The Good Shepherd
March 30, 2014 Psalm 23
Rev. David J. Clark
Late in my first year of college, I was working on a Bible research paper about the 23rd Psalm. What is all of this shepherd imagery about? I learned about how the shepherd took care of the sheep and the green pastures meant that the sheep’s needs were always taken care of. Being led on the right paths means that if we follow God’s ways we are led away from the predators, such as the wolves of greed, envy, prejudice; the lions of fear that can destroy us from the inside. The rod and staff were ways of keeping the sheep in line and even the hook was used to save a sheep that got caught in the rocks. Shepherds led their flocks to high mesas called table rocks where they could look out for danger.
I learned that sheep are high maintenance creatures requiring constant evaluation for parasites and their wounds healed with oil. The Hebrew words for “follow me” at the end of the passage where it says, “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” should be translated as something closer to “pursue” Surely, goodness and mercy shall pursue me like a predator to hunt me down. Will I allow God’s intentions of goodness for my life catch up to me or will I devise some means to sabotage the good that God has in store for me? After learning all this, I thought I had a good bead on the meaning of the psalm and how to apply it to everyday life.
I was just about ready to hit the print button on my paper when the phone rang. Someone at the college called saying I could earn some extra money shearing sheep. I explained that although I was from Iowa, I was a city kid, and, “I don’t know anything sheep shearing’. “It’s okay,” I was assured, “you will be working with a guy who has been shearing his whole life. He’ll teach you; just do what he says.”
Bright and early the next morning I showed up at the farm, and met Arthur. He was wearing bib overalls a seed corn cap and well-worn work boots--not nearly as fashionable as me in faded jeans; leather Nike tennis shoes, alligator/Izod polo shirt--with the hot 80’s look of an upturned collar and aviator sunglasses. He looked at me and just shook his head, as if he just realized he was going to have a very long and difficult day.
Basically, my job was to tackle the sheep. Arthur had a bad back so he needed me to round up the sheep and flip them on their backs. Now, I had always been under the impression that sheep were nice passive animals: cute, cuddly, noble creatures with an innate purity. It didn’t take long to figure out that my image was all wrong. During a Pepsi break, I shared with Arthur that I was coming to believe that when the Bible compares human beings to sheep, it isn’t exactly a compliment! Sheep are stupid. Arthur told me they could turn their head to look through a fence, and then not know to turn it back. They just sit there stuck and bleating away for help. Does the Bible mean to say that we are dumb—getting ourselves into awful fixes so we need a shepherd to help get us unstuck? Arthur just smiled.
And look at them. They just follow the pack, one will split off and everyone will just follow that one, then another without any real direction. Is that what it is about? We are too easily influenced by the pack, and don’t choose very wisely which direction we will head with our lives or whom we should follow? Arthur was a man of few words. He gave me the old farmer, Hmmmm.
Or maybe the Bible is picking up on their skittishness, or their stubbornness. The males could be aggressive. One sheep with a muzzle on it; he looked big as a polar bear. Arthur said that in his 60 years of shearing this by far was the biggest sheep he had ever seen. They called him Brutus; and he was chained to a post. Would the good shepherd muzzle one of the sheep? When all the other sheep had been sheared and Arthur said, “Go get Brutus.” I said, “Not for a measly $3.10 per hour I won’t.” I couldn’t believe it, but I was scared of a sheep.
Perhaps the good news of the passage is that no matter how bad, or stupid, or unruly, or obstinate we may be, we have a good shepherd. The farmer never criticized his sheep for acting like sheep. Maybe God doesn’t waste a lot of time blaming humans for acting human. It’s too bad people do, though. We have one who seeks to help us, to guide us, to give us direction, care, nurture and love. If the truth about my life is that I have a lot in common with a sheep, I find it reassuring that I have a shepherd that knows what to do. I thought I knew about shepherds from text books but I realized that I missed the important part when I watched Arthur with his sheep and how he could read their personalities and sense what each one needed. He could be firm and gentle at the same time.
After the three-day sheep shearing venture, I swore I wanted nothing to do with sheep ever again. Little did I know that the word pastor comes from the same word as shepherd, or that several months later I would receive a call to become the student pastor of a small country church. I don’t know anything about preaching! “It’s okay; they have had student pastors before, it will be a good experience for you to help you discern if you really are called into the ministry.”
My first Sunday, I drove to the little country church, got out of the car, and there stood this guy in bib overalls and work boots, and a seed corn hat, Arthur. I was in a suit fearing that I had overdressed again. He greeted me with a warm smile; it was simultaneously comforting and intimidating seeing him there. I was so nervous during the service. Before the sermon I was shaking and I thought my throat might swell up or that lightning might strike because someone as flawed and sinful as me dared to enter the pulpit and speak the Word of God. Sweat gushed out of every pore on my body.
So, in an effort to stall, I prayed. I remembered that one of my pastors had always prayed before his sermon. It was always the same prayer and I’d memorized it, even though it had never had any particular meaning for me and I thought it was annoying that he never changed it up. I prayed, Come Holy Spirit Come. Come as fire and cleanse, come as light and reveal, come as wind and fill. Convict, convert and consecrate until we are wholly yours. Anything to stall before having to actually preach. As I prayed it aloud, all I could think in my mind while I was speaking the words was a desperate frantic prayer, “O God, HELP!”
Somehow I got through the sermon; Arthur said I did fine. He never said that about my sheep tackling abilities. In fact, our bonding experience with the sheep served as a catalyst toward a great relationship, he was my shepherd in the church, he gave me advice, told me about who was ill and I sensed that he threw a little extra in the plate to make sure the church would stay alive and it could nurture young pastors.
The first few weeks, I prayed that prayer, really meaning, “O God, HELP! I’m in way over my head. This is worse than sheep shearing. I don’t have a clue. What can I say? What is going to help these people?” I knew that if much good was going to happen, I would have to rely on God. God please come! I don’t care how you come, fire, light, wind, rain, snow, good music, just please come.”
After a year of settling into the routine and finding words to speak, I changed the prayer; instead of praying, Come Holy Spirit prayer, I prayed something altogether different. The next day, Arthur’s wife, Martha, was having surgery. I went to the hospital to pray with her. Martha was not a woman of few words; she let me have it. She was not pleased I had changed the prayer. I couldn’t believe someone facing a very risky and delicate surgery would want to discuss what the pastor said before the sermon. I told her that it’s not even a prayer I composed. But she zeroed in, “David Clark, that is your prayer. I feel something when you pray it. It reminds us that God’s Spirit is with us in worship, and we all have to listen to what the Spirit is trying to say to us in our lives. It reminds us that what is important is not the eloquence or personality of the preacher; it’s what God is trying to say to us. Don’t you dare ever stop saying that prayer.” Threatened to pray--a little odd, but hey, you never know.
We talked about how that prayer really is talking about us being open to hearing the voice of the good shepherd. She recalled her own faith journey how she found that where there is God’s spirit, there can be forgiveness and love. She told me about times she was able to overcome her own selfishness and resentments. She loved how through the Spirit, people who would never be together in any other context, sang together in church. The rich and the poor, the young and the old, green city kids in polo shirts and old farmers in bib overalls can all come together and follow the good shepherd.
Unfortunately, she did not live long beyond that surgery. It was my first time dealing with anyone who was dying. She had such faith, such faith that she had a good shepherd and that even though she walked through the valley of death she had nothing to fear. God was with her.
Martha showed me how comforting a deep and abiding faith can be for those who trust in the good shepherd. And I saw how the community came and supported Arthur in his time of sadness and grief. On my last Sunday at that church, just before I was to deliver the sermon, Arthur, who was wearing a suit, wanted to do a scripture reading from the 23rd Psalm. He had it memorized.
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Me maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea 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. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. My cup runneth over. Thou anointest my head with oil. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
It came from the heart and it was so beautiful because it was coming from an old gruff farmer more comfortable in bib overalls than a suit. He had always known more about the 23rd Psalm than I did even though I had a lot of academic information about it. He knew it because over the life time he developed the heart of a man who knew the shepherd’s voice and found a way to follow. And even to shepherd someone else.
Over the years of my ministry, there is a lot of stuff I’ve been called upon to do things that I don’t know anything about, but I’ve learned to trust in the good shepherd and I’ve honored Martha’s wish. I still get nervous before sermons, trying to get it all memorized, trying to be faithful to the meaning of the text, hoping that it will give people what they need. Some people have seen me sitting up here and say, “You looked so sad up there before the sermon, what’s going on?” Sheer terror, I say. It’s not sadness, but the look of concentration and nervousness that what I say is so inadequate compared to the gospel I’m trying to communicate. But when I start into that prayer, I’m reminded to just trust.
The prayer has come to mean a lot to me and a lot of people I’ve served. People have requested it for weddings, funerals, table graces. They’ve make needle points of it and hung it on their walls and even set it to music. Just three weeks ago someone from a church I served 20 years ago hunted me down so that I could remind him of the words.
I hope that while I’m here the prayer will come to mean something to you, too. There will be things you are called upon that you’ll feel you don’t know anything about. May you learn to trust in the Spirit of the Good Shepherd that seeks to come to each of us, even in this moment.
Come Holy Spirit Come. Amen.
* Sermon originally preached in Indianola Iowa and repeated in Ankeny Iowa.
