May 7, 2006

The Good Shepherd

by Julianne Stokstad

Our scriptures today both evoke images of nurture and that brings comfort. Perhaps that is why the 23rd Psalm is the best known and best loved of all the Psalms. Our gospel reading identifies Jesus as the Good Shepherd. The words pastor and pastoral come from the Greek word for shepherd.

One of the things that nurture most of us is good food, home-cooked meals. I have loved cooking from an early age perhaps because my mother let me get my hands into it and let me help. From as early as I can remember I've collected recipes. This old recipe box is stuffed with index cards and odd shaped pieces of paper on which cooking instructions are given. In a way it is a record of my life, recipes from every place I've ever lived and cooked are in here. Here is a recipe from my dear Nana, "Julie Dear, Here is the recipe you asked for. How's the sewing!? Your Nana."

Another one: "Sugar Cookies" from Kate Kimball our next-door neighbor when I was a child: 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup shortening, 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind, etc. As I hold this card, more than 50 years old, it is the person I remember, not the cookies. Kate and Lester came from New England and spoke with a thick New England accent, like the Kennedy's. She grew rhubarb in her garden, I'd never seen it before and they had an airplane on their back porch. Their son Bob was a bush pilot in Alaska. Looking back through the eyes of the little girl that was me, I knew so little about them, only their kindness stands out as I look at this very ordinary recipe carefully typed out for me, the little girl next door.

Lastly here's the newest recipe in my box, from just last weekend. It's a recipe for Mrs. See's Fudge. Clearly something for a party and it was our best party person, Jean Nadell, who gave me the recipe. It evokes to me a party filled with laughter and good friends, just like the surprise shower party for this grandma-to-be. I hope I never recover from this joy.

As I reflect on all these recipes, it strikes me how most of us are given no recipes for life. No recipes for making a family, for creating a home beyond the example of the families we experienced when we were young. I suppose there are stories, Erma Bombeck and TV families, like "Father Knows Best" but we learn most by what happens to us.

The image of the good shepherd is one who gives unselfishly, undemanding, unconditional love. Jesus is the good shepherd. The pictures in the Sunday school rooms or in the stained glass windows of churches portray a clean serene almost other worldly shepherd. But I think this image is a set-up, a rather romantic notion of service and love. It's just too clean. The work of a shepherd was dirty and messy. Shepherds lived in the fields, did extremely hard and dirty work and were held in low esteem in those days.

And similarly the image of the perfect home and family is not real. It is hard work, demanding and messy to create a home, especially these days. Homes, like the shepherds, are redeemed by love, not perfection of image.

Because we have few instructions or recipes for loving beyond our experience, most of us love the way we have been loved. Our expectations are informed by what we know, by what is familiar. The most common kind of love around is conditional love, a limited kind of love. We love those who are like us, who behave like us, who have similar experiences to our own. It is so much easier to love those who have values like ours---the good values. As children we were punished when we behaved badly and at least for me it felt like love was withdrawn. When I grew up, it was a time of great prejudice. In my family and town anyone who was different was bad. Catholics, Jews, anyone non-white, even Democrats were judged most severely. Early on, I learned from this, that if I was different, I wasn't going to be accepted. I wasn't going to be loved. And I knew I was different, I didn't fit the code of behavior, and I didn't want to do what was expected of me. I don't think they meant to teach me that love was limited and conditional, that I had to be good, that I had to do what was expected to be loved, but that was how I understood it.

Jesus teaches us about a different kind of love. He calls us to love everyone, even our enemies. He calls us to love beyond the easy comfort of loving those like us. He calls us to love in an unlimited way. He calls us to love unconditionally, with no strings attached. This kind of loving is so hard to do because it leaves us vulnerable, open to hurt and loss. As a child, I loved my Nana unconditionally with the passionate love of a grandchild for her favorite grandmother. She had not been a good mother and my father hated her, but I didn't know her demons, I just loved her.

Going back to Psalm 23. It is a recipe for God's nurture of us. The first ingredient is rest and quiet for restoration of our shy and tender souls. The shepherd takes his flock to the green pastures and makes them rest. He leads them beside the still waters. How many of us yearn for a quiet walk in green pastures. It is in such places of shy souls will emerge

The second ingredient is to create safe places for us in the darkest valleys of our lives. All lives will contain hard places, threats and turmoil. We will have enemies though few of us want them. I hope here in church we have a safe place where we know safety.

The last ingredient in this simple recipe for finding God's comfort and nurture is, to celebrate the abundant life that is present with God. Recognizing and sitting at God's table we know unconditional love and forgiveness. It is like our communion table. Because we know it and have received, then it is ours to give the rest of our days.

In the 23rd Psalm recipe for the good life, let yourself be guided to quiet places where your souls can be restored. Look where you are walking, if it is not the right path, for his namesake, then try another path, do something different. And most of all remember God's love for you is unlimited and unconditional. This recipe allows us to get in touch with that part of us that connects us to God and is the place where we find peace, joy and passionate unconditional love. This is all we need and we are living in the house of the Lord forever and ever. Amen.