The Shepherd

(Sheep on Iona)

In his commentary on the Book of Common Prayer (USA, 1928) Dr. Shepherd includes his remarks on the 23rd Psalm, possibly the most beloved and best-known in the Psalter:

Psalm xxiii. This Psalm is appointed in all the recent Prayer Books, and its selection needs no explanation. It is one of the first devotions every child of a Christian family learns by heart. It teaches us, by way of two simple but unforgettable pictures of the Shepherd (vs. 1-4) and of the Host (vs. 5-6), God's loving care and providence for each of His own creatures.

The figure of God as a Shepherd is very common in the Psalms and the Prophets (cf. Isaiah xl.11, xlix.9-11, Micah vii.14), and our Lord applied it to Himself (John x.1.ff.; cf. Heb. xiii.20, 1 Pet. ii.25, v.4).

The shepherd's devoted nurture and protection of his flock is a parable of God's guidance of us into 'green pastures' of spiritual nourishment and refreshment and of His safe deliverance of us from 'dark valleys' of danger and temptation. Each single lamb or sheep is as much beloved by the shepherd as his whole flock, and no exertion of the shepherd is spared in order to save and rescue one that is lost (cf. Matt. xviii.12-14; Luke xv.3-7).

Similarly in the figure of the Host, God's provident and protective care is pictured both materially, in His supply of more than we need, and spiritually, in the continual joy of His worship and service.

Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr., The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary, Oxford, 1950, section on the rite "Burial of a Child" p. 338-339 of the Book of Common Prayer.

Psalm 23 Dominus regit me (Coverdale/1662 version)

The LORD is my shepherd; *

therefore can I lack nothing.

He shall feed me in a green pasture, *

and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.

He shall convert my soul, *

and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness for his

Name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil; *

for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff comfort me.

Thou shalt prepare a table before me in the presence of them

that trouble me; *

thou hast anointed my head with oil,

and my cup shall be full.

Surely thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the

days of my life; *

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Psalm 23 King James Version

The LORD is my shepherd; *

I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; *

he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul; *

he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his

Name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil; *

for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of

mine enemies; *

thou anointest my head with oil;

my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days

of my life, *

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

In the Church's worship these last two verses have been mystically interpreted as referring to the heavenly banquet of the Messiah in His eternal Kingdom, of which the Eucharist is the earnest (cf. Luke xxii.24-30).

Op. cit., 339.

It seems especially poignant to me that this Psalm should have been specified, and commented upon, in the context of the Burial of a Child. It is also in the ordination rite of a bishop...

In the context of the Burial of a Child we are reminded that we are child, too, each of us, and ultimately in the care of the Good Shepherd who will see us safely home. That is reassurance.

In the meantime we are guided, and sometimes chastised, (thy rod comforteth me?) by that Good Shepherd. 

In times of trouble or danger, this, and the Lord's Prayer, and possibly the prayers of the rosary, if you are catholic, and possibly one or two passages of Saint Paul, come to mind - and breath. If you were going to memorize anything you would, and possibly did, begin with this psalm and Our Father...

Our Father, who art in heaven,
    hallowed be thy Name,
    thy kingdom come,
    thy will be done,
        on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
    as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
    for ever and ever. Amen.

When a visitor came to the church a couple of hours early, just to have a look around inside a building he had often passed by, he came to the lectern and saw the psalm appointed for that morning was the 23rd. He said, he had learned it at the age of four and could recite it from the heart - and did.

If we were to carry around 'mass cards' with the picture of the church or of its patron saint Paul with us, we would probably want this prayer - and this psalm, until and whenever we needed their comfort and their sturdy encouragement.

The two passages from the letters of the Apostle Paul that come to mind are these:

Philippians 2:4-11

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
   and gave him the name
   that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
   every knee should bend,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
   that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father. 


Romans 8:31-39

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
     ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
        we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14

AProper23 

Pentecost XIX 2017 October 15th. St. Paul's, Tombstone. JRL+  

(Sheepfold on Iona)

Sheepfold on Iona, photograph by Allen Morris, 2014. 
https://stjohnswoodblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sheepfold-iona.jpg?w=416&h=619 
accessed October 13, 2017.

Sheep on Iona. http://www.fotothing.com/photos/839/839b4d83e529f715196a969c1a8eb320_ee2.jpg accessed October 13, 2017.

Independence

“You mean to tell me they changed the Hymnal too?!??”

That was my friend Christopher’s response. I had just showed him something he hadn’t seen before: The Hymnal 1982. And just before that, he’d shown me his beloved copy of … Hymnal 1940. I kind of laughed at him. And called him Rip Van Christopher. It had been so long since he’d been to church that he ‘missed the memo’ on all the changes after the adoption of the 1979 prayer book.

Rip Van… was actually kind of appropriate. Just imagine how Christopher would have felt if he’d gone to sleep, beloved prayer book and hymnal in hand, in 1770 or so, and woke up in 1790.

AAAGGH!

The response would be shock – anguish – even disgust. Certainly disorientation.

Not immediately – but once they got to the prayers of the people – and the prayer for the King was replaced by a prayer for the President. President? What’s that? Some kind of meeting facilitator? Is there a whiteboard in the house? Some group-process newsprint? What is going on!!?

Change happens from time to time. Even in the church.

But every once in awhile there comes a time of change. Even to the hymnal. Or the prayer book…

In the summer of 1776 the pastor of Christ Church, Philadelphia, I am told, got the news from down the street, from the building now called Independence Hall:

“When in the Course of human events…”

And so he took out his pen and his prayer book and found the places in the prayers where the sovereign and the royal family were mentioned, and he struck out “king” and wrote “president”… so I am told.

As Massey Shepherd put it, “At the time of the American Revolution the English Book of 1662 was in use, of course, in all the Anglican churches in the colonies. The success of the Revolution necessitated changes in the prayers for civil rulers…” (OAPBC, xx)

What a shock it would have been to a man reared on the prayer book of 1662 – and its strong foundation in an established church of England. And now only just over a hundred years later, with the memory of King Charles’ head and the ghost of Bonnie Prince Charlie thought safely laid to rest, there was an upheaval – a revolution.

From now on, no established church at all – not yours or mine.

We can only imagine …

… Imagine a world when something new was coming into being, and something old was lost.

Maybe it isn’t that hard after all. Not this summer...

Sometimes we lose something precious – and sometimes, when we realize what we are going to say good-bye to, we are glad to see it go. It could be a practice – or it could be an attitude. It could be a prejudice – or an unexamined presumption.

No matter.

Time to let it go.

In times of great change, Herb O’Driscoll once said, we can be mourners of the past or midwives of the future.

We are in the midst of change. Today – and all our lives.

Sometimes like my friend Christopher the change comes as a shock, the cherished object suddenly an heirloom of a past. A past we hardly knew as past.

Disbelief? Comic incredulity on our faces… but it’s gone.

How are we to live now?

Imagine him coming home, the son of Mary, coming home to Nazareth. We all know him, the carpenter. We know his brothers – name four – and his sisters. We know the little house where he grew up, the stone across the door, the Roman pavement out front where he’d play in the street, as a little boy. And now he says the world is about to change – he, of all people.

Where did he get all this?

What he says to us is worse yet – outrageous!

Repent – and repent means turning. Change your ways.

This repentance will not be televised, or announced in the town square. It will begin within you.

It will go beyond you. It will gather thousands to riverbank and hillside. To hear him of all people proclaim the good news.

Good news, my friends, is not always welcome.

That is certainly the case with Jesus, that day in his hometown.

He even wisecracked – in response to their incredulity – with the commonplace, a prophet is not without honor except in his own country.

And he had brought the message home. They did not know him as a prophet. They did not know him as a messenger of God. They knew him as a little boy, and as a man handy with his hands.

But now those hands were at other work than carpentry. They healed the sick with a touch. They cast out demons. They carried the good news with them of the coming of the kingdom of God.

It goes beyond “strike out king and write president”. There is more going on than replacing one George (the Third) with another (Washington). It is a whole new way of being.

Strike out self and write Messiah. Strike out empire and write Shalom. Strike out sin and judgment and write love and grace. War – and write peace.

Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Acceptance – and welcome – of the stranger, and of yourself.

Where there was no trust – most of the people of Nazareth that day Jesus came home – there was no healing. Only where there was trust – where people believed in him enough to come to him – did Jesus do any healing work that day. From there, however, he went on – and took disciples, students, with him.

We know that to them he gave authority – and they carried on the work in his name.

Out there in the villages they found belief, and trust, and hope – not everywhere – and they brought healing, cast out fear, and said the words of hope, and of change.

Change – turn – repent. And believe. And know that the kingdom has come among you. Peace be with you. Shalom.

Friedrich Schleiermacher somewhere defines religion as a sense of absolute dependence, that is, dependence on God (the absolute!) and that is good news, that is liberty, and true independence.

In his service is perfect freedom. Because we are dependent absolutely on him there is no need for fear of earthly powers. The prophets could speak out knowing the one they spoke for was their only security (truly the only one there is).

Because the Lord is my shepherd, my shepherd-king, I need fear no principality or power. Despite all his wanderings and all his torments and all his protests – boasts as he calls them – of these humiliations as qualifications for his apostleship, Paul knows his one true home is in Christ. That is where his safety is.

That is why power is made perfect in weakness. Sheltering in the cleft of the rock that is faith, clinging to that solidity that is paradoxical weakness, we are empowered – and free.

And so we celebrate our Independence Day. We celebrate independence from not only the sovereign of Great Britain or some other empire, but independence – liberation – from the kingdom of anxiety that would hold us in its sway.

And in that perfect freedom we too can go out into the world, taking no credit to ourselves for our security, but understanding that every step we take we are in the presence and power and under the mercy of the living God.

“Take no staff for the journey.” – I used to like this one. I thought it meant being independent, stepping out in faith. Kind of like a long-distance hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail. Or – always relying on “the kindness of strangers” – like the guy who wants a free ticket to a Dead show, holding up a sign that says, “I need a miracle.”

But take no bread, no money, no spare tunic – it does not mean taking a plunge like a bungee jumper hoping God will hold you up – or extraordinary coincidence.

It means acknowledging your dependence, accepting your weakness, admitting your need – and your connectedness.

You are not alone. Not any more, not if you have brothers and sisters in faith. Not alone – if you have an awareness that in your weakness is an openness to the strength of God.

“It is when we accept our weakness that the power of Christ is best able to dwell in us.” (Brinton, 120) God does not call the equipped; God equips the willing.

“My grace is sufficient for you...” … And in fact our dependence is absolute. In a sense that is what religion is – recognition of our dependence… on the Absolute.

We are so used to Self-Reliance, to trying to be independent. “Take care of yourself,” we say – when it is not ultimately possible. For a while, you can ride the range alone – but where are you going? Why are you out there in the first place?

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So power comes through the indwelling of God. My own power is nothing – my weakness is no more than a gift.

I am made whole in his brokenness. I am made strong when I accept that I am weak indeed, save for his grace. Amazing grace.

We have to be humble before one being – the ultimate one – and be grace receivers. It’s so much easier to hold on to pride as a grace giver – but we have nothing to give that we have not first received – and we have received no gift that we are not to pass on. 

The gifts we receive from the hand of Jesus are not to cherish, hold onto, or brag about. 

They are to use – and ultimately they become gifts in the giving. The gifts from God are gifts for others. (The church is only the church if it is for others.) 

The disciples, the first students of rabbi Jesus, fanned out among the villages on his mission – to call for repentance (that is, turning), to heal, to cast out – and perfect love casts out fear – to proclaim in word and deed the coming-in kingdom of God.

In all they do in those early days – casting out, healing, and preaching – they are heralding something new. As they were sent out, we are sent, too, into God’s world, to live and proclaim and be the good news. A change is coming. And it is good.

We are called to respond by a complete change of heart – of direction.

Good news is not always welcome, but whether it is received or not, be faithful in the giving. Speak the good news, but even more, be the good news. 

Then having done your work as if everything depended on you, leave the rest to God. (Mother Teresa of Calcutta)

_________________________

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/book-of-common-prayer/the-order-for-morning-prayer.aspx

http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1789/BCP_1789.htm

2 Corinthians 12:2-10 

Mark 6:1-13 

Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, 1979)

"... thy kingdom come..." 

http://stalbansedmonds.org/worship/ click on: Herbert O’Driscoll – 10:30 Service January 31, 2010

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:17-18)

“The common element in all religious affections, and thus the essence of piety, is this: the consciousness of our absolute dependence, i.e. the feeling of dependence on God.”  Schleiermacher, Friedrich. D.M. Baillie (Translator). The Christian Faith in Outline. 1831. http://www.egs.edu/library/friedrich-schleiermacher/quotes/ accessed July 2, 2015. Pastor Stephen Springer of Dove of Peace Lutheran Church, Tucson, provided this definition from memory during text study last week; the reference verifies his recollection.

Henri G. Brinton, New Proclamation, Year B, 2009. Easter to Christ the King. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009. 120.

Massey H. Shepherd, Jr. The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary. New York: Oxford University Press, 1950. xx.

1. Sufficient grace. 2. Absolute dependence. 3. Self-reliance (we try to take care of ourselves, but “we are all beggars”). We are receivers of grace, of God’s hospitality. 

"God equips the willing" adage courtesy Lance Ousley.