Easter 4 Sermon - Good Shepherd Sunday - BMT - April 26, 2026

Scripture Readings: Nehemiah 9:6-15; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:13-25; John 10:1-10

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A topic that's on the news quite a bit these days is the topic of work. The nature of work. One thing that we see is that there's this large discussion, especially with artificial intelligence, the rise of this, the nature of work, how technology is used to relieve us, as it were, historically, of uh burdensome or laborious work, uh work that we would rather not do, that we would rather machines do. And now it seems that uh today's time, even that work, which at one point was desirable, uh, is even uh put on the chopping block with uh the technology. You think of what would historically be thought of as good work, doctors, attorneys, I don't know, or we need attorneys. Maybe we don't think of them doing good work, but that this too, I mean, with with AI, with artificial intelligence is uh suspect. And but one thing that is really interesting is if we look at the nature of work, not just like today in our modern time, but historically, if we did just like a general overview, just ever since humans have been writing uh down history, that we can see that uh there's been certain relationship that uh humans have had with work, especially that work that seems extremely laborious, manual labor. And what we've seen is in earlier times, when they didn't have the technology to uh relieve themselves of a given work, they instead used the technology we might think of as culture. They kind of created and uh fashioned a cultural container in which to deal with this. And often this meant that uh you created the the the have nots, the undesirables, the lower class. You know, you create this uh architecture of space and time and people, and you have right the slaves and the servants. These are the people who are going to do the work that needs to get done that nobody else wants to do, and there you have it. You know, that's this is kind of ancient like technology in that sense of fashioning something to if you were of the higher class or the elite or whatever level of society you found yourself in, that you could potentially be relieved from that. What's really interesting is if we look back at these origin stories, the scriptures of this ancient Mesopotamian world, the world in which Israel was growing up in and her Gentile neighbors, if we look at their scriptures, like essentially like their Genesis, their book of Genesis, if we open that up and and see their stories of creation or the beginning of things, uh we see some really interesting uh uh insights into what they believed about the nature of work. Now, when we're talking about creation, at least in Genesis and the surrounding nations, when you're talking about a creation account, you're not just talking about creation uh as what happened a long time ago, but you're talking about the present moment, the created order, how this world is meant to be. This is what Genesis is talking about, and this is what these other uh uh documents are talking about, the Enuma Leash being one of the big ones. But what you see in those uh alternate accounts of you know the beginning of the world is that humans are depicted as slaves who have to perform labor. They are performing this manual uh burdensome labor, and the gods, uh the deities in these stories are far removed from the demands of labor. In fact, to be a deity in this ancient Mesopotamian mind, to be a deity is to be far above, right, the requirements or the burden of work. Work is just beneath the dignity of a god or the gods. This is what you see in their scripture, and and what ends up happening is the the labor, the burden of work, kind of rolls down the hill of dignity into those at the bottom, which happen to be in this story. Humans. So humans, the drudgery of manual labor, and then the gods or the deities, right? They don't need to touch work with a ten-foot pole. Never the twain shall meet. This is the contemporary mindset in ancient Mesopotamia. What's striking, what's absolutely striking, so much to be shocking, like unbelievable, is when you open up the beginning uh pages of Genesis, and you see the time in which Genesis was written and the surrounding culture and what they were saying about the world, it's absolutely bizarre. Because the beginning pages of Genesis clearly show and portray God as a worker, as a laborer. In fact, creation is the product in Genesis of the labor of God, such that God rests on the seventh day from the Lord's labors. This is striking. So, whatever we make of Genesis, the God of Israel, is apparently a God for whom work is not beneath his dignity. God is depicted as an artisan, fashioning, shaping, creating, molding, uh pictured as a farmer. This is a laborer who like gets on his knees and gets his hands in the dirt, as it were. This is the God revealed in the opening pages of Genesis. God as a laborer, a worker. And this image is uh what we see. I think uh we could say that the premise of this, that God is a God who labors, that God is a God who works, is one of the uh the premises that we have by the time we get to the gospel to make sense of the gospel. That not only in creation are we the product of the labor of God, but also in redemption. We are the product of the labor of God. And this image of laborer, worker, the Bible has all kinds of images used to describe God, right? As a warrior, as a physician, a healer, and this image of laborer or worker, one of the dominant images used in the Bible to describe God as a worker is the image of shepherd. When we speak of God as our shepherd, we are speaking about God as our laborer. The one who labors over us and for us, and whose labor is us. This image of a shepherd as a vocation, as a role, as a worker. The vocation of a shepherd requires many things. And we see this coming out richly in David's Psalm. This image of God as shepherd, God as a laborer over God's people. A shepherd needs to have intelligence, right? To practice good husbandry with livestock. Shepherd is able to not just know, but even anticipate the needs of the animals and in their care, right? The shepherd's gonna know, okay, we're I'm gonna take the fold here, and when we get here, they're going to need to rest by the time we get here. They're gonna need rest, they'll need water, food. The Lord, as our shepherd, the Lord labors in anticipating and meeting our needs. A shepherd, be tender and husbandry and knowledgeable, also needs to be fierce. This is the rod. The staff and rod, right, that comfort David, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. This rod and the staff, this is a comfort to David, but it's uh totally fearful for David's enemies. Right? Psalm 2, this is the rod and staff that is going against the nations, this image of the rod that this is what the shepherd does to protect the sheep. This is to say that when we say the Lord is our shepherd and the Lord labors over us, the Lord is tenacious and fierce with anything that would threaten the integrity of his flock. Absolutely tenacious. Christ will tell us, I will lay down my life for the sheep. This is the good shepherd lays down his life. When we say that the Lord is our shepherd, we are saying that the Lord labors tenaciously over our well-being, over our ultimate security, our ultimate provider, our ultimate safety. That this is where the Lord is taking us. To speak of the Lord as our shepherd is to speak of all the ways in which the Lord is laboring over us. Well, what is what does this mean? One of the ways that we can understand this by saying that the Lord is our shepherd, the the underside of that we could say is we are sheep. Sheep are not known for being really intelligent. Now, this is important. This is a metaphor, right? This is an image that scripture gives us. Part of harnessing a good metaphor is knowing how to use it and knowing when to leave it, right? So bear with me. We are sheep. What does this mean? This means that our future, our well-being, our needs, where we're going, our destination, is not ultimately up to us. It is to say that we are not responsible for finding the green pastures. We're not responsible for finding the still water. The shepherd does that. The shepherd leads us there. To be a sheep is not to lead, but to follow. To be a sheep is not to meet needs, but to have your needs met. To be a sheep is not to provide, but to be provided for. So the sheep-shepherd imagery shows a drastic asymmetry. There's a great disproportionality between the capabilities of the shepherd vis-a-vis the sheep. And so when I say that sheep are not known for being intelligent, that's not, you know, a preacher's way of saying that we are not intelligent, as in uh, you know, capable of thinking well and thinking clearly and you know think uh thinking of an argument, not in that sense, but in the sense that we take far too much responsibility when we forget that we're a sheep, we take far too much responsibility and burden for the outcome of our life. In other words, to not consider ourselves or recognize that we are a sheep is to take ourselves far too seriously, is to attribute far too much capability, far too much power, far too much uh ability to unduly sway our life. To recognize the sheepishness of our existence is to recognize essentially that our life is in the care of another. So think of that. Everything that concerns you, your future, your health, your family, your finances, your joy, your wounds, your pain, your kids, whatever it might be. Think of this. To say that the Lord is our shepherd is to say that those things that we feel most concern us, especially those things that are hidden, that we feel, well, nobody could be concerned with this because I've not shared it, right? I feel the burden alone. Only I know how concerned. I'm the most concerned about this thing because I haven't told him. To say that the Lord is our shepherd is to recognize that all of our life, all of our concerns are in the care of another. That what concerns you more concerns the shepherd. That what worries you, makes you fearful, is the responsibility of the shepherd. This is a great uh invitation into freedom to hear that we are sheep and we have a shepherd. It can be a kind of a blow to the ego, maybe, but to the soul, it's very liberating and comforting. So I invite us on this Sunday to recognize and to trust, to see that the Lord is laboring over you. That your creation and your redemption is the outcome of the Father and the Son's and the Spirit's work and labor in your life. That any labor that we do is totally in vain, in proportion to if we're laboring apart from the labor of the Lord, right? Unless the Lord labors, those who labor build the house in vain. What is important is the Lord's labor. And this is why, in proportion to our laboring in the labor of the Lord, that it's not, our labor is not in vain. I invite us to trust that we have a shepherd, and what that means is to trust and acknowledge that you are a sheep, that you need help, you need to be led. You need to be provided for. You need to be showed away. You need to be taken care of. You need to be fought for. You need to be protected. You need to be secure. You need to be fed. You need to be made to rest. This is what we mean.