Sermon for April 13: “The Shepherd Who Follows Us”
The Shepherd Who Follows Us
John 10:1-10, Psalm 23, Luke 15:1-7
One of my rules in preaching is to always use my own stories – I know that if I can connect a message with something in my life, then it’s more likely to connect to you too. But rules are made to be broken, and this is one of those occasions. I’m indebted to a church member who sent me the following touching story over email, that directly relates to our topic this morning:
A mom was concerned about her kindergarten daughter walking to school. She didn’t want her mother to walk with her. She wanted to give her the feeling that she had some independence but yet know that she was safe. So she had an idea of how to handle it.
She asked a neighbor, Mrs. Goodnest, if she would please follow her to school in the mornings, staying at a distance, so she probably wouldn’t notice her. Mrs. Goodnest said that since she was up early with her toddler anyway, it would be a good way for them to get some exercise as well, so she agreed.
The next school day, Mrs. Goodnest and her little girl, Marcy, set out following behind Mary as she walked to school with another neighbor girl she knew. She did this for the whole week. As the girls walked and chatted, kicking stones and twigs, Mary’s little friend noticed the same lady was following them as she seemed to do every day all week.
Finally she said to Mary, “Have you noticed that lady following us to school all week? Do you know her?”
Mary nonchalantly replied, “Yeah, I know who she is.”
The friend said, “Well, who is she?”
“That’s just Shirley Goodnest” Mary replied, “and her daughter Marcy.”
“Shirley Goodnest? Who is she and why is she following us?”
“Well”, Mary explained, “every night my Mom makes me say the 23rd Psalm with my prayers, ‘cuz she worries about me so much. And in the Psalm, it says ‘Shirley Goodnest and Marcy shall follow me all the days of my life,’ so I guess I’ll just have to get used to it!”
Psalm 23 is a comforting Psalm for many reasons:
- It’s familiar to us – probably the next best known passage after John 3:16.
- Its images are peaceful and recall peaceful scenery.
- It’s full of images that help us understand God’s presence.
There are so many images and ideas here that are helpful to us and comforting – whether we are in a difficult time, or an easy time. We’ve talked about a lot of those in sermons before (in case you haven’t noticed, the lectionary comes to this theme once a year about this time). And honestly, when I saw that this passage had come up AGAIN, I was a little put out. This will make the fourth sermon I’ve done on this familiar Psalm… what can you say that’s new?
But as I looked over the passages relating to sheep and shepherds this week, I found something that surprised me.
The Scriptures talk about the shepherd protecting us:
- The shepherd guides us to places we can be refreshed.
- The shepherd guides us safely through difficult places.
- The shepherd lays at the door of the sheep gate to make sure that we are safely gathered.
- The shepherd defends us from enemies.
- The shepherd calls out to us so we can hear his voice.
- He even lays down his life.
These are wonderful things! They’re wonderful to think about in the context of the image of the sheep and the shepherd. And they are wonderful to think about if we translate them into our own walk with God.
But they are all based on one premise – that we are WITH the shepherd, NEAR him.
- If we are not with the shepherd, how can he lead us to places of refreshment?
- If we are not with the shepherd, how can he show us the safe path?
- If we are not with the shepherd, how can he take us into the sheep fold?
- If we are not with the shepherd, how can he stop the enemy from attacking us?
- If we are not near the shepherd, how can we recognize his voice?
- If we are not with the shepherd, what difference will it make if he lays down his life?
I looked further to see what I could find out about this truth. I looked at Isaiah 53:6 – “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquities of us all.”
That’s good and well that our iniquities are taken care of… but that still leaves us astray! How do we find the shepherd again?
It’s time to take this out of imagery and talk about real life. The sad truth is, it’s easy for us to stray from God. Even when we’ve found the Good Shepherd (or he has found us), we STILL wander away.
- Sometimes, we merely forget – we wander off, and suddenly we feel as if we’ve been abandoned… even though it was us who left.
- Sometimes, we find ourselves in the midst of a crisis, and we realize that we don’t understand God anymore.
- Mostly, though – if we care to admit it – it’s usually our own fault that we’re astray.
- We allow ourselves to be led astray because we aren’t listening to his voice carefully.
- We wander away because we desire something that we know God doesn’t want for us.
- We wander away because we realized just how hard this Christ-following is, and we didn’t feel up to the task.
Let’s face it – most of the times we end up at a distance from God are our own fault.
So what can we do? If we want to be refreshed, find a safe path, rest in the sheep fold, and be protected and reassured, it seems the task is up to US to come back to the shepherd. We have to fight our way back, watch out for pitfalls. We have to retrace our steps, figure out where we went wrong. We have to struggle and endure pain and suffering as punishment for wandering away…
…or is that the way it is?
I looked more closely still at Psalm 23, and at other passages about sheep, and I found something that took my breath away:
The shepherd comes AFTER US. And he doesn’t just come strolling after us. He doesn’t send one of his shepherdly assistants. He comes after us HIMSELF.
I think the key to this idea is in the last phrase of the Psalm – the one we heard the joke about. And joking aside, it’s the first Bible verse I can remember memorizing. For some reason that phrase always stuck in my mind… “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”
I’ve analyzed it many times – both formally and informally. I could do a study on the words “goodness,” and “mercy.” I could talk about what “all the days of my life,” and “forever” mean, and how they foreshadow our eternal life with God.
But for some reason I never thought to look carefully at one word – “FOLLOW.”
“Follow” is the Hebrew word, radaph. Strong’s Dictionary puts it concisely:
“A primitive root; to run after (usually with hostile intent):… – chase, put to flight, follow (after, on), hunt, (be under) persecute, pursue.”
“Surely goodness and mercy shall hunt me down all the days of my life.” That puts a different spin on it, doesn’t it?
And lest we think this is one isolated idea in the scripture, look at Luke 15, where the shepherd hunts down the sheep to bring him back. Look at Ezekiel 34:9-16, while set in a different context, still gives us the idea that God pursues his people, no matter where they might have scattered. And Luke 19:10 puts it succinctly: “The Son of Man came to SEEK and to save that which was lost.”
That doesn’t change the fact that we wander. And sometimes we’re afraid to be found – like Adam and Eve in the garden. We know we’ve done wrong, and we’re afraid of the consequences. Or maybe we are afraid that after the embrace, we’ll be whipped and punished. Some of us can’t conceive that God could forgive what we’ve done.
And yet God STILL pursues us. Lest we think that our own silly mistakes can foil God’s love, look at Romans 8:35 and following:
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?… No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us! For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And could it be, as Paul doesn’t say but we could imply… can our own intentions – good or bad – keep God from catching us?
Yesterday morning, I went on a run on our normal route out Pleasant Hill Road, that winds through pastures and farmland until it takes a sharp turn southeast. Then the road changes from pavement to gravel, and the trees hem the road in on both sides. It’s like this for at least two miles. While it’s beautiful (and much cooler than the paved, open-to-the-sky road before), I’ve often wondered what I would do if something were to happen to me on that lonely stretch.
As I ran yesterday with a friend, he happened to notice something on the ground in the dirt – “those are some big dog tracks,” he noted. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. A little later, we split up (I wasn’t able to run as far as he was), and I turned around and headed back for the paved road. A couple of minutes later, I heard a sound behind me and looked back…
There, following me, was the dog that had made those tracks. He was big, and he was trotting along behind me. At that point, I had thought about stopping to catch my breath. But this dog convinced me otherwise! I picked up the pace, and he kept after me – barely looking like he was out of breath at all. I ran even faster as I came to the hill that signaled I was about to come to the paved road again.
At the top of the hill, I had to stop. I figured someone would have a better chance of finding me out here than back down the dirt road. I knelt over to catch my breath, and waited to see what would happen…
Turns out, the dog came up to me, tail wagging, and wanted to play! He was happy and friendly, and didn’t seem at all to care that I’d basically run from him. He’d chased me, and I’d assumed his intent was to hurt me (what else would you think from a strange dog who pops out of nowhere in the woods?). But I was wrong – he didn’t intend to hurt me… maybe only lick me a bit!
We feel that way sometimes when God pursues us. What will he do when he catches us? What kind of trouble will we be in? But when we finally wear down, and can go no further, he will come to us at last… and we’ll find a love that is surprising in its fierceness and loyalty.
God is following us – hounding us. Some of us have yet to come to him for the first time. Some of us have wandered for the thousandth time. But whoever you might be, God is PURSUING YOU AND ME this very morning.
He has love, forgiveness, mercy, goodness. He wants to bring us back to him.
Why do we fight? Why do we run away? All kinds of reasons – but none of them are good reasons. God wants to find us – will we let ourselves be found?
