Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.  I found myself humming that chorus last week as I parked my car and walked toward the dance studio.  It was my first night of tap dancing lessons, and I was very nervous.  So nervous that I was moved to prayer!  I took tap dancing as a kid, and before I moved to Lima, I took adult tap class for two years in Newtown.  But it had been over four years since I laced up my tap shoes, and even though the class description said, “mixed level class, beginners welcome”, I had serious doubts about whether I could keep up.

So, why go, if I was just going to be nervous about it?  Because I had such a great experience with tap in the past.  When I was in Newtown, every Tuesday afternoon as I drove to class, I always had a lot on my mind.  Maybe something from my to-do list that hadn’t gotten done, or worries about a church member having a hard time, or concerns about my family or the world.  Many weeks I thought about skipping class because I should probably be focusing on those important things rather than on something frivolous like tap.  But every Tuesday as I drove home from class?  Nothing was bothering me anymore!  The music, the movement, the noise of the taps on the wood floor are ingredients that add up to a serious change in brain chemistry!  Endorphins!  Feel good vibes!  Every week as I drove home, I gave thanks to God for the blessing of tap class.

So I know from experience that tap lessons could be really beneficial to my mental health.  This fall is going to be a very demanding season for pastors in our denomination, and I signed up for tap knowing I would need some guaranteed stress relieving activities in my schedule.  But in order to make myself go to tap last week, I had to overcome a much earlier experience.  A bad one from when I was four years old, and I persuaded my mom to take me to dance lessons, which was a good half an hour drive from my little town, a big inconvenience.  I was beyond excited.  But when I went in for the first day, all the girls were older than me.  And they were showing off what to me looked like very advanced moves.  I panicked.  But I had no one to shepherd me through my fear.  The dance teacher was judgmental.  My mom was at a loss.  So I went home humiliated.  Even though it’s been over 50 years from that terrible dance class day, every time I try something new, that dance class fail story is the very first script that rolls through my brain.

Do you have a story like that?  Recently I saw a quote, “Your initial reaction is usually your past trying to impose itself on your present.”  Your initial reaction is usually your past trying to impose itself on your present.  I really wanted to start up tap dancing class last week.  But my old story was very loud in my head.  It took work to call on my spiritual resources, and ask Jesus to shepherd me past that old, old fear, so I could go through the dance studio door and enjoy myself.

Shepherding us through our fears.  What a beautiful way to think of what Jesus does for us!  I like how Jesus compares himself to “hired hands”.  They are people who will do the job for a while.  But when the going gets tough, or when a better offer comes along?  They run.  But that is not the kind of Shepherd we have.  We are here today, with an empty cross at the front of our worship space, because Jesus did not run away.  Jesus did not put his own interests first.  Jesus did just the opposite.  He put us first!  Jesus laid down his life–only to take it up again–so his sheep could follow him into new life as well.  He trusted God to shepherd him through his fears, and now he does that for us.

In this season, I feel God is calling me to deepen my trust in Jesus the Good Shepherd.  There are times when I forget about his faithfulness, and start to act as if Jesus is more of a hired hand who may or may not be super invested in helping me when I need him!  Do you know that feeling?  I get nervous.  I have doubts.  Things aren’t always fair, and I get frustrated.  Sometimes I feel the world is changing too fast.  Other times I feel it’s not changing fast enough.  I can get a little frenzied!  If you serve on any church committee, you have seen that first-hand.

So I have to get quiet.  I learned this from a therapist I worked with long ago.  I had some hard things I needed to talk about, and I was very nervous.  I asked the therapist how to handle the fear, and he said, “Get quiet, and the trust will flow.”  That has turned out to be true for me again and again.  Get quiet, like the psalmist wrote, be still and know that I am God, and the trust will flow.  Get quiet, and listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd.  Get quiet, and allow Jesus to shepherd us beyond our wants, beyond our fears, from death into life.

The better we can get at this in our personal lives, the better we will be able to do it as a congregation.  They say the most frequent words spoken in church are, “We never did it that way before!”  Behind that statement is an old voice of fear.  It might be a fear of failure, a fear of change, or something even more insidious like a fear of being deceived or defrauded.  This is an initial reaction, the past trying to impose itself on our present.  But in order to move forward as a church, we need Jesus to shepherd us past our fears.  We need Jesus to shepherd us beyond our wants, through our resistance, from death into life.

I wonder if this is why the early church decided to use the adjective “good” to describe the Friday on which Jesus was killed.  It was good only in the sense that Jesus’ death led to new life.  The early church claimed an unlikely word, one that Jesus had used to describe himself.  It surprises me that Jesus called himself the “Good Shepherd”?  Doesn’t that seem like a little bit of an understatement?  It would be more accurate to say Jesus is the ultimate shepherd.  He is so committed to protecting his sheep and leading them where they need to go, that he is willing to lay down his life for his flock.

So the Good Shepherd is also our paschal lamb.  And we, the sheep, are also called to be shepherds to others.  After the resurrection, Jesus told Peter to feed his sheep.  We who have been shepherded beyond our wants and beyond our fears now get to help shepherd others.  We get to invest ourselves in caring for the sheep.  Matt Rawle, in his book, “Jesus Revealed” connects this idea to Psalm 23, which begins, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”, and ends with, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  This goodness and mercy that follows me, Matt Rawle says this is like the wake we leave behind us. This is our legacy.  We leave things better than we found them.

That is one of the reasons I am so excited about our Help Build Hope project.  Last September, we hosted our first build, and it was a lot of fun.  Almost 100 people volunteered in some capacity to build all the walls to a Habitat for Humanity house.  The walls got trucked to Troupe County, Georgia, and as the truck pulled away, I think all of us were filled with a sense of satisfaction and hope.  Unfortunately, the Habitat for Humanity office that received our walls has encountered a lot of red tape with their building project, and the walls we made are still in their warehouse.  They are hoping to break ground next month and will send us photos of the project as it moves along.  These delays have been disappointing for many in our congregation.

When it came time to decide if we wanted to do another Help Build Hope weekend, we had to wrestle with some competing feelings.  Satisfaction and hope on the one hand, and concern on the other.  On the one hand, we don’t want to spend all that time and energy on walls that aren’t going to get used; on the other hand, it’s 2022 and so much of life is just not functioning as it normally would.  Project delays are pretty much normal these days.  We had strong feelings in the pro column, and strong feelings in the con column.

Isn’t that so often the case in life?  I find myself wrestling with competing feelings a lot, especially the hope and worry combination.  I felt that way about tap class.  I feel that way about my upcoming assignment as a disaffiliation guide.  We might be feeling that about an anticipated doctor’s appointment, or family gathering, or church meeting.  We all have wants.  We all have fears.  But Jesus wants to shepherd us beyond them.

In order to be shepherded, is that a verb?  In order to be guided by our Good Shepherd beyond OUR will into GOD’S will, we have to get quiet.  We have to ask Jesus to help us get quiet and hear his voice.  What does Jesus say about our wants and fears, about our hopes and concerns, about our competing feelings?  We want to do all we can to hear his voice, so that we don’t let our initial reaction, which might be a voice from our past, not Jesus’ voice, determine our future.

Here at Lima, we applied this technique to our feelings about Help Build Hope.  We listened to our collective concerns and fears and wants and preferences, and we decided to give it another try.  As we wait for our first set of walls to turn into a house, I think Jesus has a message very different from the old voices in our heads.  I think Jesus is saying, goodness and mercy are following you.  These walls WILL make the difference of a lifetime.  Take the long view, and don’t be afraid to try again.  Life rarely goes according to plan.  But that doesn’t mean good things aren’t happening!  Now we have a second set of walls, on their way to West Grove in southern Chester County.  Even more goodness and mercy are following us.

As a kid I learned a song at church camp.  “I just wanna be a sheep, bah, bah, bah, bah.  I just wanna be a sheep, bah, bah, bah, bah, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, I just want to be a sheep”!  I think the song is actually based on Matthew 25 and has a second verse about not wanting to be a goat.  But I like the sheep part.  I want to be a sheep that knows the voice of my shepherd.  I want to be a sheep that trusts my entire life, my well-being today, my future, my legacy, my everything, to Jesus the Good Shepherd.  I want to be a sheep who helps to leave things better than we found them.  I want a wake of goodness and mercy to follow me.  I know you want that, too.  To do that, we have to learn to get quiet.  We have to learn to overcome the other voices clamoring in our heads.  We have to learn to distinguish the voices of false shepherds so we can follow our Good Shepherd.

The way we will know for sure if it’s Jesus’ voice we are hearing is that it will be the voice that leads us into new life.  So last week, despite the old failure story soundtrack on repeat in my head, I claimed my faith in Christ.  I walked through the door of the dance studio.  I laced up my tap shoes. I introduced myself to everyone I met.  I did my best to follow the teacher.  And I left the class with my all the good feelings I was hoping to have.  I felt as if I was indeed shepherded past my fears, into new life.

Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.  Whether we’re facing a minor challenge, or a major one, individually or collectively, may this be our constant prayer.  Amen.