Abundant Love for Real Sheep

Today’s affectionately named Good Shepherd Sunday. Here in the city, it’s hard to get the whole shepherd thing. But where I’m from, just down the road you could see the sheep in fields-they start out cute lambs, but by the time they’re sheared, they’re kind of a mess. We might think of sheep as looking like THIS:

but in reality, it’s more like this:

 

Sheep take a lot of work, keeping them in the right place, cutting off all that wool. It takes dogs, fences, sticks, and for shearing, you gotta sit on them, and hold their feet together to keep them there. It’s anything but a perfect and fluffy experience because real sheep aren’t perfect- they’re smelly, with muddy, matted wool, and hard to hold onto. One pastor tells the story of being a little girl helping her grandparents at shearing. Her job was to sit on the sheep, hold it down. But it starts to struggle. She jumps up and this top-heavy sheep wobbles away. As her grandparents are yelling, she throws up her hands and says, “But it WANTED to move” To which they said- “What do you think YOU’RE there for?”  Real sheep are imperfect and wired for struggle. Shepherding means responding to the real needs of the sheep, not the ones they think they want. The Lord is our shepherd.

Psalm 23 tells us this, and I think it's kind of a shame we often only say it in times of dying, when it is so much about life. The kind of life Jesus came to bring- abundant life. Jesus as the good shepherd comes not only to lay down his life. He tells us we are not perfect either. But in God’s eyes, we’re enough. David Lose says- Jesus doesn't die in order to make some kind of payment to God or to satisfy God's wrath or to pay the penalty for sin. Jesus, in John's Gospel, is the One who comes to make the invisible God visible and the unapproachable God real to real people. And to reveal that God loves us and whole world, no matter what. To tell us we are already beloved. We are enough. Worthy in God’s eyes of receiving God’s abundance. The Lord is my shepherd. So I lack nothing.  That’s all there is to say, right?  

Do you really feel that abundance?

I think if we did, we wouldn’t struggle so much. I think the overflowing amount of slogans, infomercials and books about how to "have it all" says alot. That many of us feel incomplete, that it's not enough. This whole abundance thing is hard to believe. Brene Brown suggests that we struggle to believe in God’s abundant love for us, perhaps because to accept this abundance, we’d have to first acknowledge our vulnerability. There is a big difference between perfect and enough.

Today we sang the kids’ song “I just wanna be a sheep”- it’s cute and upbeat, but if we sang what we really think, it might sound more like this: “I just wanna be a creature that is utterly dependent upon someone more powerful than me to care for me because most days I don’t have a clue.” We can spend so much of ourselves struggling to overcome and get enough of whatever it is we think we need. But it’s never enough. So keep trying and end up trapped like that sheep in the mud, in a pattern of living that doesn’t give us abundance or life. And leaves us feeling alone. We want to be THIS sheep,



deep down we know we are THAT sheep.  





In fact we are a whole flock of THAT.

Instinct says, we can’t let that show.
But then we never really know if others love us or who we’re pretending to be. But we fear that by revealing ourselves and others might reject us, or run away.  So we keep running away, chasing ideas, caught in the mire of blaming others, or denial. Yeah,…we’re THOSE sheep. Yet, to gain what we most deeply want, we need to be vulnerable to this deepest fear.

To even begin to be that vulnerable we need lean into realizing that our fears are met by… our shepherd- The Lord is our shepherd. So walk with me in the good news! Let’s journey into God’s abundance here and now- that the psalmist speaks of, abundant life Jesus offers.  Words that declare God knows we are THAT SHEEP but we are worthy. And God provides- even though we’re not sure it’s right. Provides lots of abundance we might overlook.

God tells us to lie down- gives us rest. Do we take it? Or are we too busy scampering off to things we think we need to do, or expect us to do, so we can feel good? Can we accept God’s rest? Some of us need more rest than we used to. God wants us to rest, be cared for and be well. The Lord is our shepherd- we don’t have to self-shepherd.  

We’re taken to green pastures- places where we can eat good things, not just scrappy stuff. God wants us to eat well. Can we be fed? Or do we run off to things that cannot feed us but that we think we want?

We’re led to still water- We’re often drawn to places where the waters are raging, caught in places we don’t want to be. The Lord wants to lead us back to places that are peaceful and bring life. Where we can relax and be our real selves. The Lord wants to shepherd us away from things that take our lives away. To lead us in the right paths to what we really need. This is God’s deepest desire. Sometimes this means holding us back when we’re trying to squirm away, and sometimes keeping us from being distracted by what someone else is doing we think we need to fix. To trust that the LORD is the shepherd- we’re not. So let God show the path.

There will be places of the darkest shadows but there God comforts our nerves, reassuring us we can keep going because the Lord is with us. Ready to beat back things that hurt us, ready to nudge, push, even prod us to where we should go.

To do all that for even one of us, God works really hard! But the Lord is my shepherd, and yours and yours. The Lord is our shepherd, and labors to comfort and to give all of us this abundance. Even when we choose the fast food of life rather than sitting with the Lord at this feast. Even though we tend to take off and have to be brought back, over and over again, God keeps laboring, cleaning us up, restoring, blessing. And it’s all done because God loves the real us. With the deepest love that does more than follow.

Psalm 23 is often translated as saying goodness and mercy will follow us. But God’s love PURSUES us. While we chase so many things, God is chasing US- this is why Christ came, and laid it all on the line. Pursuing us even though we are THAT sheep. Because while we are “imperfect and wired for struggle,” in God’s eyes we are worthy of love and belonging already for all our days. We can’t ask for more than that, can we?

Our shepherd wants to help us accept who we really are- imperfect yet loved and guide us to be the flock who “gets” its identity. Dwelling together in Christ, supporting and embracing our vulnerability AND this abundant life.  Believing in a God of abundant love will open up believing in abundant life. So maybe we should start inviting people to come and be imperfect but worthy with us. Stop struggling- “Come as you are, eat, drink, relax, there’s plenty, it’s for you. Come see the God who loves like this.” It’s too long for a slogan but I am sure it's more than enough for a life.                                                                                                                               

Ref-lectionary musings- Shepherding

In Jeremiah 23:1, 2, 4, we hear about the deficiencies of earthly shepherds. “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says the LORD. “It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing,” says the LORD. “Shepherd” is a word with more than one meaning.
Shepherds are responsible for protecting and providing sustenance for their flocks, keeping peace within the flock, defending against attackers, searching for sheep that have gone astray, and rescuing those who are in danger. The shepherd, and by analogy the king, is expected to act for the well-being of the sheep. Though we can think about actual shepherds who tend livestock, more importantly, what does this mean for those of us who serve in shepherding roles in the Church? What is the sustenance we should be offering? What would the good shepherd look like in our humanity? Attentive to justice, protection, mercy, and righteousness, for sure, but I think there is more. I think it is about more than just physical sustenance and care, but about providing direction.
In Psalm 23: 2, 3, 4, we hear of the Lord as shepherd:
He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;
He restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me.

As I focused upon the teaching aspects of shepherding, I was drawn not only to the “leading” and “directing” but to seeing that it is because of this leading and teaching that the psalmist can sense that the Lord, not a physical person, is present. This presence sensed in one’s internal being, that whole sense of life, not just the physical, that is contemplated by the Hebrew word, nefesh. By being able to rely upon this teaching felt as presence within, the psalmist can overcome fears and can sense that caring and providing. The rod and staff that at times prods us forward, and at times draws us back to where we can have life.
So when I then contemplate Mark 6:54-56, and Jesus as shepherd, the imagery again is about more than physical care. “As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” Jesus has compassion- one of my favorite words in Greek, splagchnizomai. It can mean sympathy, mercy, and loving concern, but my favorite part about it is that it is deep inner core emotion, the same visceral gut emotion of the father for the lost son in the story of the Prodigal. In the depth of this sense of caring, it seems to be more than tending to people who are sick and need a physical cure because the compassion is connected to the first then we are told Jesus does, to care for the inner being, and a sense of being “with” that person. "They were like sheep without a shepherd." There are lots of modern metaphors for being lost, but I tend to think of the concept of being at wit’s end.” Feeling totally dependent and totally abandoned- that no one is with us. That feeling that no amount of Band-aids, hugs or things done “to” people can erase. That deep “in our gut” feeling. Maybe Jesus is matching our feelings, gut to gut. What does Jesus do? "…he began to teach them many things" (Mark 6:34). Deep down we need more than a quick fix, we need a roadmap. In The Wounded Storyteller, one person whose world has been turned upside down by chronic illness talks about a sense that the roadmap he had been using in life suddenly becoming worthless, and that sense of existential despair; of having no way to navigate the journey. POW’s who have survived imprisonment are often found to have survived emotionally by recalling Scripture, liturgy, and hymns as a way of sustenance. Persons with dementia continue to find comfort in the same. I remember one older gentleman whose sense of reality was robbed by dementia. In many ways much of his day was spent in some world only his mind saw, and he was often agitated. But when he was brought communion, he would suddenly spring into the words of the liturgy as he had his whole life. And for the length of that time, and whenever we would recite his favorite Scripture, he was not that lost sheep. So it would seem to make sense that the Gospel would be critical to giving that sense of direction in which one finds the presence of God, and the caring of God that allows one to rise above fear- the Lord as shepherd in what has been taught and internalized. When I think about the compassion Jesus felt which led him to teach, it made me ponder- that teaching is what we keep in our hearts and minds. Which is worse, facing some physical concern, or facing that sense of being lost with no one to turn to and no roadmap for the journey? My experiences in chaplaincy tell me it is the latter- our hearts and minds can be awfully empty places without the word/Word to cling to. I have to agree with Mark Vitalis Hoffman who encourages understanding “education as an expression of compassionate evangelism. Yes, there are all sorts of ways we can express compassion by attending to the pressing physical needs people have, but it is just as important for us to be educating them by clearly and faithfully speaking the Gospel.” I can’t say it any better than that.

God's Work, Our Hands

Here is an inspiring video created by Jacob Smith, husband of my friend and LTSG grad, Pastor Erin Boyer Smith. It is an entry in the video contest of the ELCA. If you are inspired too, please consider voting for it by going here:
http://bit.ly/Hfj4S.

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, New Castle, PA.
I give thanks for all of the hands of all of God's servants- together we can do some pretty awesome things as the graced and empowered.