The 23rd Psalm is probably the best known and the best loved in the whole collection. We turn to it, perhaps more than to any other, for comfort and reassurance, and there are probably more musical settings of it than there are of any other. The Israelites were of course a pastoral people, so it is not surprising that they should think of God as a good shepherd, and it continues to resonate with us because we still know what sheep are like, even if most of us now live in towns and cities. As I waited for a flock to be moved down a narrow lane only the other day, I was reminded how agitated and distressed the sheep would get, running all over the place and barging into one another, until the shepherd took them in hand, his firm but gentle leadership symbolised by his crook, the modern equivalent of the psalmist’s rod and staff, giving the sheep the comfort and assurance they needed if they were to go anywhere, do anything, or be at peace with one another and their environment.
Jesus is the model of the good shepherd. In our gospel reading this morning he had compassion on the crowd because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he responded by teaching them many things, even though he and his disciples were themselves tired and fretted, looking for somewhere to be on their own and rest for a while. Jeremiah by contrast sees the leaders of Israel in his time as wicked shepherds, scattering the sheep and driving them away. After a brief warning that the Lord will attend to their evil doings and sort them out, Jeremiah goes on to promise that the Lord himself will gather his scattered flock together, and raise up good shepherds for them. He condemns the rulers who have led God’s people astray, and he knows that the consequences will include the destruction of Jerusalem and a further scattering of God’s people into exile in Babylon and elsewhere. But he knows that the Lord himself is the good shepherd, whose loving purposes will not be frustrated by the wrongdoing of his people and their leaders. A new king will be raised up who shall be called: The Lord is our righteousness’. The Lord himself is my shepherd. He will not only take care of my needs, feeding me in a green pasture, and leading me forth beside the waters of comfort; but he will set me right, converting my soul making me a better person leading me forth in the paths of righteousness for his Name’s sake.
The Lord is my shepherd. From the very beginning God has loved us, and desired that we should find our true happiness in a loving, trusting and obedient relationship with him. The narrative which, with all its twists and turns, is woven into the golden thread of our faith, is the story of God’s steadfast love for his people, our continual rejection of his loving leadership, and his endless resource in finding new ways to draw us despite ourselves into his vision of that state of bliss which consists of loving and being loved. You know how the story goes, how God has to act again and again to find new ways forward after Adam’s first disobedience, with Noah after the Flood, with Jacob rather than Esau, with Joseph in Egypt despite his own arrogance and the jealous plotting of his brothers, with Moses and the development of a system of law, with the adoption of kingship and its eventual self-destruction, with the establishment of temple worship and the development after the temple was destroyed – of forms of worship better suited to the praise and honour of a God who is not to be appeased by bloody sacrifice, but by repentance of heart. All this leading finally to the supreme narrative of God’s action, in and through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who though his supreme act of loving self-giving, has opened up a new and better way for us to be drawn into the loving relationship which he has with God the Father. This is the narrative that we celebrate with joy at every Eucharist.
The Lord is my shepherd. He loves us, and has found in and through Jesus, a way in which we can be his people, his children, and he can be truly our God. But we cannot altogether ignore the other side of the story, which demonstrates again and again how ready we have been to frustrate his purposes by misusing and destroying the very institutions he has allowed us to develop to support our feeble faith. The monarchy failed when David’s successors became petty despots forgetting that they were the servants of God and of his people; the priesthood failed when the temple hierarchy, in alliance with the secular power, tried to suffocate the voice of true prophecy; the law failed when it became a burdensome straitjacket of petty regulations rather than a supportive framework for godly living; the church has failed in the past, and will fail again, if it becomes too worldly, too much preoccupied with concern for its own power and authority to pay attention to the still small voice that may be suggesting new ways of being the body of Christ.
Paul was an optimist when he wrote to the Ephesians declaring that Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians were one in the body of Christ, who in his flesh has made both groups into one, and has broken down the hostility between us’ (v14). Sadly, the hostility between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians was never fully overcome, and the Christian church has had to develop on an essentially non-Jewish base. Moreover, the loss of our historic link to Judaism would allow the church to become a major instrument of anti-Semitism. The support of some Christians to-day for the secular ambitions of the Jewish state is no substitute for Paul’s vision of one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace’ (v15).
But I digress. Paul is an urban person. Rather than speaking of one flock and one shepherd, he speaks of one building in which the many stones are all held together by the one cornerstone. We may foolishly or inadvertently make a mess of the architect’s plans; he can adapt to that. If on the other hand we tear apart what he has begun to build, deliberately and wilfully subverting his plans for peace and reconciliation in our shrinking global village, we know what he will do. He will gather his flock together himself, and he will raise up new shepherds over them who will shepherd them (v3-4).
I am allowed to mix my metaphors this morning. In the 23rd psalm the Lord is my generous host, as well as my shepherd. In his presence I will fear no evil, and I will come to dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. The good shepherd is also the good architect and urban planner, who will find ways to realise his vision of a new Jerusalem, more splendid than we could ever imagine. The narrative by which we live assures us that His plan will succeed, with or without our help, because ultimately nothing can frustrate the power of His love. But we come to the table that he has prepared for us this morning because we accept his gracious invitation. The Lord is my shepherd, and I want to dwell in him as he comes to dwell in me. He is also the corner stone of our community, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord’ (Eph 2.21), a temple where his loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. The Lord is my shepherd and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.