Reflecting Rev. Ian Brown “Soul restorations”

Wattlebird Ministry Team – Warragul

Readers of classics and film buffs will be familiar with the opening scene of Thomas Hardy’s ‘Far from the madding crowd’. Gabriel Oak is an up- and-coming sheep farmer. He lives close to the animals and cares for them. His workmate, a faithful old sheep dog, has a pup who, one night, drives the whole flock off a cliff to their deaths. I think the story is old enough not to need a spoiler alert. The tragedy sets the plot in motion. We get an earthy glimpse of life and death consequences in shepherding. But we aren’t in 19th century England, or David’s Israel, from where we hear:

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.”

This Psalm is one of the most beautifully faceted gems in all of scripture. For generations the 23rd Psalm has been memorised and recited, sought out for comfort and reassurance.

But many have trouble with this psalm today. The image of us as sheep is not flattering. We might picture a Shepherd-Lord figure with cute clean lambs, like the Sunday School prints, but that was never honest. Sheep aren’t very clean, they smell and do what they want. The Lord is my shepherd; but we can have trouble translating the ancient imagery into our time.

A “good shepherd” is more alien in Australia than he would have been in 1st century Israel. We like to romanticise shepherds as simple rural labourers. But rulers of the Ancient Near East were sometimes called shepherds. As a core economic business in those days, flocks could number in the tens of thousands. Shepherding required a considerable skill set. Travellers to the Middle East still see shepherds that are a bit rough in appearance and often rough with their sheep. The first modern shepherd I saw was swatting sheep on the rear end with his stick, yelling expletives.

It’s an earthy life-stained image, not the one on the serene pictures.  Then, the image of a Lord is not popular with many now either, let alone the picture of a Lord who seems to want to make people lie in the grass. But thankfully there are a number of images and we can find things that work for us.

‘He leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.’ I like the surf and running waters as a preference, but the idea of restoring our souls has some currency for us.

Our changed world means we need to think in new ways if we are to have a hope of benefiting from ancient texts and then of passing the benefit on to others.

We lived for some years in a seventy year old home that had some problems. The pressing need for renovation became clear very quickly! Sinking stumps, gaps opening, mould yes, that’s the way it goes isn’t it. As you get used to a place, as it ages or as the needs change, we need to restore and renovate.

I think if God were to use real estate vernacular to describe the collective state of our souls, the phrase would be something like, “souls with potential, in need of development, renovators delight!”

Psalm 23 tells us directly that God is in the business of soul restoration! We often need to be restored.  For many, the soul is a forgotten and ill-treated part of our humanity that we largely ignore. Or perhaps we under-nourish our souls on a diet of randomly selected tidbits from the supermarket shelves of popular culture.

This gem of a psalm affirms the astonishing truth that God wants to restore our souls, restored to the glory they were intended to have. God wants to nourish us, wants to set a lavish table to feed us, so that our cup runs over. You, me and for everyone!

This inviting image tells a needy generation that there is food for the soul, that there is a God who wants to lead us all in ways that will restore our spirits even in the face of the darkest things our world can throw at us. New hope is coming, it says.

Even in the darkest valleys of hopelessness, fear or depression – the God of all goodness and mercy is with us, is our comfort and our strength. If our souls are presently a “renovators delight”, then God is the one who delights to restore us!

God gives rest and refreshment for the soul beside renewing streams of living water, feeds us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation. “I am the good shepherd”, says Jesus. We are known and loved by the one who gives his all for us.

Then, if the body of Christ is a shepherding body, perhaps we need to think, not so much of how we are being shepherded like sheep, but how we together are engaged in shepherding – nurturing, restoring and feeding?

It’s God’s grace that continues the ongoing work of restoring our souls – bringing us healing and wholeness, enabling us to be part of the shepherding work as well, to the delight of the restorer! Amen.