Being Good Shepherd Sunday, we had Psalm 23 in various forms. It was indeed the psalm for the day, but the choir echoed the psalm in “Brother James’s Air” a traditional air arranged for SATB by Gordon Jacobs and a number of the hymns were versions of Psalm 23.
Father Stephen’s sermon started with a reference to the Old Testament reading about Noah and the flood. Our lovely 1750 chandelier has a dove with an olive branch in its mouth, the leaf of which has been coloured green. He told us that today was Good Shepherd Sunday and remembered a picnic, where his repast was pinched by a flock of sheep on the Brecon Beacons! “For we like sheep have gone astray”. Sheep are usually docile when not pinching picnics. Father Stephen is our shepherd and we are his flock. We need to be sheep, not wolves. The second reading was about Jesus in Jerusalem for the rededication of the temple. It needed to be rededicated as the Babylonians and the Greeks had defiled it. Jesus is in Solomon’s portico, some way from the temple, possibly sheltering from the ravages of winter. The Jews ask Jesus who is he? Is he the Messiah? Why not tell them? Father Stephen remembered taking his youth group to a performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar” when he was a curate and “Are you who people say you are?” is a famous line from the show. Jesus equivocates. He keeps his sheep safe. With the recent revelations about Justin Welby, he said that he knows who he is in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, when it was reported that his father is not his genetic father. We should all know who we are in Jesus Christ.