Christ United Presbyterian Church, The Fourth Sunday in Easter May 11, 2014 "The Darkest Valley" Psalm 23; I Peter 2: 19-25; John 10:1-10

I am usually a lectionary preacher.  That means that I follow a scripture schedule known as the Revised Common Lectionary.  It provides a three-year cycle for preachers.  The main purpose is to try and ensure that preachers don’t just jump around and preach on whatever happens to be on their mind every week.  Instead the lectionary provides a discipline requiring us to study and understand the assigned scriptures.  In theory, the lectionary touches on all the major scriptural points in both the Old and New Testaments over the course of the three year cycle. Each year also brings about a near complete reading of either Matthew, Mark or Luke.

This is Year A of the three year Common Lectionary cycle.  In Year A, the 23^rd Psalm is used three times in close proximity: the Fourth Sunday in Lent, the Fourth Sunday in Easter, and the 18^th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 23).  It’s unusual that a passage is used that often in one year of the cycle.

The theme of sheep and shepherds is a frequent one in scripture.  I’m not sure how many of us understand that metaphor any more.  In addition, in traditional Jewish thought the shepherd was a representation of a good, wise and powerful king.  I don’t think that we often think in terms of “the shepherd” when we picture leaders in our mind today.  So when Jesus uses this terminology, he is really saying that he is the true king.

Familiarity with scripture is a good thing, and it can also be a bad thing.  It can be the basis for genuine understanding, or it can be the basis for contempt.  When we hear something – the same thing – over and over we have a tendency to stop questioning its significance for our life. We think that we know all that it has to say to us because we can say it from memory.  I suspect that a great many of you could recite from memory the 23^rd Psalm in King James English.

For some reason we want to think that physical comfort and security should be the result of our faithfully following the shepherd.  That’s not what the 23^rd Psalm says.  It assures us of spiritual comfort and the continuing presence of God even as we go through hard times.

In the Gospel Jesus talks about the security of the sheepfold.  Once inside, the sheep are kept safe by the gatekeeper and perhaps even by their own shepherd.  Some of us want to think of that kind of comfortable security as the result of our faith in Jesus.  He locks us up somewhere safe from the snares and dangers of the world. 

Back in New York City at 73th Street and Broadway in Manhattan,  there is a bank building that was built in 1928.  In those days banks were designed as free-standing, classical style buildings to convey financial stability and integrity.  In fact some of the banks built in that period can only be described in religious terms.  They were mammoth structures often meant to look like ancient temples.  This particular on at 73^rd and Broadway is truly awe inspiring.  As you enter the bank you walk into a massive room with a vaulted ceiling that is 4 or more stories high decorated in gilt. 

On September 4, 1929, a year after the opening of the bank, the Great Depression began.  Things would never be the same.  People learned that the architecture of a bank had nothing to do with the comfort or security that they wanted to feel regarding their money.  Bank design changed after the Great Depression.

It seems to me that some church buildings were designed with that same logic in mind. 

Yes, I know all the arguments about architectural grandeur meant to reflect the glory of God, but I suspect that frequently the grandeur of some church buildings was meant to reflect the wealth and power of the congregation in the same way that bank buildings were meant to make you feel good about the safety of your money.  If you worshipped God in that building then you must really be a person of strong faith. 

I suspect that more than one member of some of those churches also felt that God would be happier with them because they worshipped in a place of such grandeur.  This was the sheepfold that they had built and God would keep them confortable and secure.  It affirmed the truth of their faith when they entered those sanctuaries regardless of what their lives were like in the outside world.  God would have to bless their lives if they worshipped God so grandly!

If you want to know more about God’s view of that, I refer you to Amos chapter 5.

Let me come back to John 10 and Psalm 23.  What struck me this time as I read John 10 was the fact that the shepherd doesn’t just tuck his sheep safely into the sheepfold.  That’s perhaps where they sleep.  Verses 3 and 4 say:

3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 

The shepherd calls them by name and leads them out of the safety and security of the sheepfold.  His sheep follow him out into the world.  They don’t stay tucked into the fold.  They venture out into the world to wherever the shepherd leads them.  Their faith in the shepherd is not shown by the comfort of life in the sheepfold.  Their faith in the shepherd is shown by their willingness to follow him out into the world.

Where does the shepherd lead them?   Through the darkest valleys according to the 23^rd Psalm.  You see when you follow the Lord along paths of righteousness, paths that ultimately lead to the house of the Lord, you will go through some very dark valleys.  You will face enemies, foes who will put your very life in jeopardy. 

And that brings me to the lesson from I Peter.  There’s not much about comfort or security or material rewards and wealth in that lesson.

“ … if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. [I Peter 2:20]”  Jesus said he came to bring us life lived fully, abundantly. So what gives?

We are called by name by the shepherd to come out into the world.  We are called by the shepherd to follow him.  In I Peter 2 we read:

²³When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.²⁴He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 

He didn’t suffer for us so that we might enjoy a life of comfort and wealth and leisure.  He set us free so that we might live following his example; so that we would walk in his footsteps; so that we might live for righteousness; so that we might have a trusting and loving relationship with God who will never abandon us even in the darkest valet, even before our enemies. 

If that is what you are seeking; if that is the way you wish to walk; if his are the footsteps in which you want place your feet; then Psalm 23 is a prayer of comfort.  If that kind of life is not what you are seeking, then Psalm 23 has nothing to do with you.  If you are someone who thinks that all you have to do is say: “Jesus is my Lord and Savior” and then coast through life callously and hard-heartedly ignoring the needs of God’s children, then Psalm 23 was never meant for you.  And you will never understand the parables in John 10. 

Christ triumphed over death to show us the path to God; the ways of righteousness; the road to the house of the Lord.  Finding our way down that road is up to us.  He has left us a pretty clear roadmap.  Showing us how to treat people with kindness and equity and justice is why he died: so that we might live for righteousness sake; knowing that the presence of God is the only source of abundant life is what he tried to teach us. 

The rest is up to us.

Amen.