The Lord is my Shepherd

April 25, 1999

James R. Gorman

Several years ago I visited with Carol Brooks at Luther Manor Home, a residence for older adults in our community. Carol Brooks was a professionally trained artist and I had also gone to art school to be a commercial artist. Marion Baeseman and I share that affliction as well. Artists have a certain code language that we understand and no one else. I would sometimes take one of my watercolors to Carol and she would usually praise it and then offer some gentle criticism. "If you would move this mass over there it would counter-balance the mass over there." And I would say, "Yeah."

Well, the parking this particular day of my visit was horrible and, as is my wont sometimes, I told the woman at the registration desk just what I thought about their lack of parking. She replied very nicely that the Chaplain of the home, Duane Sandstrom, had died of cancer on Monday and that the funeral was to be held in 20 minutes. I said as eloquently as I could, "Oh."

When I got to Carol's apartment, she had the close-circuit TV on for the funeral of Pastor Sandstrom, who had ministered to her in important ways and she asked me if it would be alright if we watched the funeral together. And always ready to see how the other folks do funerals I said, "Sure."

Well, not being Lutheran, the liturgy did not appeal much to me. But then Sandstrom's son, Andrew---a man in his late 30's or early 40's--got up and spoke about his dad (which is always a risky thing). And I just couldn't withhold the tears as I listened to Andy praise his father.

Andy spoke about being proud to be a PK (Preacher's Kid). And how his dad was always the last to leave the church on Sunday, a preacherly habit which had a way of interfering with the preacher's family's Sunday afternoon plans. Duane Sandstrom wore one of those old black robes ("O, how I miss those old billowing black robes," Andy said as all the clergy sitting behind him in their linen albs nodded and smiled knowingly). Andy said that his father would stand outside the church in his robe talking with people until all of the congregation had gone home. Andy remembers as a little boy grabbing his father's hand, hoping that he could get his dad to hurry his conversation along and to head home. Failing that, Andy would twist his little body into that robe until he completely disappeared inside it and no one could see him. And he said, "I thought that being inside that robe was the safest place in the world," Andy said. That's when I lost it. And so did Andy.

Everyone yearns for a safe place in a world that promises no safety. Everyone yearns for a safe place, especially at the end of weeks like this.

This is Good Shepherd Sunday, and I don't suppose that I'm the only pastor in America this week that is preaching on the 23^rd Psalm. "Yea though I walk through the very corridors of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

As you know, the psalm begins, "The Lord is my shepherd." The very first word in the psalm is "The Lord" or in Hebrew it's "Yahweh," the peculiar name for the God of Israel, the one who makes heaven and earth, and who liberates and heals and commands.⁽¹⁾

On this Good Shepherd Sunday it is possible to think of idyllic pastures of green grass and overflowing streams and still waters. But in this poem, written perhaps a thousand years before Christ, the Good Shepherd meant a leader who will have the power to provide shelter in times of great crisis. "This is a statement of enormous confidence in the generosity of God, the one who knows what we need and gives well beyond what we ask."

The world in which we live is more dangerous than most of us know. It is a valley filled at times with deep dark shadows. And, like sheep, few of us know how to traverse this difficult terrain on our own.

The all-Monica networks have now moved to quasi-news shows with exaggerated titles such as "Terror in the Rockies." Instead of the repeated footage of Monica Lewinski embracing Bill Clinton in the glad hand line, now we have the horrible sight of a young man sweeping the glass from the ledge from which he knows he has to jump in order to escape his own valley of death, his right arm hanging limp toward the policemen below.

There is a continuous reminder of the frailty of life played out before us hour after hour. It's no wonder that most of us change the channel to something more palatable and friendly. But even after we change the channel, we know beyond knowing that life is always fragile. We are no longer innocent about the frailty of life.

I sometimes think that the mad search for reasons for this killing of 14 teenagers and one teacher is about separating ourselves from the suffering of the folks in Littleton, Colorado. The killing of so many young folks in our inner cities is somehow easier to digest because we can blame their deaths on drugs or the lack of men in the families. That also has a way of separating us from the problem. If we can find the cause of the killing and if that cause can be seen as something we never participate in, then we will have nothing to fear. We don't do drugs; we don't own guns; we don't listen to hard rock music; we don't play those awful video games.

But this tragedy in Columbine High School hits closer to the middle class home. If it could happen in that affluent suburb, it could happen to any of us. In other words, the middle class life does not guarantee safety.

The psalmist knew this.

Life without God is most frail. That's why the psalm begins only with the word, "The Lord." For it is there that our only real security lies.

In our baptismal liturgy we ask adult candidates, "Do you renounce the powers of evil and desire the freedom of new life in Christ?" In the older liturgies the question was, "Do you renounce the power of Satan and all his deeds, all his powers and all his attractions?" In other times, the penitent would turn to the west (the opposing direction of the rising of the sun) and would reject Satan and then, in some venues, spit three times.

I have the sense that we may be in a time in which evil and Satan will take on new meaning. Satan and evil, I believe, is a sophisticated presence in all our lives. Evil is at work in all that we do, working to separate us from our own most trustworthy security. And our vigilance is just now most tested.

Martin Luther suggested that his followers should arise every morning and pray, "I give thee thanks, heavenly Father, through thy dear son Jesus Christ, that thou hast protected me through the night from all harm and danger. I beseech thee to keep me this day, too, from all sin and evil, that in all my thoughts, words and deeds I may please thee. Into thy hands I commend my body and soul and all that is mine. Let thy holy angel have charge of me, that the wicked one may have no power over me. Amen."

And at the end of the day, a similar prayer, "I give thee thanks, heavenly Father, through thy dear son, Jesus Christ, that thou hast this day graciously protected me. I beseech thee to forgive all my sin and the wrong which I have done. Graciously protect me through the coming night. Into thy hands I commend my body and soul and all that is mine. Let thy holy angels have charge of me, that the wicked one have no power over me. Amen."

It might be said that Luther had a hang up about what he called "the wicked one." But he may have been on to something that is beyond our intellectual grasp. When we cannot offer an adequate sociological or psychological explanation for what happened we begin to encounter the mysterious force of evil itself.

I do not yet know how to characterize what overtook these two young men who decided one bright April morning to shoot up their own high school. Was it alienation? Well, almost all of us of any worth were alienated in our teenaged years. All of us at one point or another think that the more popular kids in high school don't like us.

Was it that our comrades in high school sneered at us and called us names? No, it can't be just that.

I am growing in my sense that there is such a thing as evil, or what Luther called "the wicked one," who struggles every day to shake me from the right path and the cooling waters and the rich green grass of God's redeeming love. And I am growing in my sense that we need to be vigilant against every such threat. And therefore we need to pray daily, not only that we will be kept safe from everything that would threaten our safety, but from that which would threaten the safety of our youth.

I asked my own 19 year old son about all these things which are mysterious to me. What are the "Gothics" I asked him. What does it mean that they pierce every available part of their bodies and put on black lipstick and dark eye shadow and wear black vampiric coats? And he said, "Oh, dad, you needn't worry about that. That's all theatrics." That's not what Littleton was all about.

"So, what was it about?" I asked. "I don't know for sure," he responded.

The "I don't know" is the part that scares me the most. It is the work of the evil one that none of us are given to understand. Was it drugs? God, things would be so much easier on us all if it were. Was it the availability of guns? Probably, but that wouldn't solve the underlying problem of alienation and self-hatred.

I think that a life of faith is really about the ability to live with the ambiguity of it all. And to say with faith that, despite it all, the Lord will be my shepherd after all. And will, in the very face of the wicked one, prepare a banquet for me with overflowing cup and bounteous plates. The only really adequate response to the mystery of evil is to rely on the deeper mystery of God's love.

For this Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.