Shepherding
Officiating Mary Hunt’s memorial yesterday was an honor.
It’s always an honor to remember a life. When the person who has passed and is being remembered is so dearly loved, the work of the pastor is especially
meaningful. Indeed, this part of the pastor’s work is a sacred privilege. It is
humbling to serve as a kind of conduit for a community of loved ones, friends,
and family, and their remembrance and honoring of a life that has passed.
Do you the etymology – the root of the word – of pastor? Pastor
is a Latin-based word meaning shepherd. The pastor in literal terms amounts to
a shepherd of a church community.
At the memorial, whether folks knew it or not, there were a
couple examples of the work of shepherding. One common element of the memorial service
is the pastor reading the 23rd Psalm. Virtually every memorial I’ve
officiated – and I’ve officiated a lot as a hospice chaplain and a parish
minister – has included the reading of the 23rd Psalm. And how does
that Psalm begin?
The Lord is my Shepherd… In other words, the Lord is my
pastor. It is an occasion where the pastor and the congregation are united. and God serves both as the congregation’s and the pastor’s pastor. How comforting it is for
the pastor in this case. The pastor grieves too, after all.
To know I have in
God herself a pastor, a shepherding figure who I can rely on, who I feel
comforted by, who offers me a compassionate presence – “priceless,” as that old
credit card commercial used to end with.
There is another element in yesterday’s service that spoke
to me and reminded me of the way of the shepherd. In the funeral procession to
the cemetery, I was directly behind the hearse in the processional to the
burial site. Being directly
behind the one we just remembered reminded me of the way of shepherd
leadership.
When guiding his or her flock to the paddock, the flock’s
home, the shepherd does so from behind. Sheep are guided
by the shepherd’s rod and staff and by her voice that comes from behind.
Leading from behind is important for one significant reason.
Only from behind can the shepherd see if a sheep goes astray or if sheep are
headed toward danger.
Maybe you remember the famous parable Jesus gives about a
shepherd and a lost sheep. It is short and so I will simply read that parable
from Luke 15:
4 “Suppose
one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the
ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on
his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he
calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have
found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in
the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents
than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
The way a shepherd usually knows that a
sheep has wandered off and gets lost is that he or she sees that sheep actually
wander off. Interestingly, the sheep that most often wander off and get lost are
those sheep who run ahead. The sheep that run ahead are most at risk of
getting lost because the shepherd is focused on guiding those at the back of the
flock. By the time the shepherd gets to the sheep who’ve run ahead and wandered
off, sometimes they get lost.
Nonetheless, the good shepherd doesn’t give up on
any sheep. He will find them one way or another, even if it's just one that goes astray.
What a
beautiful picture of Jesus here! The Lord Jesus is our good shepherd, and he
doesn’t give up on any of us. Not one is left behind!
This reference to Jesus as the good
shepherd, it also comes from the Gospel of John. Jesus himself says that’s what
he is. John 10:11 says, “ I am the good shepherd. The good
shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
Today’s lectionary reading from the Gospel
of John offers us an interesting paradox in this regard. John the Baptist sees
Jesus coming and says, “Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the
world.”
Christ, the good shepherd is also the lamb of God.
And all the while, the Lord God - Yahweh - is our shepherd as well. Jesus himself would have known
Psalm 23, recited it to himself, and meant it – the Lord God was Jesus’ shepherd, too.
How can this
be? What does this all mean?
Well, we see the story of Christ’s divinity
in the seeming paradox of the Lord God being our shepherd and Christ being both the good
shepherd and the lamb of God.
The Lord is our shepherd. Hence, we humans
are akin to God’s sheep. When Christ comes into the world, he comes in the form
of a human. He becomes one of us. He enters and joins us. He becomes a lamb, a
young sheep, and dwells among us.
Yet, Christ is also the Good Shepherd in the
likeness of the divine shepherd of Psalm 23. But the Lord Jesus is a shepherd who
is also a lamb. Divinity and humanity, heavenly and earthly, godly shepherd on earth and human follower of the heavenly shepherd’s way. Divine, human one, Christ our Lord.
See, the shepherd was the one to provide the
temple a lamb to atone for the sin of the people, an ancient
practice that thankfully no longer is practiced.
But Christ, the good shepherd, forgoes this ancient practice of animal sacrifice. In fact, he aims to end this
ghastly practice of animal sacrifice once and for all. He, the shepherd,
becomes a lamb.
Not only to save real lamb and other animals
used to atone for sins.
He pays the ultimate cost to protect and save his disciples who were at risk of
being executed like he was. The shepherd Christ lays down his life as a lamb
and does so for his sheep, his followers, to protect them, to assure that they live
and know eternal life.
To close, I return to the memorial yesterday
where we celebrated and honored the life of Mary Hunt who was so special to
this church and to members of this church.
The first scripture I read was, as I
mentioned, the 23rd Psalm. Recall the words. The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want… Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I shall fear no evil for thou art with me… thy rod and staff they comfort me…
To close the service, Steve, who has
sung for us here, sang The Old Rugged Cross. There is a line in the hymn that
goes like this: “the dear Lamb of God left His glory above, To bear it
to dark Calvary.”
That’s it in a nutshell. The shepherd left glory and
privilege behind to lead us in the most powerful of ways, by protecting us and
saving us from harm as a selfless lamb.
Let us like John the Baptist, raise our
voices and proclaim, that Jesus, the one from
Nazareth, this good shepherd, this holy lamb, is God’s chosen one. And let us
like the writer of the book of Revelation, the same writer of the Gospel of
John, worship this One, our brother, our father, singing, “For the Lamb in the
center of the throne will be our shepherd. He will lead us to springs of living
water, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.’” Amen.
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