Fourth Sunday of Easter, 21 April 2024: Acts 4:5-12; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18; Psalm 23
This Sunday is known as Good Shepherd Sunday: we read not only the passage from John describing the work of the good shepherd but the comforting words of Psalm 23. So it’s useful to think about shepherds.
The first time I preached, it was on Good Shepherd Sunday. I had been called by one of the then wardens of my church on Tuesday, and asked to preach Sunday. It would be a difficult Sunday. Our rectors, a married couple, were about to start a scheduled sabbatical. However, on Maundy Thursday we had learned that their marriage had broken down. Both would be present on Sunday, but obviously they were in no state to preach jointly, and you couldn’t have just one. To say that the congregation was traumatized would be an understatement.
Yet if you are ever in such a situation, there is not a better set of readings. Every time this Sunday turns around, I am reminded of their importance. “The Lord is my shepherd”, the psalm proclaims. “There will be on flock, one shepherd”, John reports Jesus saying.
Here’s the thing: in our daily lives we easily forget this. We mistake individuals in our lives for the good shepherd. Parents, leaders, charismatic writers & preachers: we substitute our relationship with them for our relationship with God. The church delegates to the clergy and bishops the pastoral role: pastor is the Latin for shepherd. Like the good shepherd, they care for and protect their sheep. Congregations become deeply attached to their clergy, but the clergy always move on. And always, we need to be reminded: the good shepherd is still God, not any of the humans who try to carry out God’s will.
The letter of John takes this a step further. It reminds us, as does John’s Gospel, that Jesus laid down his life for us, so by this we know love. We should follow suit, and “love one another”. Yet that love is not a feeling, but an action. “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?” We show love, John’s letter tells us, by “truth and action”.
The fact that the Lord is our shepherd is a great comfort: there is a reason that the 23rd psalm is regularly read at Jewish and Christian funerals. It reminds us we are cared for and protected. We can remember that “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me.” Because of that, we can also do our best to love one another, “in truth and action”. But also because of that, we can accept not only our inevitable failures, but those of the people we rely on.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Amen.
The Good Shepherd, in Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, Merced, CA. Photo by Rev. Gail Bernthal