The Lord is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want
Sermon - April 21, 2002
Have congregation repeat "I shall not want. I shall not want. Etc."
No matter how much we tell ourselves this,,,, we really do want dont we? Volunteers for true confession what do you want? (congregation sharing their wants) When we say I SHALL NOT WANT isnt like we are trying to convince ourselves? Is "shall" kind of like a combination of will but "also" of "should" I will not want, but I also should not want. Or is it more like "thou shalt not" as in the Lord commands us not to want, yet we do?
What? How can this be? As Christians, do we declare the Lord to be our Shepherd? (wait for response) Then what is our problem? Then why do we seem to lack so much? What is so attractive and addictive and dangerous about desire and want?
And what about this image of being sheep? Do we find that image attractive? Why dont we want to be sheep and graze all day and fill our bellies, content behind a fence. Perhaps we do not want to be sheep because we want to believe we are captain of our own destiny, bowed down to no master, yet by living out of our wants we too often act our of our animal side caring only for food, sex, safety, affirmation.
I remember well the youthful longings I felt when I was a young woman. I remember sitting on the roof of my college apartment on a warm late spring evening in Chicago and writing over and over in big capital letters in my journal I want I want I want but at that time of course I never knew quite what and I did everything to avoid feeling that deep longing. I medicated it, as many do, with alcohol, drugs, relationships, rock and roll. As I got older I tried to find other answers for that deep want therapy, graduate school, work, philosophy but of course that "god shaped hole" was not filled until I came to know Jesus in my late twenties. Jesus became my Shepherd, so why do I still want?
Lets look a little more at this sheep and Shepherd image
Biblical scholars tend to see the story of the sheep and the Shepherd as an allegory for what had taken place right before it the blind man who ran up against the Pharisees and who was healed by Jesus. The blind man is the sheep and Jesus is the Shepherd and the Pharisees are the thieves and robbers. Robert Gundry writes in Survey of the New Testament: PAGE 155
The biblical ground has been well laid for this story to have many deep meanings. Throughout the Old Testament there are allusions to sheep and they are almost always referred to as being lost and scattered and without a Shepherd. Zechariah 13:7 declares "Strike the Shepherd and the sheep will be scattered" as foreshadowing of what will happen to Christ and the disciples for example. Throughout the Old Testament, the image of the Shepherd is a powerful image of the coming Messiah.
By Jesus time, the Jewish community had for centuries been a people without a land and without a leader. They had had prophets to warn of danger - I think that the prophets are like the porter or the hired hand who watches the sheep while the shepherd is asleep. In fact, I think that when Jesus refers to the "watchman who opens the gate for the Shepherd" he is referring to John the Baptist, the greatest of all the prophets, who directly prepared the way for Jesus.
They had corrupt religious leaders who fenced them in with strict interpretations of the law like the thieves sand robbers who snuck into the pen, causing pain and confusion and never freeing the sheep.
So we have the image of sheep who are penned in, beset by enemies wolves and thieves and robbers and are abandoned by the hired hands. They recognized the familiar voice of the Shepherd and are lead out into freedom and fulfillment with sheep from other pens. Jesus is talking to a people who also have been penned in by conquering nations from Babylon to Rome and by the strict Jewish law. They have been beset by the dangers of the surrounding pagan society on the one hand and the self-righteous law-following of the pharisees on the other. They have rejected the prophets who have warned them of their danger, but never saved them, because the prophets were not the messiah.
Now we have the image of a Shepherd the sheep recognize his voice and in the absence of the hired hand he stretches out across the gate to sleep keeping the wolves and robbers away then leads them out of the pen to a lush green pasture in the morning. So too do the Jews have a Messiah who lays down his life to protect them from the danger of sin and the fallenness of the world, then takes up his life again to lead them, along with gentiles and other strangers to them, to abundant, eternal life.
So, for us, for whom the Shepherd, as well as many faithful sheep, have gone before us what are we to do?
More true confessions: I used to go to a lot of Grateful Dead concerts. For those of you who do not know what this is - for almost 30 years the Dead were a rock and roll band with a huge community of followers it was a community of faith in the bands leader, Jerry Garcia, complete with lots of rich traditions and rules and a frenzied, worship like atmosphere. One of the famous things about the concerts was that hundreds of thousands of fans would drive to each concert, even if only tens of thousands could actually get in to the see the show. Just being in the carnival atmosphere of the parking lot, near to the legendary band members, was considered worthwhile. Thousands of fans would walk around with a finger or two in the air, indicating how many tickets they were looking for hoping a scalper or someone would have a ticket for them. If you were one of the lucky ones to get a ticket, you would have to stand in long lines waiting to get through the narrow turnstiles and past the security people in to the show. While standing in these lines, someone would often start "baaing" like a sheep and the crowd would join in and a deafening chorus of "baa baa baa" would fill the air. There was always this sense that the reason we were baaing was because we were being made to feel like sheep we were animals ignorantly herded by evil corporate moneymakers who insisted on terrible things such as tickets and crowd control. If the Deadheads had their way they would be no fences and no tickets and no rules, just free love and anarchy set to the music of the Grateful Dead. In my idealist youth, I was impressed by such simplistic philosophy, though I of course I knew that social conventions like controls for mobs was necessary. When the baaing happened there was a feeling of community we are all in this together, protesting the limitations put on us.
At one Dead show in Saratoga NY, my friend Lauren and I were not able to get a ticket, but, along with others, we discovered we could hear it pretty well if we went into the woods in back of the outdoor concert hall. So we took a blanket, some food, probably some drink, and headed into the woods to find a spot to hang out during the concert, following just outside the fence surrounding the concert area. We felt freed from the baaing crowds who had managed to get inside, but we also felt a little left out and lonely. After a little while, some other people came by and told us where there was a hole in the fence. All of us snuck through the unguarded fence and found ourselves on the inside, even though we didnt have a ticket elated we ran into the crowd, dancing as close as we could get to the band.
SO what were we? Well, we had gone over the fence we were thieves and robbers. We had illegally snuck into the concert and robbed the corporate moneymakers of our measly $20 bucks (concerts were cheap back then!). But we were not thieves who were there to steal the sheep we were not Pharisees or false prophets or hired hands. We were simply lost sheep trying to get back in the pen. We were aching from want, and that concert, with its whirling colors, dancing crowd, the feeling of belonging, the camaraderie filled us up for the moment just like a bale of hay will sustain a penned in sheep.
But we didnt have the ticket. We were not there legitimately. The only ticket that would fulfill our real needs, the only water that would quest our real thirst, the only Shepherd that would give us real freedom, is Jesus. Though we liked his voice, and heard in it some of our own struggles, Jerry Garcia was only another sheep, another blind man leading the blind. Jesus Christ was and is and always will be the Shepherd whose voice will lead forth the sheep and fulfill their needs.
So back to what we talked about in the beginning. We in the church have acknowledged Jesus to be the Shepherd, but we dig our heels in when he starts making us lie down in green pastures and leading us beside still waters. If there is some one here today who is not sure if they know Jesus the Good Shepherd, someone who thinks that you might recognize the voice of Jesus but have not yet followed him out of the prison of your heart and desires, please talk to me or anyone of us after the service to learn more about following Jesus
But for those of us who have acknowledged Jesus to be our savior and Shepherd, what do we need to do? What is it about us who, though we do not like the unflattering image of being a penned up domesticated sheep, still run straight back into the ways of living and wanting that pen us in? I am reminded of my stubbornness sometimes when I watch my son Carter, who at 11 months doesnt know the meaning of delayed gratification he wants to put his finger in the electrical outlet and he wants to do it with every ounce of strength in his small body. A friend of ours has a daughter the same age who goes to a daycare center. The daycare teachers send progress reports home about her that talk about how "goal oriented" she is that is one thing to call it I call it flat out stubborn WANT with a capital W as in "I want NOW". Of course my job as a parent is to keep Carter from putting his fingers in the outlet, to put gates up across the stairs, to have allowed my body to be the gate through which he entered this world, and my love and concern to be the gate through which he survives in this world.
So why do we reject the comfort of God, the care of Christ, the still water, the green pasture. I think there are several problems that are related to this and to each other.
Problem #1 - We are too wealthy. We are so surrounded by material comfort that we become obsessed with wanting. The truth is I have never really wanted for anything in my life. I have never suffered anything like what Pastor Fohle and his people in the Congo have suffered. I have never been without food, health care, shelter. My life has never been in danger, at least not danger that was not self inflicted.
Problem #2 Because of our material comfort here and now, we do not have a well-developed vision for heaven. African Christians and African American Christians and poor Appalachian mountain Christians and others have suffered and so they have developed a deep sense of deliverance and eternal life. They all wrote great music that reflects this. African American and bluegrass gospel music has always had a heavenward perspective: Today we sang: "Soon and very soon we are going to see the king no more crying there, we are going to see the king" which is a black spiritual. "Troubles and Trials often betray those causing the weary body to stray, but we shall walk beside the still waters with the good Shepherd leading the way" is the first line of "Green Pastures" that we sang today - a traditional Appalachian mountain song.
Problem #3 - We do not have sufficient faith we do not really believe that we are living in the kingdom of God. Fresh green grass is all around us and we are still looking for the stale old haybale we ate from before Jesus let us out of the pen. We are still trying to fill up the emptiness inside, instead of letting Jesus erase the empty hole in our hearts.
Problem #4 We are not sufficiently spiritually disciplined - There are thieves and robbers all around us and we have not developed the intellectual or spiritual tools to keep them from making us confused. We follow political ideologies. We internalize cultural messages. We believe what we hear on TV. We justify our behavior.
But there is lots of hope. Because all we need to do is look to Jesus and we will feel the fences fall down around us and we will recognize the green grass and we will hear the still water, we will eat of the feast, even if we are surrounded by enemies.
There is such a thing as desire and want which is good. Following Jesus means that we shall not want, but while we are in a world that has not yet fully been redeemed, we CAN and SHOULD want to be co-laborers building the kingdom of God. I believe that many people, even if they are not following Jesus, walk along his path for a few steps. Some behaviorists and other philosophers would tell us otherwise, that all human effort is selfishly motivated. Maybe so. But by the grace of God, great art, social institutions, and good neighbors working together for the common good do accomplish things. Although we may know that death ultimately wipes out all human achievement, we can still want to save the Karner blue butterfly from extinction, or we can still want to let a pair of eagles nest more that we want an airport access road, and we can make it happen.
So when we find ourselves wanting, all we need to do is fix our eyes on the Shepherd and ask ourselves this important question do I want this particular want in order to fill an empty void in my heart, or do I want this want to drive me to depend on Jesus in a deeper way and to work with him to build the kingdom of God on earth?
Tina Abramson