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A Lectionary Resource for April 27 to June 1 2003

May 11

PETTED LAMBS

Why is Psalm 23 so popular?

It is a great piece of spiritual writing;
it is exceptionally good poetry
it enables people to identify with the writer
it . . .

"Yahweh is MY shepherd". This is such a personal statement. I am a sheep, maybe a lamb, in Yahweh's flock. Not just the nation of Israel, but ME personally. Therefore, Yahweh nurtures and feeds me, protects and guides me, advocates for me, provides me with temporal and eternal shelter and a place to belong.

Each of us has a huge need to be loved and nurtured, to be safe, to be in favour with parental and ultimate authority.

A key characteristic of Christian community is believing that Jesus is the Good Shepherd (John 10:11-18) and that there is only one flock and one shepherd.

While Jews could identify with Psalm 23 and know that THEIR God(Yahweh) was the best shepherd, the Johannine Christian community knew that Jesus was the ONLY shepherd of the flock which was most truly loved by God..

Peter's kerygma in Acts 4:5-12 insisted that Jesus was the ONLY means of salvation, and I John 3:23 insists that God required believers to believe ONLY in Jesus as the Christ, and also required them to love each other.

This Christian belief that only the few in the favoured flock are welcome in God's new society faces challenges in our global village. Is Jesus the Christ a unique Saviour and Shepherd? What happens to the sheep who don't belong to this fold?

It is an interesting reality that New Zealand sheep look nothing like the Hebrew ones. Those are now seen most commonly in Islamic countries.

The uniqueness of Christ is a stumbling block for many. I like the way James K Baxter wrote in "Thoughts about the Holy Spirit".

To love the people of God means to serve them. We are called the servant church. And a servant's job is to clean out lavatories, actual or metaphorical. We are servants not only of the people of God, those who already recognise the cross of Jesus as the mercy sign, but servants also of the kingdom of God, all those who have the seed of mercy in their hearts. Our task then is plain, not to seek affluence or prestige, but to take on the roughest jobs, the jobs nobody else will tackle, and to persevere in them through the power of the Holy Spirit.

This Sunday can have the theme of the Good Shepherd, or that of Home and Family (traditionally Mothers Day). As a secular festival, Mothers Day celebrates mothers as fulfilling the role of good shepherd to their family. Perhaps it is more realistic to see the roles shared between parents. Nurture, provision, protection and guidance are expected of parents. Does the concept of Yahweh or Jesus as shepherd merely project parenting roles on to a deity? Is that why these passages are so popular?

Some marriage therapists have said that the initial expectation in marriage is that the partner will provide all the unconditional love which was not received from parents. And that when that expectation is not met, the power struggle begins.

Responsible Christian communities do not spiritualise the shepherd images, but take on the real task of caring and providing for each other, and, when the resources are sufficient, reach out to people beyond the Christian community of faith in shepherdly ways.

It is difficult to find in the Christian Scriptures any indepth guidance for Christian nuclear families. The Hebrew Scriptures present a model of extended family, often polygamous, and the Christian Scriptures describe Christian community. This community is inclusive, open, equal, loving. Nuclear families today desperately need that kind of community within which to find support and wholeness.

A PRAYER

Parent God, thank you for birthing our uniqueness into your challenging world.
Love us through our petulant childhood and grow us into responsible maturity.
Good Shepherd, you are the only one we know who can inspire us to follow where we would otherwise be afraid to go. Teach us, guide us, protect us.
Indwelling Spirit, witness in us that we are God's children by helping us to love each other unselfishly. AMEN.