6-15

“OF SHEPHERDS AND FATHERS...”

Psalm 23; John 10: 1-10

A college religion teacher was leading a tour of Palestine as a summer school class. He gave lectures as they visited the important places. One day as their tour bus was going through the countryside he was lecturing on the Good Shepherd. He noted that there was a difference between shepherds in Palestine and those in the United States. Whereas American sheepherders go behind the sheep and drive them where they are supposed to go, Palestinian shepherds lead their sheep and they faithfully follow him everywhere. He painted this wonderful picture of the warm relationship between the Palestinian shepherd and his flock. Just then the bus had to stop for a flock of sheep that was crossing the road. The students started to laugh when one their classmates asked, “Dr. Jones, why is the shepherd behind the flock and driving them across the road?” The professor was shocked to see that this was true. He jumped off the bus and went up to the shepherd saying, “I have always been told that shepherds in Palestine lead their sheep and the sheep follow because they love their shepherd and trust him. Why are you driving these sheep?” The man responded, “You are absolutely right. Shepherds here do lead their sheep. I am driving these sheep because I am not a shepherd, I am the village butcher!”i
The 23rd Psalm is one of the most beloved in all of Holy Scripture. Even those who are biblically illiterate and/or estranged from God know this Psalm. There is a magnificence about this Psalm which transcends its words and context. From it we all gather nurture and peace as we envision God looking down upon us and caring for us. There is a wonderful convergence this morning of this text and this day — Father’s Day. Let us look at this Psalm and allow the truths which it tells to enlighten us not only about our Heavenly Father, but also about the roles and responsibilities which we, as earthly fathers, have given to us.
INTIMACY: The Lord is my Shepherd. We must pause at this beginning phrase and acknowledge Christ as our Shepherd. In the 10th chapter of John Jesus portrays himself as the Good Shepherd who loves and takes care of the sheep. He says, “My sheep know my voice.” If Jesus Christ is our Shepherd, then we will know his voice. An American was visiting a village in Africa and saw sheep grazing all over town. He asked, “How do the owners know which sheep is theirs?” Came the reply, “The sheep know.” At dusk he watched in awe as the shepherds called and each sheep ran to the voice of his shepherd, not another. I googled this very event this week and to my surprise saw several videos of shepherds doing this very thing. When another called they ignored the voice. When the shepherd called, they all came running.
So it is with we who are fathers and our children. We should know them intimately, from the inside out — and they us. You cannot call yourself a Father if you ignore your children. Children know if you matter to them — and when they know it, they respond. If you know & love your children then they will prosper in that love, live out of that love, and face life with a confidence that they gain nowhere else. Children — both boys and girls — need the love of their father in order to handle the challenges of the teenage years. Without the security of this love and relationship they live in limbo, wondering if they are worthy of being loved or if they have what it takes to make it in life. When a young person knows the full acceptance and love of their father then they are enabled to grow, develop and prosper as God intends.
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PROVISION: “I shall not want.” As the Shepherd, the Lord provides for our needs, both physical and spiritual. The Psalmist illustrates what it is that he shall not want:
• green pastures—food;

• still waters—water from which one can easily drink;
  
• restores my soul—rest and refurbishment of our very being.
  Can we believe that God really wants to provide for our needs—even physical ones? Yes we can, if we remember that God does so in conjunction with our willingness to be responsible, to practice good stewardship, and to work at whatever we are able to do. God has never promised to meet our wants—God has promised to meet our needs. Too often I have encountered those who somehow expected that God would drop their needs right in the middle of their lap. My experience has been that as we work and serve God blesses us far beyond what we deserve. When the Lord is our Shepherd, “we shall not want.”
  As it is with God, so it is with our fathers. We live in a world where it is difficult if not impossible to have a one income home. Whether for good or for bad, the model of a father working and mother at home has all but disappeared from our cultural perspective. However, a father can still work with his wife and take responsibility to see that his children’s needs are met — needs far beyond those of a roof over their heads, clothes to wear or food to eat. Children have needs of acceptance, encouragement, and leadership which are vital to their development. Husband and wife may both work to “bring home the bacon,” — but both are also needed to ensure that the needs of their children are met to the best of their ability.
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  GUIDANCE: “He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.” As the Shepherd, the Lord leads us both in the right paths and through the dangerous valleys that await us. When we live life God’s way—then life works. This sounds extremely simple—and even Forest Gump-like in its philosophical approach. However, it has been proved true time and again. God really does lead us to where we need to be and walks with us through the trials that confront us. As Christians, as those who have pledged our lives to Christ, we are not immune to suffering and tragedy and even death. However, we go through these things so much better because of the power and presence of Christ in our lives.
  There is nothing more inspiring than seeing a father, a grandfather, an uncle or a friend providing a worthy and strong model for a young boy, a teen-ager, or even a young man. We all need role models to look up to and after which to model ourselves. One of the great crises in the modern, moderate Protestant church is the absence of men to serve as role models for the children. Children do not need just to be taught by women when in church. To do so is to tell them that church is for women...real men don’t have anything to do with it. Your children may be grown, but it is still vital that you be here and involved so that other children will know that this is important to their lives. Studies have shown that for boys, their entire attitude toward God, Christ, and the church is shaped more strongly by their father than their mother. All of us are needed to ensure that our children develop in their faith walk with Christ. All of us.
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  SECURITY: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.” God’s protection is provided for us in our hour of deepest need. The 5th verse requires some historical/cultural background in order for us to properly understand it. In Middle Eastern culture one was obligated to provide lodging and security to a stranger who asked for up to two nights and days. There being no motels or inns and this was the culturally developed pattern of providing safety for travelers. The Psalmist is affirming that God provides this safety and security for him even when enemies surround him. The blessings of God are his in abundance — the anointing of oil and the cup overflowing.
  

Our deepest and most basic affirmation of faith is that God never abandons us. We may not see the hand of God in the moment and we may not feel the presence of God but do not worry, God is there and God’s hand is there. Just as the shepherd knew his sheep personally and intimately — so God knows us. Every evening the Shepherd would call the sheep and they would come to him to enter the fold. He would stand at the door through which only one sheep could pass — and he would stop each sheep, check it for bites or scratches, anoint whatever wounds were there, and then let it pass into the fold. He would give each animal a cup of cold water to make sure that it would not grow thirsty during the night. Then, after all were secure in the fold, the shepherd would sleep in the doorway so that no wild animals would come after his sheep.
A deep sense of security is one of the great responsibilities of parents and especially of fathers. Our children need to know that whatever life may throw at them, we are there, standing with them, to take it on. In centuries past children were looked at as expendable, as workers on the farm or in the factory. With the coming of the 20th century and the child labor laws and increased education we see our children in an entirely different light: as gifts of God to be grown and developed as did Jesus “in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and man.”
The story is told of how a herd of young male elephants in the Pilanesburg National Park in South Africa — largest in the world — were going wild and destroying endangered white rhinoceros. They were virtually uncontrollable. The park rangers finally realized that these of young males had no older bull elephant around to control them and teach them how to act. Some older bull males were flown in and within a few weeks the younger elephants had calmed down and the rampaging ceased.ii
We have seen this in our own society, have we not. Most teenage boys or young men who get into trouble are either from a fatherless home or a home where the father is all but absent. Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it well over 40 years ago:
“From the wild Irish slums of the 19th Century Eastern Seaboard to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken homes, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any rational expectations for the future – that community asks for and gets chaos.”iii
As men we must realize the role our God has created for us and fulfill it to the best of our ability. Our church needs us, our society needs us, and most of all — our young men and women, boys and girls, need us. The need us when they are young and they need us when they are older. Everyone needs a father — and a grandfather! “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want...”
Robert U. Ferguson, Jr. Emerywood Baptist Church
1300 Country Club Drive
High Point, North Carolina 27262 June 15, 2014
i Paul Larsen, unpublished sermon on Psalm 23.
ii http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/12/16/251672253/why-we-need-grandpas-and-grandmas-part-1 iii http://thesestonewalls.com/gordon-macrae/in-the-absence-of-fathers-a-story-of-elephants-and-men/