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September 14 Worship Service Video
Join us following worship in the Van Roon Community Hall for the He/SheBrews Café.
- For news and events, please have a look at Life & Work on our website: Life and Work
- We were saddened to learn of the death of Mitch Blake this week. Mitch and his wife Barb have been part of our community for decades. They celebrated their 76th anniversary last year, the longest marriage in our church family. A funeral service for Mitch will be held on Tuesday, September 16 at 10:00 AM at Chapel lawn. Please remember Barb and her family in your prayers this week.
Dear Friends
Welcome to worship for Sunday, September 14, 2025.
If the Bible were being written today, what would replace the imagery of shepherd and sheep? Clearly it is so prominent that it’s use in texts, Old Testament and New, must have meant that for those people in that day the image was common, recognizable, and understandable. As someone who has been to Israel once and who has never been to a sheep farm, I am left to guess.
I suppose we can draw some conclusions based on texts best known to us. It all starts with Psalm 23 whose first line is, of course, “The Lord is my Shepherd”. Nowhere in that psalm are believers directly referred to as sheep but I think it is fairly implied. The character of the shepherd has the focus here. Good shepherds provide all of our wants. It is the shepherd who ensures green pastures, still waters, righteous paths. The instruments of the shepherd’s trade are mentioned as the rod and staff are used to comfort us against death and evil. God gives. We receive.
Psalm 23 is not the first biblical reference as sheep and sheep-herding run throughout the earlier Exodus story. When he left Egypt the first time Moses found comfort tending the flocks of Midian. After the encounter at the burning bush on Sinai, Moses returns to Egypt and tells Pharaoh has he has been instructed, “Let my people go”! He is described as having a staff in his hand. In the climactic moment the Passover that frees Israel is accomplished by the sacrifice of a lamb. The symbolic nature of sheep and shepherds were always with Israel.
David, the second King of Israel but it’s leading royal figure is described first and foremost as a shepherd, a young shepherd boy at that. His youthfulness and innocence become the gateway for his triumphs and his leadership. Sheep for the most part are described as confounding the shepherd’s desires. “All we like sheep, have gone astray” says Isaiah 53:6. There is a sense that while the shepherd protects and provides, sheep have a tendency to be disobedient and go their own way. This might be a particularly germane reason for the popularity of the imagery.
The New Testament writers are just as familiar with sheep and shepherds and just as likely to employ the metaphor. Is it a coincidence that Luke says the first people to visit Jesus and Mary were shepherds? The Gospel of John really likes the image and not trusting our interpretation tells us bluntly in chapter 10 when Jesus says “the good shepherd lays his life down for his sheep…I am the good shepherd”, foreshadowing the end with which we are very aware. In the earliest eucharistic liturgies of the church Jesus is referred to as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” a reference to John 1:29.
But my favorite use of the metaphor, by far, is the passage we are using this week, the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15. The dynamics of a shepherd who pursues the lost relentlessly and then celebrates the return is endlessly challenging yet reassuring. The intentions of the lost are forever puzzling but the actions of the shepherd are unmistakable. God is the One who loves us back into the fold.
I said at the beginning that I wonder what modern image or metaphor would be equal to that of shepherd and sheep in scripture. I don’t have an answer or a guess. Perhaps you can offer one. But whatever we settle on surely it must reflect One who protects without violence, who provides without question, who redeems and restores without judgment. The shepherd of our souls.
Grace and peace,
Michael
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- Read this week’s scripture lesson here: Luke 15:1-10
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