Ezekiel 34:11-16
John 10:11-18

 

This Sunday could be called the "Good Shepherd Sunday." All the scripture lessons for this morning are about shepherds. We have chosen the music in this service with the same theme. It is some indication of how important the image of the Good Shepherd is for our faith.

I want to take this opportunity to share an anecdote Neil Morgan tells about Ted Geisel, in his book about Geisel. It seems that when Geisel was a student, he and his roommate in college wanted to open up a private detective firm. They were going to call it, "Surely, Goodness and Mercy," and their slogan would be, "We shall follow you all the days of your life." I have been waiting a year to tell that story. This was the Sunday.

You run into the image of the Good Shepherd everywhere. You heard it in three passages today. First used by a prophet, Ezekiel, then by a psalmist, and finally by the evangelist, John. There is a certain similarity between the way they use the shepherd image, but there are also differences. I want us to look at both the similarities and the differences to see what this image means for us in our daily lives. We look first to the prophet, Ezekiel.

In Ezekiel the leaders of the nation are called "shepherds." The passage reveals that God is tired of the shepherds not leading the people, but instead fleecing the people. Ezekiel says God cries out against the corruption in leadership. It is a cry that God makes against corruption in leadership in any age, in any nation, especially in national leadership.

I hope the leaders in Washington went to church this Sunday, to one of the first-rate churches. The first-rate churches are those that follow the lectionary, which means they read the lessons as they come and not as they please. If they follow the lectionary in Washington, and they also have a creative pastor, then they may have read this passage from Ezekiel this morning where God says, one of these days I am going to get rid of the leaders who use their position for private gain and personal reward, and lead the people myself. "I, myself," he says in Ezekiel, "will come and be the shepherd of my people."

In ancient Israel the kings were called the shepherds, probably because King David was a shepherd boy, and he was called the "Shepherd King." So all the kings after King David, the greatest king of all, were called shepherds.

Being a shepherd was more than a title. It was a job description. Shepherds are supposed to care for the people. Shepherds are supposed to be concerned about the needs of the people, especially the needs of the poor and those who have to have some help in order to get through this life.

Instead of spending all of their time raising money to keep themselves in office, shepherds are supposed to make it possible for other people to earn enough money to live with dignity in this life. Instead of dividing themselves along party lines, spending their time and our money trying to undermine one another, a shepherd leader sees that there are divisions, deep divisions, in the nation and seeks to unite the people as one people. Instead of listening only to the powerful, the shepherd leader has a responsibility to be the voice for the weak and the powerless.

That is what this message about shepherds in Ezekiel is all about. To be placed in leadership means you are supposed to forget yourself and to think of those who have been placed in your care, over whom you have a shepherding responsibility. To be given power means that you are supposed to use your power to do some good in this life. To be given status and influence means that you use those things to lift up those who don't have them.

The passage that we read for this morning from Ezekiel was from the 11th verse. We didn't have time to read the whole chapter, but I want you to listen to how the 34th chapter of Ezekiel begins.

The word of the Lord came to me: "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Thus says the Lord: Ho, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep?...The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the crippled you have not bound up...the lost you have not brought back."

That is how the Old Testament prophets use the image of the shepherd. Shepherds, they say, are supposed to be leaders, and leaders are supposed to care for the flock. Because they do not do it, God says, one of these days I, myself, will come and be the leader, the shepherd of my people.

Now turn to the New Testament lesson, the Gospel of John. Actually the Ezekiel passage wasn't in the lectionary for this Sunday, but it should have been. That is why I put it there, because that is where Jesus got this idea about being the Good Shepherd. When Jesus says, "I am the Good Shepherd," what he is saying is, I am the one that Ezekiel prophesied would someday come and lead the people. God says in Ezekiel, one of these days I will come and I will be the shepherd of the people. I will join with them. I will be one of them. I will live with them. I will lead them, the way a shepherd is supposed to lead. Jesus says, "I am that Good Shepherd."

With the precognition that is so typical of Jesus in the Gospel of John, he says, "The Shepherd will lay down his life for the sheep." That is a prediction of the crucifixion. What it means is that when God came to this world to be the shepherd, we rejected God. "I am the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep." God so loved the world that he came to be with us. God so loved us that like a shepherd he came to find the lost. God came to save us, but we rejected God. Rather than run, as the hirelings do when they see the wolves, the Good Shepherd instead stays with the sheep and is willing to die for the sheep.

John wants to make this very clear. God chose to come to us out of love.

I lay down my life of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.

Ezekiel's revelation about God was revolutionary. Ezekiel said God is going to leave heaven and come to be with his people. Jesus' revelation is even more radical. He showed us that God loves us so much that the shepherd became the sacrificial lamb.

The third image of the shepherd is in the 23rd Psalm. It is the most famous of all the shepherd images. The choir sang one version of the 23rd Psalm. Richard, in his solo this morning, sang another one. Many of us raised in the Church memorized it in Sunday School. We all know it.

The first two shepherd images contained radical revelations about God. The 23rd Psalm is the model of how we are to live if we really believe God is our shepherd. It says that life is a journey, and that along the way there will be dangers and risks, but at the end there will be a wonderful treasure waiting for us. It is the same message that is present in the tales of all cultures all around the world, where an ordinary person is called upon to undertake some formidable task: to climb a mountain, to go through the desert in an exodus, in the case of the Jewish nation, to face dragons, to face demons, hardship. At the end there is a great treasure, or a kingdom, or wisdom, something you will never possess unless you take the journey. The people in all these tales who take the journey, including the 23rd Psalm, have confidence that in spite of all they will face, they will be all right. It will be good. They don't know how, but somehow it is going to be good.

This past week we saw Tiger Woods win the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. He is twenty-one years old. My, oh my! He is like David, facing all those giants, and defeating all of them. I tell you, we are not likely to see anything like that again, in my lifetime, anyway.

What we heard often from the analysts was their amazement that a twenty-one year old, just a boy really, would have that much confidence. When asked about it, Woods himself said the secret was concentration. He said he was able to shut out the crowds, the television cameras, all the pressure that was upon him, and each day focus on what he had to do that day. Each hole he focused on what he had to do at that hole; each green what he had to do there. Concentration, that was the secret.

It is the secret of any successful endeavor. Artists, actors, athletes, anybody, will tell you the same thing. The secret of a great performance is the ability to focus, to concentrate.

In sports the ultimate concentration is called "entering the zone." The zone is defined as a perfect harmony between the self and the context, the environment in which the performance has to be made. It is as if everything is together.

I have never been there. But Pel‚, the great Brazilian soccer player, has. He says it is like a strange peace, or calm. He called it a euphoria. He said, "When it comes, I feel like I can run all day without tiring. I can run right through the defensive zone of the other team without being touched. I feel like I can play without ever being hurt." John Brodie, the old quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers said, "There are moments in every game when time seems to slow down, as if everyone were moving in slow motion and I have all the time in the world to watch my receivers make their patterns." Ted Williams says that sometimes in batting he could actually see the seams on the ball as it comes hurling towards him at 90 miles an hour.

But the most amazing testimony of "entering the zone" is from a gymnast named Carol Johnson who performs on the balance beam. It is the most insecure environment I could ever imagine for doing cartwheels and backflips. She said, "There are times when the balance beam seems to get wider and wider, and I have no fear of falling at all."

That is called "entering the zone," and it is remarkably like what the 23rd Psalm is talking about. Think of "entering the zone."

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;
he makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff,
they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil,
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

It is like the zone. The secret of success in any difficult situation, whether it be in performance, or just going through those terrible times we all have to face, the secret is concentration, focus, and the secret of concentration is confidence in the environment, that it is friendly and not hostile. The ultimate confidence is to feel the harmony between yourself and the God who created the environment.

The most devastating thing that can happen to anybody when you are called to do these things is to start thinking about what you are called to do. That is why basketball coaches call "time" when the opposition team, in the final seconds, has a free throw. If they make it, they win the game. So he calls "time" so that that player can "think about it." Yogi Berra put it perfectly, "How can I bat and think at the same time." The most disastrous thing that you could ever do is to start thinking, "How am I doing?" Or even worse, "What do other people think about what I am doing?"

It is true of preaching, too. I am right at home here, in this pulpit. This is my pulpit. I am very comfortable here. In fact, they even remodeled this pulpit for me so that I would feel more comfortable in it. They waited about five years, though, before they decided to do that. They got around to it eventually.

When I preach or speak someplace else, I really am not very comfortable. First of all the pulpit is usually down around my knees. The people out there are all strangers to me. They look like they have been kept after school. Then their heads begin to nod. I don't know what that means. When you nod your heads I know what it means. I know you are agreeing with me. I don't know what it means in strange places.

Feeling at home is the same thing as harmony between the self and the environment. The psalmist is saying that because God is with us, we can feel at home anywhere, wherever we go, whatever it is that we are called to do, and in whatever environment we must do it.

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

What an amazing affirmation about life. It says there is no experience that you can enter where God is not there with you. There is no condition in your life, no emotional crisis, no psychological despair, no desert of sorrow or regret that you must pass through where you will be alone.

All the pilgrim psalms say the same thing. The 139th Psalm says,

If I ascend to heaven, thou art there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there thy hand shall lead me,
and thy right hand shall hold me.

In those days to go to those places was a frightful thing. He is marking the extremities of life where the demons and evil powers that would ruin our lives dwelt. We, too, know those boundary situations where no one goes willingly. But sometime all of us will be cast to that place where we will fear for our life, or our sanity. Even there, God is our shepherd, so people of faith can enter those times with courage and with grace, knowing that the Lord is our shepherd.

There is a wonderful story about Charles Laughton who was at a dinner party.1 After the dinner they gathered in the living room. The host called upon him to recite the 23rd Psalm. He said he would. I remember years ago I heard him in a concert read biblical passages. It was wonderful, such a beautiful voice. His timing and intonation were just perfect.

He recited the 23rd Psalm that night. Then they went around the room and others were invited to offer something. There was an old woman sitting in the corner. She happened to be the aunt of the host and was staying with him. She was asked if she would recite something. She was nearly deaf so she hadn't heard what had gone before. She stood up and started to recite the 23rd Psalm. People at first were embarrassed. It was an awkward situation to have her recite the same psalm as the great actor Charles Laughton. Before she finished, people were caught up in her recitation. Some began to weep. It was a tour de force.

Later somebody asked Mr. Laughton why her reading was so moving when she didn't have any of the skills that he had as an actor. He said, "I know the psalm. She knows the shepherd."

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

I am the good shepherd;
I know my own and my own know me.

1 Thanks to Phil Amerson