May 8, 2022 – 4th Sunday of Easter

God knows you like a shepherd knows their sheep. We need to live out the truth of “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

Let us pray.  Holy and gracious God, we give you thanks for your presence in this time and place, and within each one of us. Help us now to open our minds, our hearts, our whole lives, to receive the gift of your living Word for us this day, and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

So as I mentioned at the beginning of today’s service, today is the Fourth Sunday of Easter, and it’s commonly referred to as “Good Shepherd Sunday.” The reason it is, is that in all three years of our Lectionary Table of Readings, the Gospel for the 4th Sunday of Easter is from John, Chapter 10, and all three sections of it refer to Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

It’s also Mother’s Day, and that’s a pretty significant day in all of our lives because even if, sadly, we didn’t experience a mother’s love in a way that we would have liked to, we can say that without this person, our mother, our lives would literally not exist. Now that may seem blatantly obvious but it is still a reality that we should not forget. Our mother is absolutely indispensable to who we are.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus, assuming the role of a shepherd, says these words, “My sheep hear my voice.  I know them and they follow me.” As some of you may know, Nancy and I just returned from two weeks in the United Kingdom – much of which was spent in the Scottish Borders. Now, in the Borders, if you move outside a town of village, everywhere you look there are fields of sheep. Clearly, from what we experienced, they must have gone through lambing in the last month or two because in all the flocks we saw, there was a lovely mixture of adult sheep and cute little lambs bounding around in the meadow. On one of our morning walks, I was walking fairly closely beside a field of sheep and I was listening, with interest, to their calls to one another. And I happened to hear one ewe, one female sheep, blurt out a brief, one-syllable call. It was so short it was almost like a kind of high-pitched grunt. And suddenly two lambs who were at least 30 feet away from her, stopped their playful tussling and bounded over to her, and began enjoying the breakfast mom was providing. I was amazed by how the lambs instantly knew their mother’s brief call and responded immediately to it. Clearly the lambs knew their mother’s voice.

Well this is how Jesus describes his relationship with his followers – including us! We struggle with this, I think, because on the one hand we’re conscious that we share this planet with billions of other people, and we’re also, perhaps not so conscious most of the time, about this intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. I think it’s something like we do in our human relationships, when we assume that, if we feel distant from someone – if we have kind of lost touch with them – then we assume that those people will feel likewise – that they will feel distant and out of touch with us. But that’s not true with Christ! Each of us are one of his sheep, regardless of whether we feel close to him or not.

And just as many of us who are parents know, you can’t mistake the sound of your own child’s voice can you? If you’re in a busy store, filled with other moms and dads, and if you hear your son or daughter calling “mom” or “dad”, you instantly know their voice, and that they are calling you. And so it is with Christ and you and me. So tuck that truth away and remind yourself of it continually – just whose child or ‘sheep” you are, and the one who knows you and recognizes your voice.

I also want to look at the 23rd Psalm, which we heard beautifully sung for us today, as our Psalm. When we say that opening verse, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” – what do we mean – what do you mean when you say, “The Lord is my Shepherd?” What comes to mind? I think often we’re tempted to reflect on images of, sort of, lowly shepherds – humble people – devoting themselves continually to looking after their flock. But that would probably not be what the author of Psalm 23 would have in mind when he wrote those words. The leaders of Israel, called and appointed by God, were regarded as shepherds of God’s people, of Israel, serving on behalf of the Great Shepherd, who is God. So to the writer of Psalm 23, the statement “The Lord is my Shepherd.”, is more like a creedal statement. It’s like us saying, “I believe in God, the Father, the Almighty.” We’re saying “the Lord is my provider – my protector”, and we’re also making a kind of political statement too. My boss at work is not my shepherd; nor is the mayor, or the premier, or the prime minister, or even the queen. The Lord is my shepherd. This is to whom I belong. And, of course, we need to live in that reality as well.

Now the first four verses of Psalm 23 elaborate on the theme of our relationship with God being like that of a faithful shepherd to their sheep. But the last two verses shift the metaphor to that of God as ‘gracious host.’ We read these words, “You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me.” – our enemies, our adversaries. “You have anointed my head with oil and my cup is running over.” The picture painted there is not a reference to God providing a kind of ‘bag lunch’ for you while you’re in the thick of problems with those who oppose you. This is a description that fits a banquet being put on in your honour. And the final verse describes the zeal with which God wants to be the host, in and for each one of us. We read, “Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Our version uses the verb ‘follow’ – as to how we will experience God’s good ness and mercy. But the original biblical language is more active than that. It carries with it a sense of being pursued – so pursued by God’s goodness and mercy – I think something like a mother that might pursue you with extra warm clothes on your first winter away from home; or, in the morning, will pursue you with a hearty breakfast before you leave the house. It’s that kind of act of love – that kind of hospitality – that describes God’s desire toward you and me.

So, Christ, as the shepherd who claims us as his own, loves and protects us as a good mother does their own children, provides for us – pursues us – with goodness and graciousness in and for our lives. What we need to do is remember that reality and act on it in these loving relationships. “The Lord is my shepherd” – the one whom I will look to as the authority in my life. Or, to change the emphasis – “the Lord is my shepherd” - the one whose love and grace I open myself to gratefully receive. And so by doing, I will “dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  Amen.