St Paul’s United Church Sunday, May 7, 2006

Shepherds and Sheepdogs and Sheep – Rev. David Mundy

Psalm 23 John 10:11-18

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Every once in a while I want to start a sermon with the words “stop me if you have heard this story before!” The trouble is that you might actually do it, then where would I be? If need be this morning, pretend that this is the first occasion. And if you need a lesson on acting as though you have never heard it before, my wife Ruth might be of some assistance.

About a decade ago good friends – Bill and Ellen – decided to sell their business and their home to move to the country. He had grown up on a farm and his dream was to return to the land and raise sheep. They bought a beautiful property in the “boonies” north of Kingston and soon they had sheep and few cows and horses and chickens.

One day my friend visited a neighbour whose bedraggled dog was tied to the side of the house. The word was that this man beat his dog because he wasn’t any good for hunting. It didn’t matter that the poor dog was a border collie, bred for herding not hunting. So every time the dog “got it wrong” he was savaged by his brutal owner.

My friend Bill took pity and suggested that he could take the dog off his neighbour’s hands for a small fee, and soon the deal was struck. For the first couple of days the dog was very skittish and lifeless and they wondered if the beatings had taken too great a toll. Then he realized he had gone to border collie heaven, otherwise known as a barnyard full of critters.

He started off small, herding the chickens. Then he went huge, nipping at the hocks of the Belgian workhorses. They didn’t appreciate this and would launch a huge hoof in his direction but he always managed to avoid really getting sent to heaven.

Then he became aware that out in the fields there were sheep whom the human was glad to have moved into the barnyard. It seemed to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, except for one small detail. It was so much fun for the dog to bring all the sheep in from the pasture that once he got them there he turned around and chased them all back out so he could start again.

My friend began the challenging process of teaching his new business partner when it was appropriate to herd the flock and when it wasn’t. For a while Bill, the good shepherd, wondered whether it was a lost cause, but eventually the dog learned what it meant to be a good sheep dog and how to respond to the master’s voice.

This is Good Shepherd Sunday. Every year around this time there is a Sunday when the bible readings are about shepherds and sheep. There are hundreds to choose from, although I don’t think that there is one which mentions a sheepdog.

Every Good Shepherd Sunday we hear the same psalm, number twenty-three in the psalter and a favorite of both Christians and Jews. The well-known Jewish author, Rabbi Harold Kushner, has written a fine book on these six verses of scripture called The Lord is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the 23^rd Psalm. In it he answers his own question:

Why do we love this psalm so much, more than any of the other 149 psalms in the Bible?

In just a few lines, it conveys the distilled wisdom of generations, offering us a way of seeing the world that renders it less frightening, teaching us to deal with the loss of people we love and with conflict¼It shows us how to recognize the presence of God at times and in places where we might think God was absent¼

Psalm 23 does give us the comfort of God’s presence in our lives as the shepherd but it also calls us to courage. In most bibles there is a heading A Psalm of David. You may recall that David was a shepherd who became first of all a warrior, then a king. In the story of David and Goliath the young recruit comes up against the formidable champion of the enemy Philistines. David is told by King Saul that he doesn’t stand a chance against this opponent but David thinks it through. He points out that when he was tending his father’s flocks he rescued lambs from the mouths of bears and lions, so why should he be daunted by a big guy in armour. This is what we find in 1 Samuel, chapter 17 “Let no one’s heart fail . . . The Lord who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will save me.”

We also heard this morning that Jesus is a Good Shepherd – that he identified himself that way. He isn’t just a hired hand who does the job because he or she has too, but runs away at the first sign of danger. Jesus is the shepherd who protects the sheep and will even lay down his life for the flock. There are many paintings of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, some of them very sentimental and not at all reflective of the challenges and dangers which went with the job

It goes almost without saying that the people who listened to Jesus would have known first hand what the life of the shepherd was all about, and they would have understood that he was drawing on imagery which was deeply rooted in their faith tradition. At the same time they may have had an inkling that he was taking them some place that they hadn’t been before, a story they wouldn’t truly comprehend until after his death and resurrection.

God is our shepherd and Jesus is our shepherd and they love and protect us. Isn’t that wonderful! But honestly what are we supposed to do with these images of shepherds and sheepdogs in the twenty first century? There just aren’t many shepherds around these days although the ones we do know are resourceful, smart and good looking too! There have been some attempts to modernize the image of sheep – they are actually putting advertising on them in some places – but there is an old-fashioned feel to sheep and shepherds.

You probably already know that the term pastor means shepherd, so clergy are meant to be spiritual shepherds. Actually I think we are more like the sheepdogs, inclined to happily run around a lot until we listen for the master’s direction. We do have a role of comfort and support for folk in our “flocks,” in the happy times, but especially in the uncertain and dark times.

Not long ago I visited the hospital after a call informing me that one of our members, a man in his nineties had suffered a heart attack. I found him in the critical care unit, but he is a tough old soul and when I got there he was sitting up in his bed. The doctor had not given him good news. The damage was serious and he was well aware that at his age he was living on borrowed time. We talked about what that might mean, and it was all rather sobering. As I sat there, I wondered if I should ask him about his beloved vegetable garden. After all, this was a life and death moment. I did inquire and immediately he lit up. Yes, he had already planted radishes and peas and onions and he figured they would be up soon. At the end of our visit I took his hand and said a prayer. As I walked out to my car it occurred to me that it had been a privilege to be with this person as his pastor, even though we were in “the valley of the shadow of death” and that I had felt the uplift of his simple optimism in the face of great danger.

Of course being the comforting sheepdog who sits in the green pastures and watches over the grazing flock or even trots alongside in the dark valleys is the meaningful part of ministry, even though is can be difficult at times.

What is more challenging is trying to listen for the direction of the Good Shepherd toward new and hopefully greener pastures. Would you say it’s true that most flocks want to be surrounded by what is familiar, whether they are sheep or human beings? To leave what seems like the “safe bet,” what we know well and are comfortable with, in order to go where God wants us to go is not necessarily easy. After all, there are no guarantees that there won’t be any perils along the way. We aren’t always sure what form our lions and bears and wolves will take.

Yet we find the courage we need to move steadily onward. Complacency is not an option for us. “Remember the good old days”is not good enough. “We have never done it that way before”is not good enough! “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is not good enough!

So we learn the new music of our faith even though we like the good old hymns. We address difficult subjects even though we fear that they may divide us. We try new things, knowing that some will succeed and some won’t. We realize that our community is growing and changing and that we are called to be evangelists in the best sense of that word.

That’s what it means to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd. Here is the really good news. I am not actually a dog! You are not really sheep! Even though these metaphors can be deeply meaningful for us, we are human beings who are able to work together. I don’t have to literally nip at your heels. You have good minds and wonderful gifts and skills. It is my role to provide what we can hope will be prayerful leadership directed by Christ, but I can only do that by drawing on your wisdom and with your cooperation. Together we will support one another and do what we need to do to be a community of comfort, commitment and courage. Together we say, as David said long ago“let no one’s heart fail!”

To finish this morning, why don’t we repeat the 23^rd Psalm in the form we probably know best which is the King James Version. As we say this as a community, we can feel it’s comfort. We can also hear it’s call to commitment and courage in whatever ways the Good Shepherd directs us.

1The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

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