Stephen King’s “Dark Christianity” (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

When Stephen King reissued his enormously popular super-flu novel in 1990 as The Stand: The Complete Uncut Edition, he referred to it as “this long tale of dark Christianity.” 

 

I agree with his description. It’s packed with themes any Bible reader would recognize. One in particular, though, stands out for me: King’s characters had strange dreams. 

 

Each character dreamed of a person and a place. All were being called to come. Each commenced a journey to follow the voice in the dream. In time, they formed into groups, moving with single-mindedness across the country toward a destination. Like the sheep in this week’s Gospel of John passage, they knew the sound of their shepherd’s voice—and they came when they were called. 

 

The hitch? They weren’t all hearing from the same shepherd. And “journey’s end” was decidedly different for each group,

 

However different our dreams may be, we each get to choose which shepherd we will hear. But you have to choose long before you hear that call. Are you among those who can say, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” like David in Psalm 23? Or, like some of The Stand characters, does the voice you hear belong to a shepherd who is not at all good?

 

God knows we, like sheep, stray. And God welcomes us back if we choose to return. In fact, if we do return, the apostle Peter assures us in his first letter: The good shepherd will once again be “the Guardian of your souls.”

 

We are not sheep. But we are like sheep. And just like in King’s novel, where we take our stand matters. Choose your shepherd, today. Don’t take the chance you won’t hear the Good Shepherd when He calls. 

 

 

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ARTWORK (and more about bad shepherds: 

https://onelostsheep.net/2018/07/21/good-shepherds-and-bad-john-foley-sj/

 

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Will you be at DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast Friday morning? Join us at 8:00 on Zoom** or in person at Our Breakfast Place. We read, pray, eat, kick it back and forth, and laugh (not necessarily in that order). 

 

Inconvenient truths are all part of the deal.

 

Blessing,

Steve

 

 **Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=42

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Ax_FourthSundayofEaster.pdf

 

Acts 2:42-47

Psalm 23

1 Peter 2:19-25

John 10:1-10

Fourth Sunday of Easter (April 30, 2023)