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Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Secure In Any Season
Psalm 23; John 10:1-10
Sometimes while driving to church on Sunday morning, I'll ask Joanne what she would say if this were her day to preach on my sermon text. Like a savvy trout or salmon, she'll sniff around that bait ever so briefly, then politely let it dangle right where I cast it.
This Sunday I changed it up a little, and she was the one to ask a question.
What I said, cruising along at more or less the speed limit, was, "Preparing this message I kept flashing back to the movie Brokeback Mountain, what with all the shepherd stuff in the 23rd Psalm and John 10."
To which she softly asked, "Hmmm, how are you going to preach on that?!"
I'm not sure just which scenes she had in mind.
The one I'd kept remembering was where the guy goes up the mountain at dawn to tend the sheep and finds a carcass all chewed up by wolves, who'd had their way with the flock while he'd stayed down by the river's edge all night, having his way with... Ooooh, so that's what she meant.
Well, faced with the challenge of alluding to Ang Lee's complex treatment of gay love, I took the easier route of retelling a corny old joke about a rascally boy and his dinnertime prayer. (Listen to the GODcast and you'll catch my drift.)
But seriously, folks... Those lovestruck Brokeback Mountain shepherds do illustrate Jesus' point in John 10:12 pretty well.
In that verse, Jesus talks about hired hands whose priorities are all about payday instead of the safety of the sheep. If they see a wolf, they run for their own lives. More often than not, they're probably up to their own entertainment and don't even see the wolves coming.
In stark contrast, Jesus is ready to lay down his own life to make sure God's "flock" are safe and secure. For he is The Good Shepherd. (Shades of Psalm 23's "The Lord is my Shepherd!" The Almighty and Everlasting God [trumpet fanfare] attends carefully to Israel's every need, just as a shepherd does for the sheep [gentle strings]. )
What a brash and bold thing to say, that he -- Jesus of Nazareth, a carpenter's son from the outback -- is (gasp) GOD! And he seems to have made a habit of making that claim.
While I could go on and on about biblical references to kings and priests and prophets, all of them called by God to be good shepherds for God's people -- I'll just cut to the chase and invite you to...
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
5:01 PM
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