Jesus is shepherd, therefore as followers of Jesus we are sheep and shepherd. It’s about to get META up in herre!
John 10:11-18; 1 John 3:16-24; Psalm 23; Acts 4:5-12
We’ve all heard Psalm 23. Even if we don’t think we’ve heard it, we probably have. It’s everywhere. It’s likely the most-requested scripture when people are near death; so much so that it’s become my go-to Psalm in those situations. It’s a hopeful message; we like hearing it. But there’s more going on in this Psalm that what may appear on the surface.
The Psalm begins by presenting God, using his Name, as our shepherd, making us His sheep. (The pronunciation of God’s Name is sadly lost to history; the Jews considered, and still consider, God’s Name to be so holy that they wouldn’t ever say it, instead replacing it with “Lord”. Whenever you see Lord written in your Bible in small caps, it means that the original text was God’s Name, “YHVH”.) Now, I’ve learned a few things over the past few years. Sheep are not at all like the imagery we often get. They’re stubborn, willful, and definitely not the smartest of creatures. Being herd animals, they also tend to follow a leader. When one sheep starts doing something, good or bad, the rest will tend to follow.
In a lot of ways, this is a great analogy for humans — we tend to be stubborn, willful, make less than intelligent choices, and follow others for good or for ill. We have to remember, though, that this is the picture of the Lord as our Shepherd that the Biblical audience would have. Many people had sheep, and were shepherds. Look at the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; they all had sheep. So there was some cultural knowledge of what sheep were like.
So we are God’s sheep, and he is our shepherd. Now, there’s a few things that Shepherds do, all of which involve protecting sheep from themselves. The Psalm describes some of this to us: a shepherd makes sure sheep have sufficient food, water, and protection; a shepherd leads the sheep to these things, and goes and hunts for them when they wander away; a shepherd protects sheep from harm, and is willing to fight for them against wolves, thieves, and other dangers.
It’s this last image that rings most true for us. Sin is, essentially, us trying to do life our own way and then getting into trouble because of it. So, God, our shepherd, took steps to protect us from ourselves. John writes, in 1 John 3, that “this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” In terms of the shepherd metaphor, he put himself in the way of the wolves for us. It’s because of that, Jesus’ death and resurrection, that the second half of the Psalm is possible. We don’t have to worry about things like death, because Jesus has defeated it’s power and we will live with God forever.
Because we have experienced God’s love, John also tells us what the response is: “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence.” The Psalm talks about resting in God, and John tells us what that looks like — loving others with our actions. It’s what John and Peter were doing when they were arrested and brought before the high priest, all because they healed a beggar and talked about Jesus.
If we seek to love others as Christ has loved us, we will all serve as God’s “under-shepherds.” Or, in other words, we are all pastors. (The term “pastor” is the Latin word that means “shepherd.”) The key difference between you and me, at least in this context, is that I have been set apart by this congregation to the public ministry, namely administration of the sacraments and preaching the word. What this doesn’t mean, is that I’m the only one who does ministry, or to continue the metaphor, who shepherds. We are all called to ministry — some are apostles, prophets, teachings, workers of miracles, healers, administrators, speakers of tongues, as Paul writes in 1 Corinithians 12. There are different “ministries”, but all are part of the priesthood of all believers.
Just as God is our shepherd, we are all each other’s shepherd, and shepherds to the world. We are all called to feed the hungry, comfort the afflicted (and sometimes afflict the comfortable, if needed), visit the sick and imprisoned, and all these things — not just the “Pastor”. For, as John writes, as God has loved us, so we are to love others — not just with words, but with our actions.