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[Sermon] Yahweh Shepherds Me

Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo



On the 4th Sunday of Easter — Good Shepherd Sunday — Pastor Hector invites us to hear Psalm 23 as if for the first time. A literal translation from the Hebrew reframes the familiar opening: not "The Lord is my shepherd," but "Yahweh shepherds me." That small shift changes everything. To be shepherded is to submit — not to worldly power, which promises control but delivers captivity, but to the living God who seeks us in spite of ourselves. This sermon holds space for the many kinds of death we carry: broken relationships, crushing diagnoses, unanswered prayers, systemic despair. And into all of it, the voice of the Shepherd calls us home.


Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.


Grace to you and peace from God, Abba, Father, Mother, Creator, our parent, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the gate and the shepherd. And we say, amen. Amen.

 

Well, as I said to the with the young worshippers, Psalm 23 — did you notice something when you, when John was reading Psalm 23? How did it sound to you? Very different. In which way? Contemporary.

 

Contemporary. Different. Maybe a little bit strange, right? Because we already have it in our system in a certain way, and when we hear something different, it just doesn't fit. It doesn't fit really what we already know. The reason that it sounds a little bit different is because Dr. Kemp helped us to translate this literally from Hebrew, and that's how it sounds if we translate directly. No, with an interpretation to make it sound in a way that we communicate today, but how it would sound if we just literally translate it. And one of the things that caught my attention when I was looking at the direct translation of Psalm 23 is that if you notice, it doesn't say — it doesn't start with the words, "The Lord is my shepherd." What does it say? Yahweh. Yahweh shepherds me. And that made a big difference for me in how I look at these common, familiar words of Psalm 23. Because when I say "The Lord is my shepherd," I'm putting myself almost in the center, and saying that the shepherd is the third person.

 

But when I say "Yahweh shepherds me," I am — in some ways, and I know these are words that we are not very comfortable with in a very liberal society like North America —when I say "The Lord shepherds me," I'm submitting myself to the authority of the Lord Yahweh.

 

So I would like to ask you to just reflect with me a few minutes on this, because I think that this is powerful, is profound, and more than anything else, is needed right now in the context in which you and I are living right now. For the very reasons that the Lord Jesus Christ is telling the disciples, there are many voices that are distracting the sheep and trying to bring them to their authority for destruction and death. But the psalmist is calling us back. He's leading us again to remember that Yahweh shepherds us.

 

Let me get back just a little bit, for a couple of minutes, into the gospel for today. The passage that we read today is assigned for what we call Good Shepherd Sunday.

 

And Good Shepherd Sunday always takes readings from the Gospel according to John — two readings from the one that we read today. One year, the next year we take the following few verses when Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd." And then there is another passage in John where Jesus talks about shepherds and sheep in chapter 20 or 21. So that is why it's what we call Good Shepherd Sunday. So this passage for today is part of the seven "I am" statements of Jesus in the Gospel according to John. Do you remember what other "I am" statements Jesus said in the gospel? I am — I am — I am — I am — right: the light, the bread, the shepherd, the good shepherd, the truth, the way, and the life, right? You can go through the gospel and find these seven ways, or seven times, that Jesus expresses — or tells — the "I am." But what I was wondering as I was reading this passage is that Jesus talks about he being the shepherd and us being the sheep. Even the young worshippers don't agree with me now, but he sees us as sheep. If you go to chapter 21, Jesus tells Peter something. Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?" And Peter says, "Yes." And then Jesus asked again, "Peter, do you love me?" And Peter says, "Of course, Jesus, don't you hear me?" And Jesus asks again — because Jesus is pretty insistent — "Do you love me?" "Of course." And then he says, "Then, my sheep." What I am wondering — and it's not in the scripture — is, did Jesus ever tell Peter how sheep behave? Let's see. Somebody caught some of the things that were going on with the sheep at the time of Jesus. So let's see what happened in this short video.

 

I don't think that Jesus told Peter that sheep sometimes do not behave. Sheep behaving bad, right? So I was thinking about this whole image of the sheep and the relationship, and Psalm 23 — "Yahweh shepherds me." And the context, at least in the gospel, is that when Jesus is telling this to the disciples, it's in the context of the previous chapter, chapter nine, where it says that the Pharisees did not understand what Jesus was telling them.

 

In other words, maybe the Pharisees — at least in this passage — are more like that sheep that was running against the shepherd. But why?

 

And here is where sheep behave bad, right? Maybe it's because to submit to the authority and the power of our God is threatening, is difficult — because the worldly power is enticing, because the worldly power feels tangible and attainable, because the worldly power is that you and I have been told will give us the capacity to control other people, other communities.

 

The sheep know the Lord's voice, but occasionally they are confused and fall into the ditches — as we saw — into the dark chasm of chaos. And many times it is because the decisions that we make, sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious, but many times because we are pushed, and we do not have any other choice, because the system in which you and I live pushes us to the point where you and I fall into the ditch. And maybe that's what the system wants, because that is the way that we can be controlled.

 

We get stuck in the valley of shadows of death.

 

And when I talk about death, I'm not just talking about the physical death of our bodies. Psalm 23 — going back to Psalm 23 — is normally used, as you know; it speaks to us very strongly and powerfully, especially at times of death, when we lose someone, when we are suffering greatly in our lives, when we are close to the physical death of our bodies. But I think that Psalm 23 is not talking only about that kind of death. He's talking about the deaths that you and I experience in our journey — the losses, the shadows of death: like ending college and not finding a job for months and even years. Maybe the death of relationships that are broken because of the conditions of the society where you and I live. The death of a diagnosis that tells us that our body is broken and there is no cure for that, or that the cure is so expensive because systems prefer to keep us sick rather than to help us to live and to be productive in this society. The death when we see a child struggling in his or her life.

 

The psalmist — my siblings in Christ — I believe he can see himself getting stuck at times, and at times turning against the one who shepherds him. And that sounds like me.

 

And that sounds maybe like each one of us.

 

And that's why today we are here, gathered by the Spirit — for mourning hearts that are facing deaths in your journey. Maybe we are here because you and I are looking for the resurrection experience, for the promise that God is with us, for the assurance that even through the valley of shadows of death, the Lord is with us.

 

This psalm, my siblings in Christ, Psalm 23, reminds us of God's faithfulness to liberate God's people — guiding them, leading them, and providing for them, always seeking God's people in spite of themselves. Psalm 23 is a reminder of God's faithfulness to liberate us, guiding us, leading us, and providing what we need — always seeking us in spite of ourselves — out of our captivity, out of the bonds that keep us in the dark, cold tombs of death.

 

Peter Riedemann, who is an Anabaptist minister, and full disclosure, I read an Anabaptist magazine. I know that Luther had some issues, but that's another story. It's okay. Okay. I am Hector Garfias-Toledo, and I read an Anabaptist magazine.

 

Good stuff. But this minister, this Anabaptist minister, says — and I think that this is a good way to conclude — "To those whose hearts are fearful and who do not know where to turn in their distress, even when the world itself is too restricted for them, they lift up their hearts to God alone."

 

To be shepherded implies — to be shepherded means — the willingness to obey the commands of the shepherd, out of trust and in response to the proven, life-giving care that you and I have received for all these years. Jesus invites us and challenges us to be an extension of this shepherding.

 

Yahweh shepherds me. I lack nothing at all. Yes, even were I to fall into the dark chasms of chaos — there, even there, nothing will I fear, because thou art beside me. And this is the good news, my siblings in Christ: God will show Godself to us, provide comfort in the sorrow, and point to his Son who always says to us, "I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved."

 

We are in — or we are out. We are in Jesus, and that is good news. Thanks be to God.

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