As the 23rd Psalm portrays so perfectly, a good shepherd provides food, water, rest, shelter, and protection for his flock. And as far removed as we are from the life of ancient sheep herders, so too have we become distanced from those most basic blessings. Food, water, shelter, rest and protection are virtually automatic for us: they are so readily provided and available that we take them for granted. A home and sustenance and safety are important to us, and though we count them as blessings, they don’t consume as much of our immediate attention as they did the shepherd. We keep them in mind in order to maintain them, and we worry about them when they demand, but most days we’re not focused on where to spend the night, or how to find our next meal, or sleeping safely.

And just on its own, that fact is, I am more convinced, the beginning of most of our problems—problems with ourselves, problems with other people, and problems with God. So efficient have we become in mastering our world that we have spun ourselves into real trouble. We have elevated, inflated expectations of life that cause us confusion and heartache, that weigh us down and give us ulcers and heart attacks, that fill us with gnawing desire that just can’t be fully satisfied. In our lesson, Jesus says he came to give us abundant life, but is this what he meant? It does seem we have a kind of abundant life: it’s estimated that in order for all the people in the world to live as well as we Americans for one year, we would need 4 more planet earths to supply the necessary natural resources. In every measurable category, you and I have human life as good as it gets. So then why is real contentment so elusive? Why, despite this kind of abundance we have, are we beset by so many personal and social problems? And why can God’s presence and influence sometimes seem so fleeting?

Well, the answers lie, incredibly enough, in the quaint and ancient pastoral images of today’s lessons. This morning we need to allow the familiar image of the shepherd and his flock to give way to new perspective, refreshed perspective, resurrected perspective. Let’s use our imaginations for a moment: I want you to imagine what life would be like if the blessings of the 23rd Psalm were enough. Imagine if food, water, shelter, rest and protection were ALL that you expected from life. What would be different?

Well, most importantly, God would be incredibly good! We would have no reason to doubt God because look how our needs have been met: our homes are more than sufficient; we’re never hungry for long, what with well-stocked grocery stores and hundreds of restaurants to choose from, and lots of able cooks among us; we have clean and ample water, and though there are seasons when we’re told to conserve, that’s more an inconvenience than a real problem; we don’t unreasonably fear for our lives and have police and fire and medical personnel at the ready to protect us; and we turn out the light at night with our heads on the pillow and sleep more or less undisturbed. Yes, if the 23rd Psalm defined the scope of our needs, than our needs would be more than met, and God’s promise to shepherd us would be gloriously fulfilled. Imagine that!

The thing is, what we’ve just imagined is the way it really is. God has seen to the basics of life as expressed by the Psalmist. Do things sometimes go awry for us? Of course. Do we have everything we desire? Definitely not. Are there still problems in the world? Yes. But God has not promised to give us everything we want, or to take our problems away, or to keep bad things from happening. God has promised shelter, food, water, rest and safety, and we most certainly have them.

But we are so curious, so clever, so susceptible to temptation, so immersed in a sophisticated culture, that on most ordinary days we effectively forget how much God has already taken care of us and what little else we truly need. The undeniable fact is that we live under the domination of unrealistic expectations that we act out and mutually reinforce by the way we live. It’s become that life without a GPS unit in your car, without a college education or more, without vacations and iPods and bundled cable service and retirement accounts, without gas for $1.39 a gallon, without everyone liking you, without total freedom and privilege is somehow a deprived life.

And the consequences of that infectious attitude! Look what we’ve done to ourselves: we’ve put our worth as human beings in relation to what we look like, how much we earn, what we possess, or what we’ve achieved by others’ standards. We stress out because we don’t have what others have, or what advertisers tell us we want. We set a high standard of acceptability, and when we can’t reach it we are unhappy and resentful. And look what that’s done to our faith: God isn’t someone we look to to provide just the basics, but we expect God to clean up our 21st century messes, to heal the bodies we beat up with high blood pressure and lack of exercise and overindulgence, to save us from foreclosure and bankruptcy and credit-card debt, to love us when we can’t love ourselves because we’ve bought into an image of lovable-ness that has little to do with the way God sees us.

We’ve dug ourselves a hole and now the absolute miracle that is each new day isn’t all that impressive anymore; a conversation between friends or in our family isn’t excitement enough; for anything to have value it has to cost money. We’ve allowed our technology to dull our capacity to imagine and make us think that we’re actually experiencing real life. We read less and less, and art and music are losing ground to video games and casinos and professional wrestling. The average American watches 3 hours of television every day, which comes out, by the time you’re 75, to 78,840 hours, or 9 years in front of the tube. That’s pretty scary.

And with all our emphasis on possessions and leisure time and getting more of both, we’ve all become much more self-protective. Neighbors don’t know neighbors, we’re inherently distrustful of strangers, we feel that our primary responsibility is to protect what’s ours. We are not as spontaneously generous and helpful as we once were, and fear is pushing deeper into our small, self-centered cocoons.

That’s probably way more than enough woe to make the simple point: we expect so much more than basic blessings, and that leads to a host of problems. But how does that fit, then, with Jesus saying that he came to shepherd us to abundant life? It has to do with the kind of abundance Jesus is talking about: the abundance God intends for his flock, an abundance borne less of our own desire than the kind Jesus relied upon and called his disciples to see and to value. Abundant life is not having what we want, abundant life is having enough of what we need to be thrilled with the ordinary, to be unafraid of losing what we have, and to share our treasure in the service of others with a glad and generous heart.

You and I already have what sheep need most, and all the rest is icing on the cake. And rather than let the icing weigh us down, Christ calls us to look upon it as abundance to be celebrated and shared and put into the service of others. And it all begins with aspiring to the same gratitude expressed in those words we all know so well: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” He gives me food and drink, rest and safety, and a path through life, even when life is at its most difficult. And if we can learn again to be grateful for that before all else, look what happens:

First, there is joy. If you and I know in our hearts that we have what we need the most, the sun simply coming up can be a gift beyond measure, daily life can be a wonderful adventure, every experience can be seen as a blessing above and beyond what’s necessary. If we trust the Shepherd as the Psalmist does, then God’s goodness is unmistakable not just when we get what we want, but in simple gifts of friendship and beauty and laughter that speak of God’s goodness, instead of fading into the background as we hungrily move toward meeting the next desire. Rest and meals and even chores and work and trials become pieces of abundance to overflowing.

Trusting God gives us what we need each day, we can also have an abundance of confidence: we don’t need to fear losing our possessions, because they are gravy, extra, above and beyond. We don’t need to fear looking the fool, because the fool as well as the cool is led to green pastures and beside still waters. We don’t need to fear failure because win or lose we’re all part of the same flock and receive the same care. And we don’t have to like it, but we don’t need to fear suffering or death, either, because Easter is the Shepherd’s promise that we will be safely led through those moments that frighten us most.

And when we are able to rely on God’s provision for our daily needs, we realize we have an abundance to share with others. Human selfishness and injustice thwarts God’s will to provide the basics of sustenance, shelter and protection to everyone. We know there are those who do not have those things, but it lies well within our power to provide them, and still have plenty, more than enough left over. If God takes care of the basics, then why do we obey this urge to amass, to horde, to accumulate without ceasing? It just doesn’t make sense. Christ shows that with God caring for us, keeping track of us like a shepherd, we are freed from worry to serve and give with confidence and with pleasure. We can risk sharing boldly, giving generously of our time, of our wealth, of our talents and skills because God the Good Shepherd will not, not, not let us run out.

Friends, we have been blessed with ten times, a hundred times more than we actually need. The life to which Christ calls us as his flock is abundant to overflowing, not because of that excess, but because we have been set free from having to worry about having enough. The good and glorious news of Jesus Christ is that God looks after each of us long before our own desires ever take hold and start motoring us toward more. We have plenty. The Christian discipline that leads to the contentment we’re seeking is to be faithful stewards of all the rest, of the gravy, by living simply, celebrating the ordinary, giving gladly, fearing nothing, and trusting our Shepherd to replenish the necessities each day.