St. Paul's Episcopal Church

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
425 Cleveland Ave SW
Canton, Ohio 44702
Phone: 330-455-0286
Fax: 330-455-9818
E-mail: office@stpaulscanton.org

Fourth Sunday of Easter
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Canton OH

May 3, 2009
The Rev. Carol Duncan

O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people;
Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who
calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; Amen.

Jesus, speaking in John’s Gospel, says “I am the good shepherd.” I AM is God’s name that he told Moses from the burning bush. When Jesus says I AM, it is God’s name. This I AM saying is not as vivid to me as, for example, I AM the bread of life or I AM the vine. Bread I know, vines I can drink the wine. Shepherds just are not intense personalities in my experience.

Those of us who concentrate on the New Testament for our scripture don’t learn a lot about shepherds. We hear more about fishermen and farmers. Shepherds show up only in the birth stories, 3 parables, and two sayings. In the Old Testament they come into the stories 87 times. (You can look it up in the Oremus Bible Browser (http://bible.oremus.org/). A great deal of what Jesus said echoed and built on what he read in his own scripture, the Old Testament. He knew every one of the 87 passages.

Shepherds are a strong presence in the Old Testament. From Abraham through the Judges, the people were primarily nomadic shepherds. When Jacob, whose name had been changed to Israel, went to meet Joseph in Egypt Joseph coached him “When Pharaoh calls you, and says, “What is your occupation?” you shall say, “Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our ancestors”—in order that you may settle in the land of Goshen, because all shepherds are abhorrent to the Egyptians.’ When Moses, who led the people out of Egypt, was dying, he asked God ‘Let the Lord appoint someone over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them so that the congregation of the Lord may not be like sheep without a shepherd. David was a shepherd and became the archetypal symbol of Israel’s ideal leader. Isaiah uses shepherds as a frequent metaphor, even referring to the conqueror Cyrus as the shepherd of Israel. Jeremiah cites shepherds18 times, principally to condemn “the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord.” Ezekiel relied on those precedents for his authority. I want to give you the long version of what Jesus included when he called himself the good shepherd. Ezekiel’s words are beautiful poetry spoken to the generation taken captive to Babylon in 587 BC.

“The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them—to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. 4You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. Thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.

So what Jesus meant by good shepherd was that he would seek the lost, bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, strengthen the weak, and make a more equitable society. Jesus intensified the metaphor even as shepherds became scarce in Judea. Now the shepherd must bring in and care for his other sheep and must lay down his life to reveal the passion of God for the sheep.

We are the inheritors of the history and we belong to that flock. We are the ones who listen to his voice.

How do we hear our shepherd? For one thing, we learn and treasure the words of scripture. I was amazed by the excitement of tracing the metaphor through the history of the people of God.

For another, we listen to that history and be very aware of what shepherd we are following. Who do I trust my life to? Doctors? Bankers? Law enforcement? My director at work? My spouse? I leave that as a question.

The epistle for today from 1 John gives some good advice. We don’t just wait for times we must give our very lives. We participate in caring for the flock. As 1 John says “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” In ways less sacrificial but still surprisingly painful, Christian love requires giving up some of the goods we think we need when we come up against someone who is truly needy. Concretely such love means living out what we say.

I pray for us that we hear the whistle of the shepherd here at St. Paul’s. We are called to take over the Thanksgiving basket ministry. We are well equipped to reach out. Let’s put on our bells and ring them in an Easter peal!