Good Shepherd
Psalm 23; John 10:1-10; 1 Peter 1: 3-9
by Sue in Cuba, KS

A tourist watched a man driving a few sheep along a street. When the man was close enough to speak to the tourist said, “I thought that shepherds lead their sheep, not drive them the way you are. “That is true, Sir” replied the man. “I am a butcher, not a shepherd.”

Instead of driving the sheep, pushing them along, Jesus knew that a shepherd led the flock. A shepherd was out ahead of the sheep, exploring, testing, searching for water, looking for fresh grazing grounds, prepared to fight wolves or other predators.

Do you remember memorizing the 23rd Psalm? I remember learning it as a child in Sunday School. The composer of this psalm, David had been through much of the worst life can dish out. Read 11 Samuel. This prayer, the 23rd Psalm, arises from maturity. This prayer speaks to the depths, the struggles, the things that happen, the thunderbolts, the threats to and the final crisis of the human condition, death.

We may have learned it in Sunday school, but as we grow older we realize it deals with the full dimensions of our lives. It speaks to security in a troubled and threatening world. It affirms an ultimate confidence amid the shattering of all those things we count on. It testifies, finally, to faith in One who whatever life throws at us, including death itself, will, through everything, never let us go.

On this fourth Sunday of Easter, known in the church year as Good Shepherd Sunday, can you believe that? Can we be like the Psalmist, who sings with such confidence that the Lord is his shepherd? Do we know that when we go through the valley of the shadow there is One who stands with us? Can we be certain that in the face of our enemies, we have a Lord who will enable us to eat in confidence of Divine protection? David knows Divine love and hope cradle him forever--when catastrophe strikes, when death comes he rests securely in the everlasting arms. Can we really believe that?

In Littleton, Colorado tragedy struck—15 people are dead, more are injured, many more mourn. There are five Presbyterian churches in Littleton. These churches opened up their buildings for people to gather as they waited for information from the high school. The Presbytery of Denver sent in their staff to counsel with people. The Presbytery also called in a number of retired pastors to work with the grieving families and friends. God is working.

So much seems to fly in the face of that testimony. So much in our lives seems to run against it. I am intrigued, especially this morning, with the little phrase of the Psalmist, "I will fear no evil." How many of us can say that? I am thinking this morning of another fear: the fear of each other. The fear of evil that threatens us when we fail to love each other. Remember the wonderful affirmation in the letters of John: Love casts out fear, he writes. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is fear. Why? Because the evil we fear so often lies in the connections between us.

Protestants burning Catholic churches this week in Northern Ireland. Fear! Kosovo refugees driven from their homes. Fear! Fear separates cities; it throws up walls among the races; it hurts churches; it erodes families. Perfect love, says John, casts out fear. I do not know about you, but the hardest prayer it seems to me one can offer is the prayer we make for the one who does us injury, for the person who stirs us most with fear. "Gracious God," can we say it? "Gracious God, for my father, my mother, my daughter, my wife, my husband, my boss, that mysteriously estranged friend, anyone who has hurt me.

Gracious God, I pray for him or for her, that they may know your joy and peace; that this day may be one of adventure and a sure knowledge of your grace; that they may know you care for them with an unfathomable love and desire their life may point toward goodness and prosperity. Forgive my failure, my weakness, my incapacity to love; dissolve my fear in your unmerited grace and kindness and grant me the strength to love them, a task I could not do without you." Perfect love casts out evil; it casts out fear.

President Clinton began a peace initiative 1993. At the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord at the White House he invited 46 Israeli and Arab boys to attend. They ranged in age from eleven to fourteen, and spent the close of the summer together at camp in Maine sponsored by a program called "Seeds for Peace." In Maine, each boy found himself matched with another from the opposite delegation in a sort of buddy system. Each boy arrived in camp well aware and probably overflowing with the terrible history and unimaginable pain experienced by his own people. Each had some one, a parent, grandparents or siblings. Each had known the threat of terrorists; each had been immersed for all of their lives in the propaganda, the prejudices, the furious and cruel images of the other, each of them, depending where they were from, immersed in stories of the holocaust on one hand, or, on the other, the random furies and massacres on the West Bank.

An early exercise required these young boys to draw pictures of their buddies and exchange them. One of the Palestinian boys covered his picture with hearts, peace signs--and swastikas! Crisis! Blowup! One boy, a cousin of Elie Weisel, began crying hysterically. A Palestinian boy could hardly believe his eyes and his ears. After all, this young Israeli was crying for ancestors he never knew, whereas he, the Palestinian, had lost siblings and cousins, immediate family. Chaos. Devastation. The group splintered. The experiment, thought one of its planners, down the drain. Wrong! Wrong! The crisis of tears, the mutual expression of pain, the pouring out of grief, the stuttering and stumbling out of stories did not finally separate these boys--these buddies. It drew them closer together. It united them through the forces dividing them. For the first time they saw their own tears in the eyes of the other. They heard an echo of their own story spill from the lips of the other. They realized a new kinship. And before they left Washington, three of the Palestinians asked if the final day's agenda might be changed so they could visit the Holocaust museum. Love casts out fear.

Walking through the valley of the shadow, and death, separation, hatred, violence, betrayal--I will fear no evil, for you, who is Love, abide with me. We began this morning with a word about trust, a reference to the Psalmist's assurance of his being sustained by God's love and hope. We touched these last few moments on how that confidence may be a component in healing the wounds separating us. Let me close with just a brief word--and a prayer, composed by a contemporary as he faced the ultimate insecurity of a world where the worst of our fears, sickness and death, would shout at us that they have the last word. Just as we would rest in the Divine love as we seek to reconcile ourselves with those from whom we are separated, so we confess with the Psalmist, under all circumstances, that whatever happens we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. John Carmody testifies to that promise this way.

John Carmody suffered cancer and died from it. From the beginning he was labeled "terminal." In the remaining months of his life he composed a little book of prayers he called, Psalms for Times of Trouble. One of them speaks with assurance of our present and future resting place. Do not turn aside from us, O God,/ now that we call to you in need. Do not hide your face forever while we languish without comfort. You have made us to seek your face and to ask for your help. You have made us to find here on Earth no lasting city.

So you must yourself be our city the place where we love to dwell. And you must yourself be our refuge our shade in the heat of day our breeze in the cool of evening. There can be for us none but you. Without you we lack our reason to be. The best of friends cannot sustain us. The worst of enemies cannot ruin us. No matter what the circumstance you are our crux. In both good times and bad you are our measure and meaning. Be merciful to us, then, and respect what you have made. Take us from our depths into yourself-- your love from time out of mind. Make it right that for us there is you alone. Amen. I didn't footnote my sermons back then. Guidepost has had a article about "Seeds for Peace."