3rd May Acts 4; John 10:11-18; Psalm 23
Sheep, what’s the first thing that comes into your mind when I mention sheep.
Maybe I hesitate to say that, but if you have young children, or a passion for animation you may think of Shaun the sheep that creation of Aardman animations. If you’re really on the ball with children’s TV you’ll know that there is a new kid on the block. Timmy, star of Timmy time, apparently ‘he’s a little lamb with a lot to learn..’
Being a shepherd has a mixed history in the story of Israel. David, usually considered the greatest King of Israel, who was succeeded by his son Solomon. David started off his life as a shepherd, and then went on to be a King. Often Israelite Kings didn’t have much to reign but David’s Kingdom was huge, running through most of today’s Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories, bits of Jordan and bits of Egypt. This guy had started off life as a shepherd.
David’s skill as a shepherd was what got him noticed in the first place, he took out the Philistine giant Goliath with the tools of his shepherd trade, a sling shot and some pebbles and whilst Goliath was still bragging, ‘come and have a go if you think you are hard enough’, he found himself struck with a stone from the slingshot, sprawled on the floor and his head cut off in double quick time.
So while David was around, people didn’t say bad things about shepherds, my guess is that they didn’t really want to make Goliath’s mistake, because David had proved that yes he really was hard enough, and so when David, who was also in his spare time fond of singing the occasional song wrote this Psalm.
This song actually in terms of total air time in the three thousand or so years since it was written has been even more popular than Robbie Williams Millennium, or Angels, or well anything much really.
David knew that he needed to be safe and he knew that it was God who kept him safe, God kept him safe like a Good Shepherd. Of course God had kept David safe in some pretty difficult situations, lots of difficult and horrible battles and also the notorious occasion when the then King Saul threw a spear at him at quite close quarters and managed to miss.
When David was writing about God being his shepherd it wasn’t some lovely dovey idea of fluffy little cartoon sheep,like Shaun or even Timmy. David knew about the harsh realities not only of his own life, but of shepherding in general, he knew that however tough his life had been God had been his shepherd. So David confidently writes that God cares for his needs, gives him green pastures, quiet waters and leads him in the right way.
David writes at the end of the Psalm, ‘Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.’
Somehow a thousand years before the arrival of Jesus it’s as if David already knows what will happen in the end game, what will be the outcome of this shepherding that God has been doing for his people Israel.
If we press the fast forward button roughly a thousand years to a hillside above Bethlehem, known as David’s city, about seven miles from Jerusalem. This one night when the whole town is full of people going, “I really do have better things to do with my time than waste it travelling for some idle paper pushing exercise”. And one young woman was giving birth after having discovered that travelling 70 miles on a donkey is actually a really good way of inducing labour.
So on the hillside above the town there are some shepherds. To say that the shepherd has had a bad press in the past thousand years would be an understatement of huge proportions. Shepherds have gone from being a profession fit for the apprentice king to the lowest of the low. Bad hours, bad pay, bad reputation. These shepherds would not have been washing their socks by night because I bet however cold it was they couldn’t afford any. When the angels appear to them explaining this good news I’m sure there was a lot of, what us, telling us the shepherds, what’s that about then. Nobody tells us anything because we are the lowest of the low. God has a long memory and he’d not listened to the press rumours of the previous thousand years, he knew that shepherds were good important people, not people to be despised, and the little baby, the one induced by the ride on the donkey, he was going to have something to say about shepherds soon enough in the time scale of a thousand years not being that long a time.
So in the context of shepherds having once been kingly but now being despised Jesus comes right out and says it, he says it.
“I am the good shepherd”
“I am the good shepherd”
What makes a good shepherd?
I am a child of my generation and if you ask me what makes a good shepherd I have to refer back to one man and his dog, which Wikipedia reckons ran from 1979 until 1999, I’m sure only coincidentally roughly equivalent to the time of the Conservative government.
So to win one man and his dog you have points scored on how well you cast, i.e. send you dog away to the sheep, then you are marked as you bring the sheep around the course and in to the pen, You start off with full marks and marks are deducted for each fault, if the dog bites the sheep, you can be disqualified!
You get no extra points for being quick, but if you do run out of time you can lose loads of points.
This I think is not what Jesus was talking about when he was talking about being a Good Shepherd.
Jesus says, I know my sheep and my sheep know me.
All good farmers know their stock, they know their foibles and peculiarities, they know where they are likely to wander off to if they are not around, they know what is going to frighten them and they know what is going to make them ill.
This is much more of the good shepherd scenario that Jesus is talking about.
Jesus says that the shepherd will not abandon the sheep, and he didn’t abandon us. He did die, he is the good shepherd that lays down his life for his sheep. But since as we remember death could not hold him in its grasp so he still cares for his sheep.
Jesus is talking about being the shepherd that David was talking about. God leads us in green pastures, quiet waters and leads us into the paths of righteousness. And that is our hope our prayer for the baby being baptised this morning, that, that will be her experience, that she will have green pastures, quiet waters and paths of righteousness.
But David and Jesus know that it will not always be like that, David talks about how the good shepherd comforts even in the bad times, your rod and staff they comfort me, even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, even in the darkest of times, God is still the good shepherd. And that is also our prayer for baby being baptised that in the tough times she will discover that God is right there beside her, comforting her, leading her through it, defending her with his staff.
What does it mean for us to be a sheep of God?
God cares for us, he wants the best for us, he looks out for us when we are lost, he looks for good places for us to be, places where we can grow and flourish. God knows that our life will not always be like that, but he is not distant from us in that time, no he is right there with us, ready to lift us up if we fall in the ditch, or drive of wolves with his staff.
We believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection has made this possible for us in the way which David knew partly in his own life and prophesised for us all. When Jesus says there shall be one flock and one shepherd he reminds us that this care and grace is available to us all. All we have to do is come when he calls.
The shepherds, David and Jesus knew didn’t use dogs to herd, they called the sheep, and the sheep came because they knew the sound of the shepherds voice. Today we celebrate that God has called Bay to himself but God doesn’t stop calling as we get older, he still calls to us, he calls us still to bring us to our green pastures, quiet waters and paths of righteousness. He calls to reassure us when we are stuck in a ditch, he is coming with his staff to get us out, he calls us when we are in dark places so that we can stay walking beside him, he calls us when we have wandered away, he calls us. As God’s sheep we listen to him call, we can hear the good shepherd calling us by name…