Ocean View and Frankford Presbyterian Churches (DE)
Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year B)
April 29, 2012
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Acts 4:5-12
Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18
I. INTRODUCTION
A. “Good Shepherd Sunday”
At the 10:00 a.m., Bible study this week, I learned that this Sunday has a name. It is “Good Shepherd Sunday.” As you noted, the Psalter reading praises God as “Shepherd” (Psalm 23:1), and in the reading from the Gospel of John Jesus announces himself to be “the good shepherd,” (John 10:11,14).
How we get from God as Shepherd to Jesus as Shepherd is seen in a bridge passage in Ezekiel in which God tells us, “I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken,” (Ezekiel 34:32).
B. Familiarity of Psalm 23
Psalm 23 is one of those passages that is, one might say, in the public domain. It is like the hymn, “Amazing Grace,” in its familiarity.
1. Psalm 23 and Funerals
When is it that we read this Psalm? It is at funerals. It is virtually the one passage that people expect to hear at funerals. No funeral would be complete without a reading of Psalm 23.
2. In Grief, One Feels Like a Sheep
a. Speaks Comfort to the Grieving
And the reason is simple. It speaks to people in the situation of grief in a gentle and loving way. It speaks of God taking care of people, just at a time in which we realize we need that care. It speaks of comfort (Psalm 23:4), just when we need a consoling presence. (It is the shepherd’s presence that is consoling; the shepherd does not have to say anything.) Psalm 23 does not tell you how you are to grieve, as others around you are so prone to do. It does not judge you when you do not grieve as others think you should. It just accepts you in the midst of your plight and lovingly tells you that God is there, there for you.
b. Must Acknowledge that We Are Sheep
Notice that Psalm 23 works for us only when we are willing to acknowledge that we are—to carry through on the metaphor—sheep.
c. But in Grief, We Feel Like Sheep
But in what situation other than grief do we feel more like sheep? In fact, though others gather around us at that time, we tend to feel like that sheep in the parable (Matthew 18:12-14; Luke 15:4-7), the sheep that has wandered off from the others, the sheep that is now lost and alone and extremely vulnerable. No one can know what we are feeling. No one can imagine the road that lies ahead, the adjustment to life without that loved one. At the time of grief, we are less in charge than in any other time. Even the most mundane tasks become a challenge. We are herded along by funeral directors, by family members, by well-meaning friends. We are told when to have the service, what to wear, where to stand. People appear at the door with food, though you normally can take care of yourself. At this time, others arise to take care of you. And suddenly, everyone leaves, and you really are alone, and the real work of grieving begins. And you truly do feel like a lost and lone and vulnerable sheep.
d. Natural Connection between Funerals and Psalm 23
And so, the connection between Psalm 23 and funerals is a natural one. Psalm 23 speaks to us and comforts us with the good news that God is there. God is there for us.
C. Why, When We Are Not Grieving, Do We Ignore the Psalm?
The question I want to raise is this, If we find Psalm 23 so comforting when we are grieving, why is it that we completely ignore it when we are not grieving? Other than on days like today, when it appears as one of the cycle of readings, when else do we read Psalm 23? When else does it even come to mind? In fact, why is it that we banish it from our minds?
1. Because of Its Association with Death?
One could say that, we banish it because of its connection with death, funerals, and grief. But I think that there is a deeper reason.
2. We Are Not Sheep! We Are Shepherds!
While in the midst of grief we may momentarily experience a state of dependency—like that of a sheep who needs a shepherd—for the most part the thought of dependency is utterly repugnant. We are not sheep! We are individuals. We are independent, self-sufficient, self-reliant, self-directing. If anything, we are shepherds! We are in charge. We are in charge of our own lives. Others may be dependent upon us, but we are dependent upon no one. We are independent and self-sufficient. I guess it was two or three years ago, a friend of our family decided that Dad could no longer cut his own lawn. And so, they gave him a gift of a lawn service. When Dad told me about it, he was far from appreciative. He was insulted, “I’ll take care of my own lawn!”
a. Our Power over Others and Nature
Our sense of importance and power is determined by the influence we have over others. It is determined by our ability to provide for others who are dependent upon us. It is determined by our ability to command others, to treat them like lowly sheep. It is determined by our power over nature. No wonder as children we boys played with toy earth moving equipment and imagined ourselves blowing up mountains in order to create a road. The earth is nothing to us. We will conquer it.
b. Visible Signs of Power
The signs of our power are measurable. It is It is measured by our wealth. It is measured by our possessions. It is measured by our ability to ride through the ups and downs of the economy. It is measured by our power over others, to control what they think and do. It is measured by our power to give immense sums of money to politicians, contributions that buy access.
c. Even Jesus as Shepherd Is Rejected
No, Psalm 23 is fine when we are grieving. Other than that, we want nothing to do with it. Nor do we want to hear how Jesus is a shepherd over us. There too, the only way we could buy into what he says is if we agree to be sheep. In fact, that passage is even worse, because it is not associated with funerals. Jesus just wants us to regard him as shepherd over us. He wants us to accept our role as sheep and just admit our dependency upon him. No way! We are not sheep. We will be shepherds. We will play the role of God. We will treat others and the earth like dumb sheep who need our tending. We will herd them around.
D. A Problem – Where Do We Get the Notion that We Are Shepherds?
Well, we have a problem, don’t we? God claims to be our shepherd, whether we are in a state of grief or not. Jesus claims to be our good shepherd. And we sit here insulted at these claims and defiant.
Rather than urge us to give these passages a chance, I am going to take another approach and ask where it is that we get the notion that we are shepherds, that we are god, that we are in control of our lives and this world?
II. BODY
A. The Image of God and Dominion
1. From Scripture – Image of God; Dominion
Your reply is a resounding, “You idiot, we get this right from Scripture!” In creation, God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth,” (Genesis 1:26). There it is! Human beings are made in the “image” and “likeness” of God (Genesis 1:26,27; 5:1; 9:6).
2. Our Interpretation of the Image of God
The question is, How do we understand this “image of God” (for what follows, see Douglas John Hall, Professing the Faith, pages 232-300)? We must distinguish between how we have traditional interpreted it, which is an interpretation that came from the influence of Greek and Roman thought, and how Scripture itself interpreted it, for that is far different.
a. Image as a Substance Added to Our Nature
Traditionally, we have seen the image of God as being some substance that has been added to our nature that sets us apart and above all the rest of creation. While we share physical bodies with other creatures, yet God has given us something that they do not have. This has been variously understood, but typically, what we see God as having given us is either reason or will. With that unique equipment, we are enabled to understand (science) the world, and develop tools to master the world (technology). We are equipped to form complex societies and to organize to accomplish anything to which we set our mind. In short, with that unique endowment, we are established as the crown and goal of all creation.
b. Superiority only Seen in Comparison
Notice something about this view of our uniqueness. Our superiority is apparent only in comparison to others. In comparison with this one who is inferior, we are appear superior. We are not a part of creation; we are “above” creation. We are not creatures; we are “above” creatures. We need an inferior in order to maintain our sense of superiority.
Western civilization prides itself in its reason and its will. We are “above” everyone else, who are obviously inferior. It is our science, our technology, our culture, our administrative expertise that so displays our superiority. Spain and England once vied for this supremacy. The Axis and Ally powers once vied for this supremacy. We once contended with the Soviet Union. Now we alone are left. We have displayed our superiority. We are supreme. We are supreme over other peoples and cultures, supreme over the creatures supreme over the earth itself.
c. Dominion as Mastery
What does our God-endowed supremacy bring? It brings, as the Scriptures say, “dominion” (Genesis 1:26,28; Psalm 8:6), mastery over the rest of creation. This word, as well, has been interpreted in a unique way. Remember, we are made in the “image” of God. And who is God? God is “God Almighty.” God is seen as exercising unconditional and uncontested power. God is in charge. God can do anything God wants. Well, if we are created in God’s image then by extension we have dominion over this world. The world is ours to do with as we please.
d. Our Vocation Seen as Pursuit of Self-Fulfillment
What is it we please to do? Our vocation as human beings is seen in terms of our pursuit of self-fulfillment. We are here to be happy. We are here to see to our needs. We have liberty to do whatever we wish.
3. The “Perfect Storm” of Human Arrogance
In the book The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger described three weather-related phenomena that combined to create a storm of epic proportions, the 1991 Halloween Nor’easter. Well, here it is in another realm. Once you combine the image of God with God’s granting of dominion—both interpreted through the eyes of Greek and Roman culture—and combined with our current sense of vocation in terms of self-fulfillment, this becomes a unique concoction. And it is all blended together in a bowl in which we have abandoned the thought that any real God (other than our own projection) stands over and above us, and then rejected any notion of human sin. What is unleashed on the earth is a human storm that makes the 1991 storm insignificant. It becomes a devastating storm unleashed on people who are considered inferior, upon the other creatures of the earth, and upon the earth itself.
In short, we are not sheep. We are shepherds—and shepherds with a capital “S.” We have taken the place of God. We are god. Everything exists to serve our well-being. We can do anything. We are masters.
4. Problems with Mastery
There is an irony to this. Once we define ourselves as masters, then we must exercise mastery.
a. Attack from Above – Others Are Masters
The thing is, there are others who have the audacity to think that they are masters in competition with us, or even that they should be able to govern their own lives. What happens when others do not acknowledge our apparent superiority, our right to master, our duty to parent child-like people, our right to see to our self-interest? Our self-image as shepherds faces pressures from above.
b. Attack from Below – the Creatures
It is also squeezed from below. Perhaps one reason we tend to so distain science is that it keeps telling us of other creatures who also reason, who also use tools. Even worse, it places us among the creatures of the earth. What, exactly, does it mean to be human? What if we have evolved from so-called “lower” life forms? What if the only thing that distinguishes us from other primates is some chromosome? What if we can only claim a distinction from the animals, not a qualitative separation? It seems that we are being squeezed even by the creatures.
We also feel ourselves squeezed before and aft.
c. Attack from Before – Impact of Mastery
We are squeezed before by the vision of what our mastery means to others and to this planet. What if agent orange really was the cause of chronic illness among our service personnel (not to mention the civilians of Viet Nam)? What if the cause of PTSD among the military is not due to some deficiency in a soldier’s character, but that war itself is toxic to the human spirit? What about global warming? Here, again, we attack the science because it holds up an uncomfortable mirror to the result of our human activity. Our exploitation and pollution of the earth eventually is having a detrimental impact. The earth will strike back. Mastery may seem good to us, but it is not always beneficent even for us. It also produces great harm.
d. Attack from Behind – What If We Are Being Mastered?
We are squeezed from behind by an awareness that, while we thought we were the exploiters, just may be ourselves being exploited. What will have the biggest impact in this year’s election? Is it really my vote? The curtain is being pulled back and we see what a tremendous role money has in the election. Individuals and corporations (who are “people, too”) are able to funnel vast sums of money into the campaign. Money buys access. What, really, does my vote matter? One strongly suspects that the influence this money purchases is self-serving, serving the interests of its donors, rather than the people. In the midst of debates over the pressing issues who is framing the issues? Whom is the system serving? It is difficult to know in listening to the rhetoric if we are really serving our own best interest, or being manipulated to serve the interests of those with power. We are supposed to influence others. What if we ourselves are being manipulated and exploited?
e. Attack from Within - Angst
Finally, we are being squeezed from within. We are being squeezed by a gnawing sense of inner emptiness, of angst that we cannot simply ignore. How contemptuous we are of our Southern neighbors with their drug trafficking and the violence and political corruption that it breeds. And yet, how many of those drugs are being demanded by us? We use those drugs, we use prescription drugs, we use alcohol, we use entertainment, we use sex, we use violence, we use countless things to distract us from our inner doubt and turmoil. We cannot manage our own lives. We cannot shepherd ourselves. (And yet we think we have a right to shepherd others?)
f. Image of Mastery that Cannot Be Maintained
In short, we have created a self-image which cannot be sustained. At every turn, we realize the limits of human mastery. We cannot control everything, least of all ourselves. We cannot live up to our own image of shepherds, of masters of the earth.
5. Our Self-Image Will Not Tolerate Failure
The self-defeating fact about the gods we have made of ourselves is that these gods will not tolerate failure. And so, we stubbornly mouth exalted claims of our superiority, of our right and duty to be masters of the earth.
a. What Happens When We Do Fail?
What happens when we do fail? What if even the President of the most powerful nation on earth lacks the power to command Iran and North Korea? What if the President cannot simply with a wave of his wand control the economy? What if we cannot make an ideology go away simply by killing a few of its adherents? What happens when Congress is so polarized that it is dysfunctional? What happens when we cannot even acknowledge the ecological challenge, let alone address it? What happens when we invade a totalitarian country and are not greeted as liberators? What happens when we cannot impose Western-style democracy on a foreign nation? What happens when we cannot make our schools excellent? What happens when even we become so fearful that we stoop to torturing others? What happens when we mouth jargon about our American exclusivism and finding even that rhetoric to ring hollow?
Once we begin to question ourselves, once we begin to doubt our mastery, then what is left of our self-image? Who are we as individuals or as a people?
b. Image of Ourselves as Less than Animal
To establish such unattainable claims for ourselves, when those claims cannot be realized, we are bound to find another anti-self-image arising. It is that we human beings are even less than the animal. We are a detriment to ourselves, to other people, to the planet. We do not deserve to survive as a species, the world would be better without us.
6. We Are Left with These Two Options: Mastery or Failure
Those seem to be the only two options available to us. Either we are the godly masters of the earth, or we are a terrible evolutionary failure, an experiment that has gone terribly awry, one that creation will celebrate once we take our place with the dinosaurs.
7. This Is a Crisis of Value, a Crisis of Purpose
Either way, we are confronted with a very real crisis of value. What does distinguish us from the animals? Once that sense of value is lost, then we have lost something else. What is our purpose as human beings? If we are not meant for mastery then what? Unfortunately, we think in terms of process, rather than in terms of value and purpose. What has meaning to us is only what we do. We assume that our value is automatically given in our being. We have value just by being. And our only task is to actualize the higher possibilities of our being, to exercise our higher qualities of thought and will, to exert our mastery. But this is not adequate for life itself does not come with labels (informing us of our identity) and instructions (providing our purpose). We have looked to ourselves to supply our answers. Perhaps it is time to ask our Creator.
B. Not Substance, but Relationship
Do you recall what got us into this mess? It was when we interpreted the story of our creation using Greek and Roman thought forms, rather than the assumptions of our Judaic tradition. The Greeks thought in terms of substance. Consequently, they saw the image of God as some quality that God added to set us apart from and above the other creatures.
The Biblical writers did not think in these terms. They thought in terms of relationship. The most important affirmation of our tradition is that being is “integrated—whole, interconnected, . . . delicately interrelated,” (Douglas John Hall, Professing the Faith, page 317; for what follows see pages 301-353). Being means “communion,” (Hall, 317-318). Being means “being-with,” (Hall, page 321). We are creatures meant to live in relationship with God, with each other, and with creation. We are to live with the world, not exist in some fanciful realm “above” and “over” the world.
1. Image of God – Relational Creatures
To be made in the image of God means that we are created as relational creatures. We are created to know that we stand before the God who made us and who assigned to us a vocation. We are created to know that we stand with other creatures and with a physical world.
We are created to be creatures. We are created to be creatures, nothing more and nothing less. In the parlance of our Psalm and that of our Gospel, we are sheep. We are sheep in relation to Christ who is our shepherd.
a. Psalm 23 – “You Are with Me”
The Psalm mentions God’s name twice: in the very first and the very last verses. In other words, it is God who surrounds us, who provides for us room for living. It is God who sees to it that we are not in want: providing for us food, water, vitality, and safe paths to walk. In the very middle of this Psalm, the author breaks away from third person speech to address God directly. The Psalm’s central affirmation is this, “you are with me,” (Psalm 23:4). We are who we are only in relationship with this God, only as we accept our role as God’s sheep, only as we avail ourselves of God’s provision and refrain from going it on our own. We are God’s creatures, God’s sheep.
b. We Stand with Other Members of Flock
We are creatures who stand with the other members of the flock. How dangerous it is to leave that flock and think that we can go it alone. Only as we acknowledge our vulnerability and see life in relation with others is there life, abundance, and security.
We are relational beings. Nothing qualitatively sets us apart from and above others. We are meant to live in relationship with others. As one person wrote, “To be a creature, to know oneself to be a creature, and to be glad in one’s creaturehood: this comes at lease close to the heart of the matter, for Christians,” (Douglas John Hall, Proclaiming the Faith, page 337).
2. Dominion
If this is the case, then doesn’t the vocation God gave us—that of having “dominion”—contradict this notion of “being-with”?
a. God’s Dominion Is Embodied in Jesus – Self-Giving
Well, how does God exercise God’s dominion? Is it simply to be the Almighty God, the one who exercises unconditional power over the world? Or is God’s dominion displayed in the act of Jesus’ self-giving: as God’s Son leaves behind the glory of his name and enters the world as a human being, who enters fully into the darkness of our lives as humans, even to taking up our death and abandonment by God? As the author of First John said, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us,” (1 John 3:16).
b. Dominion as Sacrificial Servanthood
How do we understand “dominion”? Let me set two passages alongside each other: one from Psalm 8 that speaks of our dominion, and the other from our reading from John (see Douglas John Hall, Professing the Faith, page 351). In Psalm 8, we read, “You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,” (Psalm 8:6-7). In the gospel, Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,” (John 10:11). God’s dominion is embodied in Jesus’ sacrificial servanthood, even to a world that has turned its back on God.
c. Dominion as Stewardship – God Created Us to Suit the Requirements of the Earth
Yes, God created us to exercise dominion. But dominion is stewardship. Dominion is ministry among the suffering of the world. Dominion is service to the created world. God has created us to suit the requirements of the earth. As one person said, the question God asked before creating humanity was this, “What sort of creature shall I need to do justice to this kind of world?” (Douglas John Hall, Professing the Faith, pages 348-349). We were created with creation’s needs in mind. This a far cry from our assumption that the world was created with our needs in mind.
God rejoices in us when we are sheep. God rejoices in us when we exercise dominion in serving the needs of each other and of the world.
III. CONCLUSION
A. From Substance to Relation
1. Substance Thinking Is Destructive
Our culture is so mired in thinking in terms of having some special substance that sets us “apart” from others and “above” others. It is so mired in thinking that “dominion” means exercising mastery and control over creation. It is a view that is destructive of community, of our individual lives, and of the planet.
2. Relational Thinking Brings Hope
To dare to see our lives and the world through the relational perspective of Scripture is to radically rethink everything. It is to see ourselves as being who we are only when we accept the fact that we are in relationship with God, in relationship with each other, and in relationship with the whole world. It is to see ourselves as existing for the benefit and the wholeness of others, no longer for our own self-fulfillment. If we wish to preserve the planet, we must begin by rethinking who we are and what our vocation is.
3. Rejoice in Just Being “Sheep”
This is a liberating word for a world caught up either in some false bravado about being in control, or seeing our failings and thinking that we are even worse than animals. It is liberating when we can stop trying to be shepherds and start begin sheep alongside other sheep. It is liberating when we can let God be the Shepherd. Only then will we be able to pick up and find meaning in Psalm 23 at times other than funerals.
