Disciple: El Buen Pastor: The Good Shepherd

By Bishop Sam Rodman

Adapted from a sermon preached at la Iglesia El Buen Pastor, Durham, April 21, 2024.

Writer Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, wrote another, less well-known book called The Temple of My Familiar. I love this title. It could have been a book written for Episcopalians. We love what is familiar.

That is why our worship follows a pattern and an order. You can walk into an Episcopal church anywhere in the world, and even if it is being offered in a language unfamiliar to you, you can find your place, and you can feel at home. It feels familiar.

I spent part of my sabbatical last year in the city of El Paso, Texas, on the border of Mexico, trying to learn Spanish. El Paso, as you know, is in the desert of extreme West Texas. It is also one of the cities that has been in the news in stories about immigration and human rights.

El Paso is just across the Rio Grande River from Ciudad Juárez, El Paso’s sister city. At one time, it was all one city. Residents of both El Paso and Juárez consider themselves bilingual, bicultural and binational. I walked across the bridge to Juárez while I was there. And during my two weeks in a place that was new and unfamiliar, I encountered the presence and promise of God again and again. It was a place where I experienced the presence and promise of Jesus as our good shepherd, not only as I navigated a place that was unfamiliar to me, but as I began to try and learn the language, the history and the culture of the people who live there.

EMBRACING THE UNFAMILIAR

We know we can find God in the familiar. And one of the most familiar images of Jesus is the image of the good shepherd. We see it in stained glass windows. We read about it in the parables he told. From the Gospel of John, we understand Jesus identified with this role and image, and claimed it for himself. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11)

More and more, God seems to call us to move outside of our comfort zones, to embrace the unfamiliar and discover that God is there, too, and that Jesus is the good shepherd even in new, unfamiliar pastures.

Psalm 23 reminds us that our good shepherd is always beside us, wherever we go. That in green pastures and beside still waters, God’s loving presence is a constant. In the valley of the shadow, when we are lost or frightened or confused, God remains with us. Jesus walks with us.

The deeper message of Psalm 23 is that Jesus is present and comfortable with all the stages of our lives, and all the landscapes and terrain where we may find ourselves. It is all familiar to him, because he became one of us. He walked the world with us, as we walk it, and he lived in the reality of the good, the bad and the in-between. Jesus is present with us as we grow and mature and try to sort out where we are, who we are, and how we want to be in this world.

Jesus also knows that in our life experiences, we need a mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar; things that make us feel comfortable and things that take us out of our comfort zone. Jesus calls us to embrace not just what we know, but to venture out into the unknown and discover that God is there, too.

In other words, Jesus loves differently. This means two things. Jesus loves differently than we do. Jesus loves both what is familiar and what is unfamiliar, whether strange, new or different. And Jesus loves our differences, the things that make us unique, set us apart and distinguish us from one another. Jesus delights in our differences and invites us to do the same with one another.

And Jesus reminds us, that wherever we come from and however different we may appear, we belong to one another because we all belong to God.

CONNECTING THE FLOCK

Let me share a story about one of my tutors from El Paso, who I will call Martha. She has taught at the Language Plus School for more than 20 years. She also volunteers three nights a week at a local prison, teaching English, Spanish, GED courses and leading Bible Study.

One day during the first week, I was working on my pronunciation of the liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer. I was concentrating so much on getting the sounds right, I wasn’t actually thinking about the meaning of the words of the prayer, which was the Collect for Guidance. I looked up at one point, and tears were streaming down Martha’s face. I stopped and started to apologize, but she said, “No, keep going. I recognize this prayer. It is exactly what I needed to hear today.”

Here is the prayer: “Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you, so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of this life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (BCP, page 100)

The following week, Martha and I were talking about music and hymns in church that inspire us. I mentioned that one of my favorite hymns was “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and she began to sing, “Santo, Santo, Santo.” She had the most beautiful voice, and it was my turn to cry, because of the beauty of her voice, and because the song was both deeply familiar and altogether new.

And because in that moment, Jesus was not only present with us, I recognized that Jesus brought us together. A good shepherd does not just lead the stray sheep back to safety. A good shepherd gathers the flock together and leads us to connect with one another.

This is part of the gift of resurrection we celebrate each Easter season. It is part of the promise of connection, reconnection and the meaning of Good Shepherd Sunday. It is finding God in the presence of one another, with people we have known our whole lives, and sometimes with people we are just beginning to know. It is the work of the good shepherd, the sign of God’s guiding hand and the promise of Jesus’ voice and direction.

Holy places can be familiar and unfamiliar. We can find God in places of comfort and in places that are strange, new or different. And we can find God in other people as well as in communities and congregations. God is with us in the moments when we feel deep connection and also when we feel strangely awkward. Jesus teaches us to embrace the familiar and the unfamiliar. Jesus loves differently, and he delights in our differences. And Jesus shows us there is no place we can go where God is not with us, and that in God’s beloved community, there is one flock, one shepherd. Amen.

Bishop Sam Rodman is the XII bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina.

Subscribe to the quarterly Disciple magazine (digital or print) for more stories like this.

Subscribe