity to fill out a survey at the end of March. It asked questions about a variety of things, including this one: what are the special qualities that your parish brings to this process? Here are some of the words that came from your answers to this question:

welcoming

caring

creative

resilient

committed

compassionate

accepting

hardworking

outspoken

strong

thoughtful

There's a card in your pew that highlights these words. Why don't you pull that out, and hear these qualities of our communities again:

Welcoming and caring. Creative and resilient. Committed; compassionate; accepting.

Hardworking. Outspoken. Strong. Thoughtful

This is a pretty significant list. They are remarkable qualities, powerful gifts of our two communities. And they go beyond us. They are, indeed, gifts from God. These characteristics, these strengths of our communities - this is how we know that Christ the good shepherd is present with us. Because we have such rich gifts that we share with each other.

Perhaps the way forward in this time, when we have to live in some ambiguity, which is not always easy, may be to focus on our strengths, these gifts.

It may be to focus on God, the one who leads us and revives us, who guides us and takes away our fear, who comforts us and feeds us, who anoints us and shares abundance with us.

God is here. Christ is present. The qualities of our communities on that card you have in your hand are evidence of this truth. Our job then may be to live into the many gifts of our communities. Amen.