I’m working with some of our members to produce a statement of faith, of sorts, for our congregation. I say “of sorts” because I’m thinking it’s going to end up looking a little different from the typical statement of faith, since we don’t need to duplicate any of those. In an excess of optimism, I thought I might get a draft done this week, and that it would make sense to present that to the congregation as the sermon. It didn’t happen; it’s going to take more time than that. But I can give you part of what I’ve been working on.
One key is to understand that our name is, truly, what we are. We are, and every church is, a church of the Good Shepherd. We belong to him; we only exist as the church because of him; and he is our shepherd, and we are his sheep. This is not flattering. I recently heard a sermon on Psalm 23 preached by a pastor whose congregation includes the biggest shepherding family in the state, and he described sheep as “basically an appetite on four legs.” They aren’t very bright; they are timid and easily panicked—a rabbit hopping out from behind a bush can stampede a whole flock; and they are creatures of habit to the point of self-destruction. As Philip Keller put it in his book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, “If left to themselves they will follow the same trails until they become ruts; graze the same hills until they turn to desert wastes; [and] pollute their own ground until it is corrupt with disease and parasites.” A flock of sheep is dependent for their well-being on the care of their shepherd.
That’s us. We are Jesus’ flock, and therefore we have what we need. Sheep don’t make the grass appear, they just eat the grass to which the shepherd has led them; they don’t know that they only have good pasture because the shepherd has put in long hours of hard work to make the grass grow in the dry land. They just know that their shepherd has brought them to a safe place where they have plenty of food, and in gratitude, they eat the grass. In the same way, it isn’t really our own work that provides for our needs; we eat the grass, but we aren’t the ones who make it appear. We have what we need—not everything we would like, but enough—because Jesus leads and takes care of us.
This means, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, that we must walk by faith, not by sight. Sheep are only safe and healthy when they follow the shepherd and go where he leads; when they wander off to find good pasture on their own, that’s when they get into trouble—and when they get others into trouble, because where one sheep goes, others will follow, no matter how bad an idea it is. Like sheep, we’re always tempted to guide ourselves—to decide for ourselves where the good pastures are, and try to figure out our own route to get there, because the paths on which Jesus leads us often don’t seem to make sense. They’re like trails in the mountains—at first, they seem stubbornly insistent on taking us the hard way, ignoring that much easier and more logical route over there. But every year, thousands of hikers learn that their “easier way” is deceptive, dangerous, and difficult to escape; some of them don’t survive the lesson.
It is Jesus who provides for us; if we want his blessing, we need to follow where he leads us. Rather than putting our trust in our plans, our abilities, our ideas, our investments, he asks us to put our faith in him alone. If our path leads through deep, dark valleys, it doesn’t mean we’ve gone the wrong way or that Jesus has abandoned us; it’s just the reality that those valleys are the best way to the high country of his blessing. If he leads us one way and anything else points us another—be it our own plans, the expectations of others, good business sense, whatever it may be—we need to leave those things behind, and follow Jesus.