When we look at religions, specifically ones that have a deity or deities, we parse out the answers to two fundamental questions. One is how does your God/ our God/ one’s God view the world, and the other is how does your God ask you to view the world. In other words, what attributes does God possess in response to the world, and how does God want you to respond to the world? The answers to these give us a sketch of our theology (God’s attributes) and then our ethics (how we respond to God being God, what does it mean for us?).
One of the main characteristics we know of God when we start talking about God is compassion; so, let’s talk a bit about compassion. In the Gospel this week, we are struck with Jesus having compassion on the crowds because they were like sheep without a shepherd. It is an odd metaphor for us. I suppose this metaphor is made even more difficult in that the Bible tends to elide a shepherd and a king, hence the term we have heard for Jesus, a Shepherd King. There are the leaders that the prophet Jeremiah rails against who are the sort of shepherds who lead sheep of God’s pasture astray. This Shepherd King title is the same sort of title for King David as well. It is not just that the cultures of the Bible were more pastoral, but this metaphoric concept includes the characteristics of looking out for all and of providing direction for the sheep. What it is, really is having compassion, having care, passion, investment in these very sheep.
Many of us have had reason to understand this concept of compassion on a very visceral level. The psalm for today is most frequently read at funerals. Even if you have been in the throes of so much grief that you are barely aware when the psalm is read or sung, there is something to those words. “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” I love the Hebrew that instead of “he makes me lie down in green pastures” the translation has more the flavor of “he causes my lying down”; it feels more like knocking someone’s knees out from behind so that we will rest. There is something to this kind of leader, this kind of king, this kind of Shepherd, this one who can and does cause rest, who has compassion on us when we need direction. The Shepherd king who wraps us up and envelops us in compassion.
This is the same compassion that we hear voiced in the psalm, that “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you [God] are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
This is so very similar to Jesus’ words of “Fear not, I am with you always.” Lastly, the psalm ends with “Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” This sort of following is not following like baby ducks after their mother. This sort of following is pursuing, hunting you down. God is nearly aggressive in God’s pursuit to bring us goodness and mercy. This is frighteningly comforting; I don’t know how else to say that.
Those then who are like sheep without a shepherd do not feel this sort of compassion, they do not feel this sort of mercy that pursues, this sort of care, that despite whether enemies are near, despite walking through the valley of the shadow of death, that God is with them.
Now there are few in our midst who have wondered into Christianity in their adult life, but most of us in a congregation at this point in a mainline denomination such as the Episcopal church, were born into our faiths. In other words, we are Christian because we were raised that way. Our assent to following Jesus, in other words, our following Jesus’ way may be one that would not be described as a pursuit. And this is not to say that all adult converts are people with fire in their souls either. However, what if the writer of Ephesians, a Pauline sort of writer, were really on to something. Although the Epistles are often convoluted, we quickly understand that this writer understands Jesus as one who breaks down walls, who breaks down barriers, who repairs the factions that we create in society. In fact, the only thing that really matters in life is that each of us who considers ourselves followers of Jesus (which is why we are at a church), each of us is able to have and show compassion to all. Our mercy towards our fellow traveler could be something that pursues the other.
You may ask, “why we might do this?” And maybe the question is better “why not?” The life of Jesus shows us clearly that mercy and compassion are meant for everyone. This is probably not a Eureka moment or a mountain top experience, but instead what we learn in being formed as Christian—that to live as if Jesus matters in our lives, is to live a life of compassion, one without enmity, as a group as a whole without division among us. We are not doing things in order to “get into heaven.” Instead, we are living lives formed on the attributes of God, made visible in Jesus’ life, and then modeling those characteristics in our own lives. Theology made visible in ethical lives.
Jeremiah 23:1-6 Psalm 23 Ephesians 2:11-22 Mark 6:30-34, 53-56