# Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost October 18, 2023 - [ Blog ](/news-categories/blog) *By Terrence L. Johnson Ph.D, Charles G. Adams Professor of African American Religious Studies, Harvard Divinity School* *(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Oct. 15, 2023)* ![The Rev. Terrence Johnson](/sites/g/files/omnuum7126/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/thememorialchurch/files/terrence_johnson_2023_600.jpeg?itok=RV0manHG) Greetings, beloved. I greet you in the name of Jesus the Christ in whom we may find shelter, rest, and strength. I'd like to thank Reverend Dr. Matthew Potts for extending the invitation to preach in this sacred space. Since joining the HDS community more than a year ago, I have found Matt to be a trusted, thoughtful, and wise colleague and friend. A special acknowledgement to Elizabeth Montgomery and Nancy McKeown for graciously managing the logistics of my trip. And finally, I would like to thank all of you within the sound of my voice, friends, visitors, and colleagues for joining us for worship. And as I prepare to reflect and share with you what God has placed on my heart, I'm reminded of my good colleague and friend, Professor Lapono. I can hear him saying, "Son, don't play politics with your sermon, but open your heart and show the community your love." Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable unto you, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Gracious God, hold my hand, walk with us along this tedious road, and lead us into the way everlasting. Amen. Today's sermonic meditation is entitled The Good Shepherd. Let us return for a few minutes to a portion of the Living Translation of Psalm 23. "Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need. God lets me rest in the meadow grass and leads me beside the quiet stream. God gives me new strength. Even when walking through the dark valley of death, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me, guarding, guiding me all the way. Beloved, there is no shortage in the world of chaos, calamity, and cruelty. Within the span of a week, the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the United States was booted from office, leaving vacant the third seat in line to the US presidency. Days later, we were left speechless by the deadly terrorist attack against Israel by Hamas. And just as we were beginning to mourn the dead, we received another shocking headline. Israel was at war with Gaza. But wait, there is more. Within a day or so, Afghanistan was hit with the deadliest earthquakes in decades. Beloved, it is an understatement to suggest that the world and nation are spinning out of control. Lest we fall into the trap of bad faith, what the philosopher Lewis R. Gordon calls choosing to believe in a lie, we are condemned to acknowledge the increasing ways that we have normalized political upheaval, war, and natural disasters. Is it hyperbolic to argue that we are living in unprecedented times? That we are standing at the intersection, teetering between indulgence and denial at the peril of human existence. We rightly take to the streets and light up social media with our individual and collective outrageous. We justifiably condemn, criticize, and chastise political and economic inequalities, anti-Black racism, antisemitism, misogyny, transphobia, and the list goes on. But what happens when the dust settles? Do we find refuge on social media, where our righteous indignations are liked and re-posted, to affirm the valor of our individual and tribal interests? Will we fight our way into oblivion in order to establish the veracity of our religious and political ideologies? –– Embed [Harvard Memorial Church](https://soundcloud.com/memorial-church "Harvard Memorial Church") · [Terrence L. Johnson Ph.D - Oct. 15, 2023 | Sunday Sermon](https://soundcloud.com/memorial-church/terrence-l-johnson-phd-oct-15-2023-sunday-sermon "Terrence L. Johnson Ph.D - Oct. 15, 2023 | Sunday Sermon") –– Church, I invite you to return with me to Psalm 23. The Good Shepherd is waiting for us in the valley, where we find ourselves tucked away in our enclaves, protected from our enemies, and for good reason, right? Look at our scars. So why will we leave this safety net? According to some scholars, the writer of this psalm is reflecting on the trials and tribulations of a people who had lost their way after securing freedom from bondage. They had forgotten their faith and turned their backs to God. They assumed idols, idol worshiping, and the public sacrificial offerings would replace God's call for them to pursue and embody mercy, righteousness, and justice. Our writer claims that the Shepherd "helps us to live a life in accordance with the norms of righteousness for the sake of Yahweh." The scholar goes on to write that "Upright behavior is connected to righteousness, justice, and equity." This means that our actions in the world are starting points for any conversation, for any debate, any engagement with our brothers, sister, or the other, demand that we start with our connection to the source of life, that our policies and strategies are measurable by their capacity to uphold justice for yourself and the neighbor. And what does this mean, you might ask. Well, my tradition teaches that there are two Great Commandments that we must obey. The first is to "Love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." And the second is to "Love your neighbor as yourself." And who is your neighbor? The disinherited, the unhoused, the oppressed, and dare I suggest your enemy. In this moment of great trepidation, the Good Shepherd wants us to remember in the Tony Morrison sense, the ancestors' faith in God's justice, righteousness, and mercy. These principles will anchor us in the midst of turmoil and unrest. That is, we will turn to sacred narratives to help us imagine what is impossible in moments of ugly hatred and violence. And as we struggle to see the world through God's principles, we will uncover new ways of relating to the planet and each other in three interesting ways, but challenging ways. First, we're reminded that the earth and the fullness of its natural resources belong to God. Indeed, we are caretakers of God's earth. And as just caretakers and children of the Most High God, we shall not want for anything. So how would our encounter with our neighbor, with the so-called other change if we started from a notion of we shall not want. Second, in the midst of a treacherous journey, we are asked to believe the unbearable and unthinkable, to sit with our enemies. The Good Shepherd recognizes the murky line separating us from our enemies. For we, like Paul, do not always "do the good we want to pursue, but the evil we so desperately try to avoid." While some may assume that this is an argument for the relativism of evil, I believe the Apostle Paul is challenging us to refuse to see the world in ontological binaries. He refuses for us to be hypnotized by evil, suffocating in what Jordan Peele calls a sunken place. Instead, we are called to continuously interrogate that which we call evil to avoid misnaming, misplacing, and abusing it. Third, if we hold on to the dogged faith while in the valley, God promises that an anointing will overflow from the tops of our heads to the bottom of our feet. In a crude sense, the anointing is the light we receive through prayer and fasting. It is both a gift and a tool, cultivated for the singular purpose of doing righteousness, mercy, and justice in all our deeds and actions. In times of distress, O God, teach us the way of the Good Shepherd. When our neighbor offends us, O God, teach us the way of the Good Shepherd. When we feel and have real cause to believe that the world has placed its heavy foot on the backs of our communities, O God, teach us the way of the Good Shepherd. And as DuBois once wrote, "Give us grace, O God, to dare to do the deed which we well know cries to be done. Let us not hesitate because of ease or the words of men's mouths or of our own lives. Mighty causes are calling us: the freeing of women, the training of children, the putting down of hate and murder and poverty, all these and more. But they call with voices that mean work and sacrifice and death. Mercy fully grants us," DuBois continues to write, "O God, that we might walk in the spirit of Esther, that we might say, 'I will go to the king. And if I perish, I perish.'" The Good Shepherd is calling us, beckoning us to recognize our individual and collective histories, to recognize the deep differences, but to use that as a marker, as one marker of how we engage a troubled world. But if we want to trouble the waters, to trouble the borders of what we are so, in some cases deadly, profoundly linked to what is familiar, what is comfortable, we are called to seek out that which might trouble and disrupt us, to look beyond our social reels, to look beyond tweets, and to seek refuge in scripture, to be penetrated by and through an imagination that sometimes we do not understand, and like the readings from today may seem to contradict each other. But like the early church, we are called to grapple with these contradictions, with these binaries within an abounding faith in our resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. See also:- [ Sermon ](/archive/sermons) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)