How Can I Keep From Singing?

My experience as a farm boy was with cows and very little with sheep, but at least part of the point that Jesus wants to make with this agricultural image comes through quite clearly.

“They were like sheep without a shepherd,” Mark describes the crowd.

The summer afternoons out in the cow pasture could be long and hot.

The cows didn't understand about cutting down on water use when it was a dry summer, unlike this year.

They could easily drink several hundred gallons of water when they came back into the barn.

What if that water were not provided?

What if they were not brought in for milking?

What if they were not moved to fresh pasture when one was eaten down?

What if no one went after them when some would jump the fence or hide in the brush?

What if no one cared, or actively wished them harm?

Cows without a care-giver, or “Sheep without a shepherd” are troubling and at length, terrifying images.

The members of the cow-herd cannot recognize the plants that are poisonous, like wilted wild cherry leaves from a blown-down branch.

They do not know that if they frolic where they are not supposed to be in an fresh alfalfa field and eat too much of that wonderful stuff, they may easily bloat and die.

What if no one cares?

Jesus does care about the people who have come out to hear him, and he does not leave them on their own to wander here and there, or to come under the influence of another speaker.

The Bible says, “He teaches them many things.”

No one else is there who can say and do the things that he does.

No one cares as deeply and consistently.

No one else teaches and leads as carefully and faithfully.

But that does not mean that the people will always pay attention and follow as they should, or that someone else is not trying to sing the Siren song that will woo them away from path and voice of Jesus.

The Bible leaves lots of hints that there were many other teachers and healers in Israel, each making a pitch for himself.

The power of evil is always ready to lead astray the unwary.

There are lots of pretend leaders and “wolves in sheep's clothing.”

And before we can politely laugh at how easily folks were fooled back then, how quaint their ideas and reactions were, the questions need to be put to each of us:

--Have we been following the true Shepherd, or listening to the many other voice in our day.?

--Have we fallen to the temptations, or actively jumped the fences, in search of some other food than the word of God?

All too often, the answer is YES!

One level of the problem is in our relationships with other Christian groups, where in place of serious wrestling with issues and prayer for the oneness of the flock we are satisfied to forget the prayer and the work and to say instead that it doesn't matter anyway.

--If it didn't matter so much, the creeds would not have been written to serve as a fence to keep us in the right pasture and out of the swamp.

--If it didn't matter so much, we wouldn't bother to send people to seminary in order to prepare pastors.

After all, the translation of the Bible that we use is supposedly written at an 8^th grade reading level, so that adults can handle that without guidance...or can we?

--If it doesn't matter so much, we wouldn't bother to be here together this morning.

For if everyone's religious opinions are equal, then these gathering to hear and tell the faith in the Lord Jesus are unnecessary.

There is another ominous level of this wishy-washiness.

It occurs when we talk with a person of another of the world's religions, or with one who claims no faith at all.

It is so easy to say that we should just all get along in the “global village” as it is popularly termed these days, so that we are to be so respectful of Buddhists, Shintoists, Animists, Aborigines, Earlier Americans, etc.

Some would say that, well, there is a little bit of good in everyone, and so maybe they are all worshiping the same god by another name.

We have no basis for making that claim!

Then also, we know lots of folks who say they have no faith at all.

Some of them are nice people, neighborly, and all that.

Is “Let's all be nice.” enough of a creed?

Maybe we don't need Jesus the Good Shepherd.

Eighty years ago, Hitler demonstrated that a lie told often enough and convincingly enough will eventually be believed as the truth.

All too often, politicians and advertisers have continued to use that same insight.

Every day and in dozens of ways, the world is saying that the only things that are real are those which we can touch and see.

Remember the old soft-drink commercial: “It's the real thing!”

But Christians should know differently.

We know that what is real is what will finally endure: a remade heaven and earth with God and his people in full fellowship.

And we have hints and samples of that now.

We have Jesus, the true Shepherd-King, and his promises in Word and Sacraments, and know that they will last forever.

Any other words, by other persons, will all eventually fail.

Growth and understanding in the faith of the Lord Jesus doesn't just happen; we have to be deliberate in sharing, teaching, and living that faith.

One writer summarizes:

In situations where there is social breakdown, at-risk behavior, dislocation from traditional values, and corruption of Christian witness by a variety of other worldviews, Christian education becomes a matter of life and death for the church.

It is tough out there.

We dare not send out disciples, young or old, without sufficient equipment.

We have our process called The Way, which is a wonderful beginning or review.

But we need more.

--I read about a congregation in Michigan that formed a Bible study and prayer group for its public school teachers.

They meet weekly with their pastor, using the scriptures and case studies from their teaching which challenge their Christian fidelity.

--Another congregation has a high-school group that meets with the pastor and other leaders, sometimes inviting a high school guidance counselor also, as they equip each other for daily life and work.

--Another congregation has its Sunday School teachers meet regularly with their pastor to check on insights and approaches for reaching people with the Good News.

A church that has no quarrel with the surrounding world, a church that takes it easy, a church that can't tell the difference between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the world's other claims of salvation, would be a church that has little need to make Christian education a priority for themselves or others.

There is no other savior than the Lord Jesus Christ.

We can talk with any group of another faith as well as those who claim no faith;

we can find any number of things about which we can talk and work together;

but the one thing which cannot be compromised is the centrality of Christ.

Acts 4:12 says: There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Paul in Galatians 1:6-12 says: Some of you are turning to another gospel, not that there is another gospel, but some want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

The call today is for watchfulness.

To whose voice do we listen?

Are we in the right pasture?

Do we hear the shepherd whose Word will endure?

Or are we following an easy way?

There is a shepherd who cares: ...he has compassion, because they are like sheep without a shepherd, and he teaches them many things. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.