“Languishing” is the most common feeling in our country right now, according to a recent New York Times article.[1] Languishing is the result of more than a year of Pandemic stress. Instead of “flourishing,” being filled with a sense of well-being and purpose, we are now left with “a sense of stagnation and emptiness.” Languishing isn’t clinical depression, or burnout, or anxiety, although it may lead to those. It’s a sense of “blah.” It’s a sense of “muddling through your days.” I liken it to wandering aimlessly around the supermarket with my glasses fogged up from my mask! I can sense “languishing” all around me, even here at St. Ambrose, and I can sometimes see it in myself. I’ll bet that we all can see this languishing in ourselves, at least from time to time. We are “languishing lambs,” longing for our good shepherd, longing for someone to trust. For someone just to step in and bind up our wounds and feed us. For someone to swoop down and scoop us up in saving arms. We want someone to hold us close, without a mask, to wipe away the fog. How good it felt to listen to the 23rd Psalm today! Psalm 23 is all about the intimacy of loving care. It’s about a caregiver who is in control, yet utterly merciful. We read it at sick beds and at funerals … The psalm’s descriptions of rest and nourishment are a balm to languishing souls.
At first glance, it might seem as if our Gospel lesson is simply a continuation of Psalm 23’s comforting image. Jesus announces, “I am the good shepherd.” Jesus, as a good Jew, must have regularly prayed the psalms. He understands that God is Israel’s Good Shepherd, a good shepherd who knows and loves his sheep, protecting them from their enemies. But there’s more. The Good Shepherd that Jesus describes in our Gospel isn’t only a bearer of security and comfortable community. Jesus says that he is a shepherd so closely bound to his flock in love that he lays down his own life for them. His notion of self-giving love sounds so crazy and far-fetched that many of his listeners scoff, “He has a demon and is out of his mind!”
Jesus doesn’t share our romanticized view of sheep and shepherds. Jesus knows that shepherds live out in the wilderness, out among the wolves, the thieves, and the dusty, smelly sheep. As our shepherd, Jesus dwells at the edges of polite society, out in the untamed places.[2] He is in constant danger. He is bold and courageous. He risks his life, all that he has, for those who are placed in his care. Here’s the real kicker, though: A better translation of Jesus’ statement in our Gospel lesson is, “I am the Model Shepherd.” Not just “Good” but “Model.” Exemplary. An example to follow. Yes, Jesus describes himself as the sound and right model of shepherding care: a model that he intends for us to imitate.
If Jesus is the “model shepherd” then we are to do as he does. Jesus not only cares for the sheep, Jesus expects the sheep to care for each other in the same way. We are the ones who are to head out to the uncomfortable margins of our world. We are the ones called to go to the untamed places to bind up wounds, search for the lost, and wipe away the tears. We are the ones who must be willing to give selflessly to those entrusted into our care, even at the risk of our own lives. Not only am I the precious, comforted creature, cozy in the merciful hands of God. I am also one creature in a community of beloved creatures, a community larger than I can imagine. Hear the admonition in today's Epistle: “We know love by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?”
A few years ago, I came across a shepherd scene that reminds me of Jesus’ words in our Gospel.[3] In a remote area of Pakistan, we see a young girl of about five or six, shepherding her sheep in the rain. She is holding a heavy umbrella, bigger than she is. About twenty muddy and bedraggled sheep plod along behind her. In the shadows, her face is serious, tired, and brave. She heads out alone, despite her youth, in charge of her flock—bringing her languishing lambs into the sheepfold. Can you place yourself in this little girl’s muddy shoes? Walking away from your warm, dry house and out into the dreary drizzle, with the shelter of the Holy Spirit like a huge umbrella over your head? How does it feel? It might feel pretty familiar, I bet….It might feel like heading out into an uncertain future? It might feel like another routine, languishing day?
Why go? Psychologists would say that it’s because a cure for languishing is to carve out a daily time to focus on a challenge that matters to you, to do one meaningful thing at a time.[4] They explain that to flourish, rather than languish, we have to recover a strong sense of “meaning, mastery and mattering to others.” Jesus, too, desires our flourishing: our wholeness, health and fulness of life for evermore. It is by losing that you will find flourishing, he promises. It is in caring for those in need that you will find meaning. He tells us: God knows your gifts and is calling you forward by name.
As we say at Morning Prayer: “He is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Oh, that today we might hearken to his voice.”
[1] Adam Grant, “There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing.” Found at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html.
[2] Debie Thomas, “A Shepherd Who is Good.” April 18, 2021. Found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2990-a-shepherd-who-is-good.
[3] Provided by Dr. Lauren Winner in a summer class at the University of the South, August 2019.
[4] Grant.
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