In Times of Danger | Rev. David Pileggi (Good Shepherd Sunday)

The image of shepherds and shepherding in the biblical text stands in sharp contrast to the romantic pictures of fat sheep on luxuriant, green hillsides that we see in popular Christian culture. The biblical image, best reflected in Psalm 23, is set in the dangerous Judean wilderness with wild animals, “the valley of the shadow of death”; sporadic grass and rain which (even today) can suddenly turn to perilous flash floods, "green pastures … still waters." When the Bible describes God as Shepherd, His sheep can say, “I shall not want” in this precarious world, and in the world to come, “I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus also describes Himself as the Good Shepherd who provides in this world (John 7-9) and for eternity. “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.” (10) Readings: Ezekiel 34:1-16; Psalm 23; John 10:11