When Life Is Tough: Being a Sheep with The Good Shepherd | Fr. Shawn McCain Tirres

Show Notes

Fr Shawn McCain Tirres - May 11, 2025 This Good Shepherd Sunday sermon offers an honest and vulnerable reflection on what it means to need a shepherd in today's uncertain world. Pastor Shawn begins by acknowledging the difficult state of our world and our personal lives, exploring why the ancient metaphor of God as shepherd remains deeply relevant for modern believers. This sermon will resonate with those experiencing burnout, anxiety, or feeling overwhelmed by life's uncertainties, while also offering practical ways to embody Christ's love in community. Todays Readings: Acts 9:36-43 | Psalm 23 | Revelation 7:9-17 | John 10:22-30 We’re so glad you’re here! Get in touch: https://rezaustin.churchcenter.com/people/forms/85960 Support our ministry: rezaustin.com/give

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Life Together In The Goodness Of God

Well, this morning, if you haven't picked up on the themes in the readings this morning is Good Shepherd Sundays. You're going to hear a lot of Good Shepherd things going on. And honestly, friends, as I've been working on this this week and thinking about it, this is really good news for us. I think it's really good news for us, especially in the world that we have today. I saw John this morning. Where's John? Oh, there he is. He's right there. I'm like, how are you doing? He's like, man, this is this world is not great, right? And I'm like, amen. So this is why we need a sort of Good Shepherd story, some good news of the Good Shepherd, I think, for us today, especially in the midst of all the uncertainties of our lives personally, the things that feel unstable or unsure in our lives, but also in the world. This morning, it's it's really good news to know that there is a God who loves us and is watching over, superintending, guiding. Nothing is missed by this God, the Good Shepherd, someone who gathers and guides us and even calls us by name. How wonderful. In the massive cosmos that we have and all the people and all the issues, there's a God who gathers you up and calls you by name. This metaphor, I think, as a shepherd would be really easily relatable for a first century Christian or even a Jew around that time, or even before then when Psalm 23 was written. But if I'm honest, a shepherd is kind of a hard thing for me to relate to. I don't deal with sheep very often ever, I don't know. I haven't I don't have the experience that maybe someone in agriculture or like farming would have dealing with animals like this. And I can't help but wonder what metaphor we could imagine that actually might be more familiar for us. And really any image we used to try to describe this image of God gathering and guiding, whatever metaphor we pick, it's going to fail, right? It's going to be even unrelatable for some, but maybe more relatable for others. But we need to try some images, some metaphors to help us know something about what God is like, the way God tends to us. Perhaps knowing God as a father is really helpful, or a mother, Happy Mother's Day. God is mother. Scripture talks about God as mother in all kinds of ways. Perhaps those images are helpful. But if you've had like kind of weird parents or tough parents, it's going to be a really tough metaphor for you to relate to God with. Maybe King or Lord is that image, that metaphor. But one unjust or ungodly ruler, and that metaphor is threatened again, right? So all of these images, they sort of fall short. And words themselves, actually, whatever words we use to describe God ultimately fail. Even if the image is helpful, it fails to grasp who God is in entirety. For instance, God is our shepherd. But unlike any shepherd the world has ever known, God is mother, father, king, Lord, but also unlike any father or mother or king or Lord the world has ever known. This by the way, for the nerds in the room, this is called apophatic theology, but what God is not, right? The purpose of the good shepherd metaphor isn't to fully capture, perfectly contain the eternal greatness, the almighty power and goodness of God. It's not meant to contain that, but it is to show us something that we can hold on to about who God is. But did you notice how God as shepherd also tells us something about who we are? Think about this. We must be the sheep, right? Obviously, we're not sheep in real life, right? We know this, but we do scare easy. It does tell us something about who we are. We can be pretty dumb. I know myself and I know some of y'all, no offense. We get lost. We get lost. We get hurt. We need to be fed. We need to be gathered up and even penned at night and protected from threats. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want, scripture says. So we find a place, a relationship with God, the shepherd and us, the sheep in this beautiful psalm. This is probably the most well-known psalm in human history, I bet. I mean, if any of you know a psalm, it's this one, I'm sure. And for good reason. It's amazing. It's brilliant. It's beautiful. And by the way, isn't it interesting that we have to use poetry that always works beyond words to try and describe these mysteries of God? Word is where words end and beauty and truth still need to grasp something. It's amazing. There's a reason why we use this liturgy in baptisms and in burials. Did you know that? Why is that? Because these are those most vulnerable and dependent moments we have in our lives. And how fitting to be reminded that we are but sheep. And we have a good shepherd. There are moments like these in our lives when all we can say is how God lies us down in green pastures. We don't lie ourselves down in good places, but God does. We can say that. God leads us beside still waters, revives our soul and guides us along right paths. The image, this is kind of corny, but the image every time I imagine when I read Psalm is me and the good shepherd usually like Jesus or something because he's sort of human personified. So we're walking along this nice meadow in a beautiful river and he busts out a big picnic table or a big picnic blanket and sets us down and says, Sean, just shut up and sit down for a second. That's the image I get. What a beautiful image, right? When the darkness of the valley of the shadow of death surrounds us, we find God with us, prodding us, prodding us with his staff and his rod. The good news in Psalm 23, friends, is how little we are responsible for doing any of these actions, but how good God is for doing them for us. Even despite us, the thing we can't do for ourselves, God provides for us. When we have nothing to say or can't say anything, we find ourselves at a point where we must let go and stop and be still, be in silence, maybe even listen, be guided for once instead of guiding ourselves to let go of control and to be taken care of, to rest, to be comforted. Even when the world burns down around us, the valley of the shadow of death is upon us to take a deep breath and be comforted in the stillness and presence of God so that the one who is actually our good shepherd and this world's good shepherd can do what good shepherds do. Y'all feel me? I'm y'all. This is good news. Amen, Father Sean. Preach the gospel, brother. That's really good. If you look around at what's going on in the world and in our lives sometimes, like, man, I forgot about that. That's good news. A few years ago, our family had the gift of taking a sabbatical, just like what Father Ryan is now off doing. If you don't know who Father Ryan is, he's a great priest. He's not here. He works here, but he's on sabbatical. I was not in great shape a few years ago when I started on my sabbatical. We were coming out of a, I mean, I don't have to tell y'all, but let me just bring it to mind again. Hope this isn't too traumatizing, but we came out of an unprecedented two-year pandemic. You remember this? Some of you have, like, forgotten this on purpose, maybe? That I was supposed to take a sabbatical right before that hit that summer. So that was delayed, which was disappointing. We went into a lockdown. We had the death of a beloved Rez member. Black Lives Matter movement was raging on, George Floyd. Black life after black life was being gunned down. The Trump presidency. The stresses of church survival in a time where we couldn't gather and had to immediately go online. Man, I died about, like, four times during that season. Finances, by the way, not only for our own family, but for a church life, stressful. All while trying to care for the needs of a real community before us, one another. That was a lot, wasn't it? And this whole mess, this mountain of man, whatever you want to call that, that drama came after 12 years of Michelle and I planting two churches and having six kids and really never having a serious break. And so I was just obviously burned out. I was at my end on spiritual fumes, you could say. I experienced my first anxiety attacks during that. I didn't even know what it was. I had to talk to a doctor and like, oh, well, that's an anxiety attack. It's terrible. I feel for people who have to go through those sort of things all the time. I was having trouble sleeping. I was having trouble praying, thinking. It was not fun. Have you ever felt like that? Can anybody relate to that? I was a sheep that needed a shepherd, but I was also a shepherd too, and that needed to shepherd others as well. But I knew that I couldn't really shepherd others unless I was first shepherded. I was more a sheep than I was a shepherd, for sure. And here's the good news of what happened. This community stepped in. In fact, the vestry sat me down. They're like, Sean, we're concerned about you. It's time for you to, they rolled out the picnic blanket, right? Sean, sit your butt down, stop. It's time for you to take a break. The vestry stepped in as an expression of this community's care and cared for me when I needed it most. You shepherded me when I was at my weakest. I needed that shepherd. They got me sent off on a sabbatical with a family, and I remember getting on a plane, and my sabbatical prayer was, Lord, you know where to find me. That's how little I had left in the tank. I'm not going to have some grand plan to study my Bible and pray every day and do all the things I got to do to be holy and spiritual. I was like, I do that for a living, it feels like sometimes, Lord, and this is all I've got. You know where to find me. I know that's maybe not impressive to hear from your rector, but like, that's what I had, guys. Being honest, let's be real for a second here. That was all I had to offer at the time, but that was enough for the good shepherd to shepherd me in the way that I needed. And by the way, the Lord did guide me. The Lord did come and find me in very surprising moments in different places. Maybe you can relate to this moment, the sort of being at the end of things, lost, tired. Lord, you know where to find me. What do you expect sheep to say? If anything, you don't even have to invite the Lord to find you, because why? The good news is, that's what good shepherds do, despite us even when we're not asking for it. Maybe you don't even want a shepherd in your life. Maybe you don't think you need one, that's okay, because who God is, is this God of love who doesn't impose, but gently and quietly guides, finds us, nourishes us, protects us. And when we're willing, when we open our lives and our hearts to this good shepherd, this good God restores us, renews us, puts us back in community, finds people in our lives to nourish us and care for us just the way we need to be cared for. This is what God is doing, friends. This is how God works in the world. This is what the good shepherd does. The shepherd calls you by name too. If any one of you in here think, well, yeah, but that's what the good shepherd does for good Christians who show up to church like we do, who tithe, who serve, who do the things that good Christians do, read their Bibles and pray. I just told you my story, guys, I'm not the greatest Christian in the world, believe me. And yet the good shepherd found me. The point is about the good shepherd calling you by name is not a single sheep goes unnoticed without being sort of lost and never found. All the sheep God knows. God created the sheep. You don't think God knows God's own sheep? There's not a single one of you in here on livestream, if you're watching this later, that God does not call by name and know deeply. God knows what you're going through better than you do, in fact. And God knows how to guide and find you and renew you. We're all sheep gathered into the presence of God, but we're also called to reflect the shepherd for others as well. The way this community has done for me and my wife and our family over the years, we are called to shepherd one another, to care for one another. We will find ourselves in a place that needs a caregiver, but also we're going to find ourselves in opportunities where we can be the one who's giving that care. Every Sunday we're gathered together as sheep in this sort of pen, right? To be nourished, to be cared for, to rest, to be healed and renewed, to receive the forgiveness of sins. But then we're also sent out, yes, still as sheep. But when the time is right, we go out as shepherds as well. When we've been strengthened and nourished by the one who loves us most, the good shepherd himself in his own body and blood, in his own promise of words of forgiveness, in his own commissioning, sending you with the Holy Spirit. Did you hear Peter raising the dead in Acts? That's not Peter. That's the good shepherd breathing power and life into him that he might be a shepherd for others, even the dead. Friends, you too will find a time when it is right for you, maybe it's not now and that's okay to go and become a shepherd, a caregiver for others, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to tend to the wounded and the tired in here, but also in your neighborhoods, in your workplaces, in the spaces where you spend your lives. This is what God is doing, especially in this Easter season. This is what God is doing. And can I just tell you where this all leads? To what end, Sean, did you hear revelation? When all people, all tribes and peoples and languages and nations are brought home. Who's in the center of that picture? Who's the center of the universe? But the good shepherd himself, the lamb and the shepherd scripture describes God. And this is where it's all heading. This morning, some of us need to receive the good shepherd through one another, through our brothers and sisters. It might sound like a word of love. Let me make this real practical. Could be a gesture or a word of love, by the way, like this amazing Mother's Day social that we have hooked up here. It's going to be amazing. Just saying. It's pretty sweet. I got those macaroons like someone requested. Being the good shepherd for other could be acts of service, like the folks serving back there, like the folks serving here, like so many of you who are not even in here serving in kids classrooms, who do things for one another during the week, those concrete actions of love and service and care, that's good shepherd stuff. Still others may be ready to reflect the good shepherd to others in other ways. Maybe this morning, you're a bit of a sheep, or maybe you're more a shepherd, or maybe a little bit of both. As we come to the table, may you know more deeply the care and the love of God who calls you by name and brings you home this morning. And may you also be renewed by this shepherded love that you see and respond to the needs of others around you. Amen. Amen.