Being Led

 Psalm 23, John 10:11-18

We don’t do this as often as we used to, in these days of GPS navigation, but from time to time I still find myself inviting someone to just follow my car – or agreeing to follow their car – to navigate to a place that’s new to one of us.

 

And I hate it.

Mostly I hate following someone else.  What if I miss the traffic light? What if I’m following the wrong black car? (I honestly cannot tell one SUV from another.) I can’t predict when I’m going to need to change lanes, or turn, and that drives me crazy.

I am not good at being led.

 

I’m not good at being shepherded.

A shepherd, I am told, leads their flock of sheep – going ahead of them – rather than behind them, like a cow-herder would. So sheep have to follow. Sheep have to trust the path that’s picked out for them, and trust that the shepherd (and the front of the flock) are looking out for all the possible dangers and wrong turns and delays. Trust that the shepherd won’t get too far ahead and leave us behind in the underbrush or at a poorly timed traffic signal.

 

That’s… not easy for me. And I suspect I am not the only one.

 

It’s normal for most of us to want to manage our own progress and destination. We’re generally encouraged to set our own goals and guide ourselves to them – with support and mentoring along the way, yes, but maintaining our own control over our path and life.

 

And yet I have found that I also long for a shepherd.

The world is complex and challenging, and I know most of the problems we need to solve are much bigger than I can manage. I can’t find the right path forward on my own. 
And much of the authority and leadership and protection on offer these days is clearly flawed – imperfect and divided government, eruptions of deadly violence from those who are called to protect us, mixed messages from every side.

 

So I long for someone who not only can, but will, constantly lead me – all of us! – in right pathways; to green places and calm waters.

When traveling through the “shadow of death” – in times of danger, though places of uncertainty or hardship, times where futility and despair hang close to us – I want to trust that I am led so safely that there is nothing to fear, no need to plot my own escape from the shadow.

I long to know that the shepherd is so trustworthy that the rod and staff that keep us together are a comfort to us, to me, not a threat or a worry.

Do you feel that longing, too?

 

The comprehensive care and guidance pictured in the 23^rd Psalm is meant to look like paradise, and I long for that.

But most of the time I still resist being led, because the valley of the shadow is genuinely scary, and I don’t want to follow anyone there, thanks anyway. Day to day, it seems like I should be able to find my own green calmness, on my own terms, even when I don’t know how I’m going to get there, or where it is.

 

Honestly, though? We don’t actually manage paradise on our own. We may find some green pastures for ourselves, but there’s still something more we want (or many things more). We may get so good at caring for ourselves that we are very bad at letting ourselves be cared for by someone else – even if they have more wisdom and skill to heal our hurts or plan a fruitful future than I do.  Doubt and fear intrude on our lives with some regularity.

 

Still, as long as it feels like I can manage more or less on my own, with occasional help, it’s very hard to really turn myself over to a shepherd. To choose to depend completely on anyone else.

Including Jesus. Including God.

 

We talk in the church about following Jesus, and we all try.

At least as long as we like where he is going, and how we’re getting there!

When Jesus seems to be headed into dangerous places, where I’d be in over my head, though – when Jesus gets involved with political hot potatoes, or wades into complex family troubles; goes face to face with my deepest fears, or physically walks into literal and metaphorical war zones – all things he seems to frequently do! – well, then I tend to think that maybe I should let Jesus go there on his own, and I’ll try something else or support him from a distance without following him in.

 

But the shepherding of God that results in fearlessness in shadow, abundant banqueting and blessing, and the complete fulfillment of our needs – the shepherding of God that is pictured in this psalm – isn’t something we can drift in and out of.

The 23^rd Psalm is not just a song of reassurance. It’s a song of complete commitment, an image of what it is like to stop choosing our own way, and instead to follow everywhere that God leads – right through the dangerous valley, or through green fields and pleasant waters that aren’t the particular kind of green and pleasant we would have chosen or preferred.  It sings with a wholehearted acceptance of the comfort in the rod and staff that keep us from going our own way.

 

We have to choose not just to follow, but to be led, to go places we may not know, by ways we may not understand, at the pace and at the time that the shepherd chooses instead of when we are personally ready to go.

And sometimes to stay right where we are even if we’d rather move.

 

Which means we have to trust that shepherd with everything we are and everything we have.

That’s probably why Jesus emphasizes relationship and intimacy as he talks about how he shepherds people: I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.

 

The shepherd knows his sheep individually and sheep know – and listen to – their shepherd’s voice.  That’s not just about being able to identify one another in a crowd, but about a deep understanding – a relationship that is ongoing, dynamic, and intimate, like the relationship between Jesus and God.

He knows us: knows our quirks and our fears, our favorite foods and the deep longings of our hearts, what makes us cry, what makes us laugh with our whole bodies.

And we know him, he reminds us. In particular, we know that he will not fail us.  Someone else might run away when the wolf is nearby, but the protection and presence of the Good Shepherd will never fail.

 

He knows that that is what we need to know most, in order to be shepherded. That when we put our trust, our whole lives, in his care, the shepherd will not fail us.

 

The shepherd we can trust to lead us is the one who puts the good of the flock before his own, who will choose to lay down his life and to take it up again, so that there is no end or limit to the presence and protection, the leadership and life this shepherd gives us.

 

That doesn’t always make it easy to be led. But it is what makes it essential.

Essential to commit ourselves to the most trustworthy, most unselfish and eternal love and care that exists, so that we can be guided through every pasture and pathway, every valley and hill we encounter, every decision and choice, by the greatest love and purpose in the world. Guided in all our moments and actions by a love greater than our own.

 

The paradise of Psalm 23 isn’t just an invitation. It’s direction for our lives.

Direction into places we may not know, by ways we may not understand, at God’s own pace and time. Direction to the overflowing abundance of God’s own heart and home, claimed by God’s goodness and mercy, all the days of our lives.