Sermon for 4th Easter
We (Still) Will Fear No Evil
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
I am not sure I will ever get used to it. By “it” I mean my new “normal” for preaching in which Wednesday evening, when Samantha and I record this part of our Sunday worship for you, when Wednesday evening is my new Saturday/Sunday and Saturday evening and Sunday morning, when I used to preach for worship with you, is my new, well, I am not yet sure what I would call that.
Saturday evening worship used to give me a chance to try out an idea or two and, if they did not work, I could change my sermon before preaching it again on Sunday morning and sharing it on our website.
I even had weeks, as I have shared with you in the past, I even had weeks when I wrote one sermon midweek and changed it dramatically because of the week’s events before preaching it on Saturday and Sunday.
No more, at least for now. Now I must be ready for Wednesday evening. No chance for redoes and rewrites. No chance to update my sermon for the events of the week later than Wednesday evening.
Of course, during these “safer-at-home” days, the rest of my week, the rest of all our weeks, it will be pretty predictable. At this stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, so very sadly, more people will die between when I record this sermon and this weekend, many more, too many more. Our President will probably make another outrageous statement – if you thought his suggesting ingesting disinfectant was outrageous and dangerous, just wait, he will be tweeting again this evening.
And, we will be stuck for another week at home, worrying about the vulnerable people among our family and friends. We will keep trying to work from home, an especially difficult task for those of you with children, and not just young children but also for those of you now home with older children who are not usually home so much, children who are not used to having so much time around home and around you and you with them. We will all get on each other’s nerves, again and regularly, even though the folks with whom we are sharing these “safer-at-home” days are the most important people in our lives.
That is what the time between Wednesday and the weekend will be like for me and I suspect for most of us.
This Sunday is a Sunday known in churchy circles as “Good Shepherd Sunday.” Each year on this the 4th Sunday of Easter, the Gospel lesson is always from St. John’s Gospel and each year offers a different segment of John’s Gospel, and always one that speaks of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. There is a lot of Good Shepherd talk in John’s Gospel so there are always a number of Good Shepherd lessons from which to choose.
In today’s Good Shepherd Gospel lesson, Jesus emphasizes the shepherd as protector of the sheep.
In Jesus’ day you would find walled stone pens large and small across the hillsides in what is now Israel and the West Bank. Each of those walled areas would have one opening perhaps five or six feet wide. As the day ended, shepherds would herd their sheep it one of these communal stone “pens,” choosing one of a size to fit his number of sheep, and then the shepherd would sleep across the opening, becoming the actual “gate” to this sheep pen. Then in the morning, shepherd and sheep would leave the pen for another day of shepherding and grazing before repeating this end of day ritual, most likely in a new communal sheep pen.
Thus, the image of Jesus as protector, just like a shepherd protecting his sheep at night by literally becoming their safety gate, the image of Jesus as protector would be one his listeners would know and understand. Well, at least they would usually understand this image – in today’s Gospel, Jesus’ listeners did not understand his shepherd metaphor the first time, so he needed to say it again and more clearly ending with the words, I have come to give people life and not just life but a more abundant life.
A more abundant life.
I think almost everyone knows the 23rd Psalm, people of faith and even people who do not believe in God. Most people have heard Psalm 23 sometime in their lives and would probably know it, “The Lord is my shepherd….”
The 23rd Psalm is part of most every Christian funeral or memorial service. As I said its first words just a moment ago, “the Lord is my shepherd….” I am betting many of you continued in your head, “I shall not want” and so on.
The 23rd Psalm is so familiar that folks experiencing memory loss in old age can be pulled back, at least a little, they can be pulled back sometimes by its words.
We all love it.
And, in these days, I especially like, I especially hold on to these words from Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for God is with me.”
We are all in the “valley of the shadow of death” these days. Last week COVID-19 deaths, now nearly 60,000 in the USA, last week US COVID-19 deaths surpassed the number of US soldiers killed in all of the Viet Nam war. And then we even hear of elderly veterans of that same war, those who survived that war, now dying of this terrible disease.
We are all living in death’s shadow.
However, we also are all living in the promise of the 23rd Psalm. We have a God who restores souls, whose love for us is overflowing, who stills the rough “waters” of our lives, who keeps us on the right path, who comforts us, feeds us and wraps all of this in the promise of God’s goodness and mercy.
The Lord is my shepherd.
One technique for teaching young children the 23rd Psalm is to use one hand and five fingers starting with our thumb – the Lord is my shepherd. God is my shepherd.
In these days, in all the days of our lives, we have a God who is still promising us an abundant life. And even though we may be, we are, walking through death’s shadow, we can fear no evil, because living or dying, we have a God who is always with us.
The Lord is my shepherd. God is our shepherd. Still promising life abundant. Still always with us. Still protecting us from evil.
Even and especially in these days, the Lord is my shepherd.
Amen.
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sermon for:
May 3, 2020
