Prop: shepherd’s staff (invisible cloak / rock of salvation / living water / sling and staff)
We all have dreams for our children! We set them free to make their own decisions in the world, but at the same time we take care to guide them, pray for them, dream for them, envision a future for them in which we play a relational part. We so want them to live fulfilling and satisfying lives, filled with life, love, and happiness. Anyone want to dispute that?
Being a parent is a kind of higher calling, in which you put your own wants and needs aside, and your children’s first, no matter what it takes! Maybe that’s one reason why the number of us who are having children is decreasing, as the child-free home is becoming the norm, not the exception.
Parents and Grandparents here this morning: is there anyone in this world that you prize more or want to protect more than your children and grandchildren? Children evoke in us a protective reflex that is hard to explain and even harder to duplicate.
Threaten one of her children, and the most docile woman can turn into a ferocious beast, ready to fight to the death so her children won’t be harmed. Every dad schemes of ways to screen and sometimes scare those who date their daughters. Every guy here knows “that look”—that look on the face of their date’s Dad when the door opens for you to pick her up. It’s that look that says, “I’m watching you!” [Feel free to do the hand movements to this expression!] You know which one I mean. That look could freeze the toenails off of a monkey’s paw, right?
Sit in the car too long at the end of a date, and you’ll see the light flashing on and off from the house. Right? Anyone experience that one?
Sit watching television in the living room with your boyfriend, girls, and all of a sudden dad needs to make multiple trips through the living room to the kitchen for drinks and snacks. It’s amazing the amount of food that guy can eat! How did his appetite increase like that on this particular night anyway! Right?
Or guys, maybe mom needs to invite your girlfriend over for dinner all the while surreptitiously watching her interactions with you to make sure she’s the kind of girl who won’t break your heart! And she’s full of all kinds of helpful relationship advice, isn’t she? Some wanted. Some…maybe not.
That inborn instinct of a parent to look out for their children may be the closest thing to “shepherding” that we can imagine, at least the kind of shepherd God was imagining for the people of God. When you read the descriptions of a “good” shepherd, both in the Hebrew scriptures and in the gospels, you realize, this is not a job description. It’s a spirit description. It’s a relationship grid. God is describing a relationship of a shepherd to a flock that goes way beyond the pale, way beyond a position that you either sign up for or take on for paid wages. Shepherding, at least the kind God imagines, requires a parental kind of bond, a loving engagement that dreams of the very best for every one of those sheep, a life of nourishment, contentment, joy, and abundance.
In fact, the shepherd loves and cares for the sheep enough to lay down his or her life for those sheep. That’s some commitment! Think about it!
How many of you would take a job that required you to jump in front of moving trucks or cranes or fight wild lions each and every day? Not most of us. Maybe if you’re in the military or in the mission field in Africa.
We are used to thinking about shepherds as a kind of milquetoast people. After all we sing “Gentle Shepherd” don’t we?” These are docile types who hang around hillsides watching sheep frolic while they camp out under the stars, right? What do shepherds do, we think? They spend most of their days sheep-hugging, wool-shearing, or wandering around in search of green grass, leading their flocks to water –still waters, if we want to repeat our favorite psalm. Well, surely there IS a nurturing side to shepherding, just as there is to parenting.
But the fact is, shepherding was and is a dangerous profession. You had to be alert nearly 24/7, and never took a day off, even for sabbath. Not only will sheep easily get distracted and wander away, but the hillsides and forests, even the valleys in Jesus’ day and still today, were filled with predators, each one eagerly waiting for a lamb to wander off alone. Some waited until nightfall to come and steal them away. Still others came in packs and preyed upon the entire flock at once, raiding and carrying them off, bleating and screaming.
To be a shepherd required the utmost attentiveness and attunement to everything going on around you. To be a shepherd meant to guard the gates of the sheepfold, to watch every sheep and lamb as you traveled from here to there or they grazed in the grass, and to be ready to fight to the death if a predator so much as came near.
The shepherd’s sling shot was considered a deadly weapon. Shepherd’s practiced with it until it became in their hands a weapon of war. When young David boasts to Saul that he has killed lions and bears with his sling shot alone, he is describing the life of a skilled hillside shepherd.
In biblical times, shepherds were athletes and warriors. These burly, strong, able men carried “deadly weapons” (stones and slings) and weren’t afraid to use them to protect their flock. But their biggest weaponry was in bearing the “Word” of God (remember those 5 smooth stones David plucked from the living waters?) and wearing the “armor of God” –the shepherd’s invisible cloak so to speak, that kind of “robe of righteousness and trust” in the Lord that kept them confident and sure that they could defend their charges against any and all threats. A Good and Godly Shepherd trusted God’s empowerment to do whatever needed to be done in whatever the circumstance. That’s some kind of faith!
I don’t know about you, but if I see a bear coming at me three times bigger than me, I’m probably going to run. Not these guys! They would face that bear head on and slay that beast before it got to the camp.
That’s the kind of shepherd God chooses when he chooses young David to be King of Israel. He is prepared to lay down his life for the sheep. He bears the heart of God.
A shepherd too is one who can read the signs of the times, one who can stay alert to the ways of the world and head off trouble before it becomes a deadly kind of force. A shepherd is one with a heart invested in God. For God is the True Shepherd of Israel. We know this from the prophet Isaiah, from Jeremiah, from others like the Psalmist:
“The Lord is my Shepherd…..” (Ps 23)
“‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.” (Ezekiel 34:11-16)
- God’s shepherds both guide and guard. They read the signs around them and they take heed to equip, protect, commit, and invest.
- They chart the Way. They dare to forge new territories in search of new sustenance.
- They love and they care. They form intimate bonds with those that they are charged to protect and keep.
- They establish and maintain boundaries when necessary; yet explore and designate spaces for creativity and freedom and mountaintop experiences.
- At night, they vision and light the Way, staying alert to threats and those who would prey upon the flock.
- They are trustworthy, and they are faithful. You can count on them to save you if your life is in danger. They will lay down their lives for the sheep. They will lay down their lives for God. For their purpose is not their own
What drives a shepherd of God is a purpose far more lofty than their next meal or paycheck, or their hours on the clock.
A shepherd of God is both fully engaged and on God’s mission in the world.
“You snooze, you lose!” How many times have you heard that one! The prophets have much to say about the shepherd who loves to sleep on the job!
“Israel’s watchmen are blind. They all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream; they love to sleep….they are shepherds with no discernment; they all turn to their own way, each one seeking his own gain.” (Isaiah 56:10)
“Your shepherds slumber; your officers sleep. Your people are scattered in the mountains with no one to gather them.” Nahum 3:18
God has no patience for a sleeping shepherd. God calls us to be not mere star-gazers but scholars of the world around us and dreamers of God’s own vision. As Jesus said, as my disciples, “look for the signs of the times and interpret them, just as you look at the weather or the sky.” Be alert. Know what’s going on around you.
And then get engaged with it head on. Engage the world on my behalf, says Jesus. This is the mission of the shepherd. And we need to hear this, don’t we? God doesn’t say, take on the world on behalf of our “own” mission, our own opinions, our own agendas, our own pet projects! But Jesus asks us to be on HIS mission with Him, beside Him, following Him, loving Him, and supporting Him.
“Get behind me!” Jesus barks to Peter, when Peter thinks he’s got a better way. We never have a better way than God. For God is the ultimate Lead Shepherd, who sent His Son Jesus, the one who laid down His life for the sheep.
Hear us, Shepherd of Israel,
you who lead Joseph like a flock.
You who sit enthroned between the cherubim,
shine forth 2 before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh.
Awaken your might;
come and save us.
Restore us, O God;
make your face shine on us,
that we may be saved. (Psalm 80:1-3)
Shepherds are not sleepers, but dreamers and vision-ers. They embark on God’s dream for a redeemed world and are unafraid to walk head on into an unknown world of predators, dangers, threats, and unanticipated challenges in order to lead God’s flocks to living water. Shepherds are saviors, God’s kings and prophets. But they are not the ones sitting on thrones or boasting about their riches. They are God’s people of the fields –God’s mission fields, who spend their time in relationship with God and in relationship with others, praying, discerning, studying, awakening to God’s promise and way in the world.
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, said to all of us, I am the Living Water, the only water that will sustain your life, fulfill your spirit, cultivate and nourish you body and soul.
And we….we are His shepherds. We are not hired help who just put in our time on Sunday mornings. We are not just doing our bit until our time is up and we can clock out.
God’s shepherds never clock out. God’s people never fall asleep inside the sheep fold. God’s shepherds are not following their own vision. But are embarking on an adventure in the world equipped with God’s Word, Water, Blood, and Tears.
God’s shepherds are equipped with God’s “Rock of Salvation,” Jesus, Son and Savior.
God’s shepherds are wearing God’s invisible “Cloak of Righteousness,” our protection and our courage.
God’s shepherds are drinking God’s “Living Water,” our nourishment and our life.
God’s shepherds are armed with God’s “Sling and Staff,” to guide and to protect.
God’s shepherds are equipped with eyes to see and ears to hear, for we are always on God’s mission and not our own.
All of these come from a life invested in Jesus, our savior, protector, sustainer, and redeemer.
The more invested you are, the more committed you will be to go out into that mission field and to lead God’s lost and missing flocks to the Living Water of Life –a life filled with Jesus, the only Life worth living, and the only mission worth risking your life for.
God’s dream is to rescue and save every one of His children. For He loves each and every one. God has invested that dream in you, has entrusted that dream to you.
Shepherds of God –go out in God’s peace. But more importantly, go out and be shepherds. Dream some God’s sized Shepherd Dreams for our world. And the peace of The Good Shepherd will go with you.
Based on the Story Lectionary
Major Text
Jesus the Good Shepherd and the Infiltrators of God’s Sheep Gate: Jesus’ Disputes with the Pharisees According to John (John 10)
Psalm 80: The Shepherd of Israel
Psalm 23: The Lord As Shepherd
David Son of Jesse, A Herder of Sheep, is Chosen to be King by God Through the Prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 16)
The Lord Will Raise Up a Righteous Shepherd (Jeremiah 23)
Minor Text
The Role of the Priests and the Prophet Among You (Deuteronomy 18)
The Unpopular Prophet Who Speaks God’s Word, Micaiah (1 Kings 22)
Psalm 51: A Psalm of Confession and Plea for Absolution
Daniel’s Vision of Greece, a Ram, and a Goat (8)
God Pronounces Against False Prophets (Ezekiel 34)
The Story of the Hellenization of the Jews Before the Revolts (1 Maccabees 1)
The Messianic Throne (Hebrews 1)
Jude Warns of False Shepherds (The Book of Jude)
Peter Warns of False Teachers Who Reject Jesus (2 Peter 2)
The Lord is the Temple in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21)
Image Exegesis: Sheep and Shepherd
For extensive image exegeses on “sheep and shepherd” this week, please see the following Story Sermons accompanied by their corresponding Image Exegeses by going to the “search” function on the home page of www.preachthestory.com and search for the following story sermon titles:
“The Infiltrator”
“What Kind of Sheep Are You?”
“Salt and Swaddle”
“One Stone Faith”
“Stop the PANIC!”
“What’s in a Name?”