You might be surprised how many Episcopalians confess privately to their priests and say, “I’m sort of, maybe, kind of, an atheist. I love the tradition, the music, the message of Jesus, but I don’t believe in a big white bearded old man in the sky.” Some of you might be shocked. Others of you might be thinking, “well, me neither.” Just for the record, I also don’t believe in that god.
Now, before you go reporting to the bishop that the rector of St. Michael’s came out as an atheist this morning, hold your horses. I do believe in God. If you identified with those words, with the possibility of atheism, I want to invite you to consider, maybe you aren’t an atheist. I want to offer you this morning that the trouble with believing in God these days is that our society has taken the word “God” and limited its meaning. What we have come to mean, in our society, by the word God, is so tiny, so angry, that sort of god doesn’t merit our prayers, doesn’t merit our worship.
But in today’s readings, we are offered an alternative image.
Today, from Jesus, we hear about the Good Shepherd. Alongside the image of a loving parent, and a raucous banquet, the Shepherd is perhaps the image Jesus uses most to describe his theology. Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. We have both this teaching from Jesus about the shepherd, and we have the 23rd psalm.
We Christians are so used to hearing the image of the shepherd that I wonder if it doesn’t sink in. This is a radical way to describe God. To say that God accompanies us through the valley of the shadow of death, that God lovingly guides us to safe pasture, this isn’t the sort of God who belligerently calls us to attack our neighbors. This isn’t some white bearded king in the sky, very distant from us and grumpy. The Good Shepherd is an image of intimacy.
The shepherd, also, in Jesus’ time was an image of solidarity with the economically exploited. Shepherds were not wealthy. Shepherds were not powerful. They were the riffraff of the Roman world. How many Christmas sermons have named the strange surprise, that Jesus’ birth is proclaimed first to shepherds? to the workers on the edge of society, not the elite, not the educated? Jesus calling himself a shepherd, Jesus identifying God as a shepherd makes a statement about whom God cares.
Now, I have to offer a caveat this morning. This is the first time I have preached about the Good Shepherd in New Mexico. Four generations ago, my family came to New Mexico to raise cattle. There’s not an image in Scripture that sets cattle ranchers teeth on edge like that of sheep. There were literal wars out here in the west, between cattle ranchers and sheep herders. Because, in the eyes of the cattle ranchers, sheep destroyed grazing lands by eating the grass all the way down to the root. The only good shepherd, in my great grandfather’s eyes, was a shepherd who stayed the heck out of New Mexico and Colorado.
Other Images of God
With that caveat, I will say, this image of the shepherd is a radical one, radically different from the image of God so often on offer. If you struggle with the image of “God” on offer in our society, with the idea of “God” so many Christians point to in this country, this morning our Scripture offers the Good Shepherd, a counter-narrative.
The Good Shepherd is but one of the images our Scripture offers for God. God is also, in John’s Gospel, spoken about as something akin to what the 20th century theologian Paul Tillich described as “the ground of being.” Jesus is described as the Logos, the Word, the animating energy behind all life, through which all things are born. The Spirit is described as wind and breath. If you move beyond John’s Gospel, there are more images for God. Jesus compares himself to a mother hen, in Matthew and Luke, desiring to gather his people under the protection of his wings. God is described as the woman Sophia, Holy Wisdom wandering the streets of the city. God is a strong rock. As we mark earth day, I wonder how we might better care for our planet if we remembered God as vinegrower, earth-maker, the tiller of soil. God is also peacemaker, builder, and potter, the all-holy, and the all-merciful.
That last name, the All-Merciful, is ar-Rahman in Arabic. For many of our Muslim siblings, repeating the 99 names of God is a practice of prayer. To remember that the One True God can be known to us in many ways, matters. And because Islam is so often caricaturized as violent, I would point out that list of the names of God, when Muslims pray them, always begins with “God the All-Merciful.” Imagine what it would do to our own faith, if we always began our approach to God by naming the “all-Merciful.”
More Images of God
What happens to our frustrations with God, when we allow other images to complicate the simplistic picture? What happens when we say, “you don’t believe in some angry sky king? I don’t believe in that God either.” How does it shift our relationship to our faith? How does it shape our practice? If we believe God is primarily merciful, if we believe that Christ’s central commandment is love, how does that cause us to love, as the first letter of John has it, not only in speech but in truth and action?
You may have noticed, at St. Michael’s, we try and present a diversity of images for God. I am all for gender-inclusive language in church. Likewise, if I’m honest, when it comes to the 23rd psalm, I still love the King James. Today, at the forum, I’m going to propose that we, at least for a season, try out the most modern translation of the Bible approved for use in the Episcopal Church. And I still love the King James for the 23rd psalm. “The Lord is My Shepherd. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures….Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…” I love that poetry. It speaks to my soul.
So, my preference, rather than eliminating some images for God is to offer more. You might notice, I really love the blessing that says, “Live without fear, God loves you as a mother.” I think most of us could use more images for God, not fewer, we could use a wider sense of God’s mercy and God’s love. Our images for God should challenge us to be bigger, not smaller, to be more loving, more just, more committed to our neighbors.
If you have problems with God, that’s okay, and especially if you have problems with a particular way of describing God, that’s okay. I don’t think it makes you an atheist. In fact, if a particular way of describing God makes you angry, you might have a deep commitment to a God who can’t be contained by one image which is too limiting. My friend Kelly Latimore, the icon writer, has painted an image of the Good Shepherd as a little shepherd girl, the Good Shepherdess. Whoo, the comments whenever he posts that picture on social media are not for the faint of heart. But I love the way the icon challenges us to see God not just with our usual narrowness.
One Last Story about Shepherds
I want to leave you with just one more story about shepherds. The writer Bruce Chatwin, in his book, “Songlines,” recounts the story of an English traveler among the shepherds of Bethlehem in the late 19th century. If you go to the region today, you will find there are fights over grazing territory between Israeli and Palestinian shepherds. The walls and fences of settlements near Bethlehem make shepherding there all but impossible. But before the walls, before the bombs, even before the world wars, there were Palestinian shepherds near Bethlehem.
In Bruce Chatwin’s story, the visitor wakes up early and sees shepherds leading their flocks out of a cave. Scholars tell us that this practice, of sheltering in caves is ancient. When Jesus talked about a sheepfold, he probably imagined a cave, the area is riddled with them. Shepherds often huddled together with their sheep in caves to escape the cold dangerous desert nights.
As the English traveller awakes, he wonders: “if you have multiple flocks, multiple shepherds, how do you sort out the sheep?” He worries that the sheep will all need to be queued up and loud arguments will ring out about which sheep belong to which shepherd. But the Brit is astonished when the shepherds simply begin singing. And the sheep know their shepherd’s voice. They know their shepherd’s song. No fights are needed, just songs.
And so, my question for all you potential atheists this morning: when the drumbeats of the war-gods are all around us, when we are surrounded by the angry tunes of too-small gods, can we listen for the song of the Good Shepherd? Can we hum and follow that tune all the way home?
Mike Angell 