Introduction:

Welcome to Preacher P.S. Today, we’ll hear some additional thoughts about this past Sunday’s teaching shared at Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’ll get inside the meaning of the sermon and the heart of the preacher as we consider the why, what, and how of the message.

Jeremy Howard:

I am your host, Jeremy Howard, and today I have the privilege of having a conversation with Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian, who preached the sermon on Psalm 23 today. A link to that sermon is in the show notes. Great to be talking with you, Caitlin.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

So good to be here, Jeremy. Thanks for having me.

Jeremy Howard:

Yeah, of course, of course. I just started here in January, so I missed the last time you came, but I’m just so grateful to have listened to your preaching today. It was really great.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

Oh, thank you. It’s so nice to be able to come to Walnut Creek. We feel a sense of kinship being in the same denomination and the same presbytery. Also, Bart is on our board and he is a director of content for Stratum Foundation, which has really been such an encouragement and a support to us since we moved out here to the Bay a few years ago. So we are very grateful to get to be here and to bless and be a blessing with this great community that you have here.

Jeremy Howard:

Yeah. Awesome. Great having you here. Something that was mentioned today during the service was just your testimony of not being raised in a Christian home. And as someone personally who doesn’t know you particularly well, and many of our listeners may not know you incredibly well as well, I’d just love to hear some of that story real quick.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

Yeah, I think the best way to describe it is framing it in terms of Acts 17, where God has set the exact times and the places where each one of us should live so that we might perhaps reach out to him, seek him and find him, though he’s not far from each one of us. So when I look at my life, I see that God has orchestrated my steps so that I would come in contact with the right people at the right time. Whether that would be just to ignite my curiosity about Christ, Christianity, or to answer all of my questions that I had. So Bart mentioned that in college, the kindest, gentlest and most joyful people I knew were all Christians, and they were very open about their faith. So I remember where I was standing when I was like, oh, I want to be more like them. Oh, and they’re all Christians. And then I went from there to study abroad, and I went to a program that brought kids from all around the US to study in Beijing, China. And some of the people I was most drawn to on that program of 17 kids were like, four Christians that were—now I can recognize as an adult. As young adults, they were incredibly informed in their faith. And what I really appreciated is their willingness to talk to me. I had a lot of questions, and we could call them objections if you’re familiar with the Alpha course. I basically had, like, a personalized Alpha course with them. And the thing that impressed me the most actually, though, was not that they knew all the answers. It was actually that they had given these questions a lot of thought themselves and had gotten to a certain point that they could be comfortable with. And then beyond that point, it was really faith that was that bridge for them. And so I realized, oh, I don’t actually—you don’t have to have all your questions answered before you become a Christian. You can have that relationship and kind of ask, continue to ask questions along the way. So that was the beginning of a relationship with Jesus through friends that had thought about the answers but didn’t have them all. So I hope that’s an encouragement to you all. If you’re listening and you’re like, I don’t have all the answers. It’s actually just being willing to listen to pray with somebody and share what you have thought about with your faith and then you’re not knowing can actually be an encouragement to people like me who know nothing. I knew absolutely nothing.

Jeremy Howard:

So nice. Yeah, that’s awesome. That is so cool hearing your story. I think in some ways, it’s actually kind of similar to mine as someone who wasn’t a Christian growing up, but it was in college, making friends with people in college and getting to ask questions and have debates and stuff like that, that kind of God worked through them to ultimately bring me to the faith. So it’s cool hearing that kind of similar story. Yeah. Nice, nice. And I know also that you and Joel, your husband, have been in the process of planting a church in Cupertino. How is that? What’s the update here?

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

It is hard work. It truly feels like a vacation to come here and just preach two sermons and record a podcast. I’m like, this is amazing. So it’s very hard work. We love it. It’s a privilege to get to just really focus our attention and trying to reach out to people who aren’t connected to a church. That means that growth can be slow in terms of numbers. But we have gotten to see individual lives transformed and people come to know Christ. So of course, that’s really exciting. That’s what we’re literally there for. But, yeah, it’s a challenge. We definitely would invite anyone from Walnut Creek, they ever want to come and see a service. One of the things that we most need now is actually just the ministry of presence for Christians to be involved. Because we have a lot of non-Christians. We’re hoping for them to get to meet more Christians and have kind of that experience that I had in college where I was able to connect the dots between multiple Christians and be like, oh, there’s something bigger than them that makes them who they are, versus, like, Caitlin and Joel are nice people. You know, we’re like, that’s no. So, yeah, if anyone from Walnut Creek ever wants to come, literally just by joining us, we meet at 4:15, followed by a community meal. We would love that. It would be a great gift to us.

Jeremy Howard:

Awesome. Yeah, definitely, definitely. And we’ll definitely be praying for you. Continue to do so as well. Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, in terms of your sermon today, kind of the main message that I got from it was about just trusting God as the true shepherd and that you will find peace through him, that the false shepherds that we have in our lives, they can’t offer. I think that was a really powerful message. And I got to ask, have you ever preached on Psalm 23 before? And how is preparing to do so different this time around?

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

A former church of mine back in Houston did several months on Psalm 23, and I remember preaching probably 25 minutes or so to preach on half of verse six. Wow.

Jeremy Howard:

Okay.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

So in preparation for this, my mind, I was like, oh, man.

Jeremy Howard:

Several months.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

Yeah. Yeah. So that was really, really challenging for me coming in. I always have more content anyway than I can share in a single sermon. And so this, the preacher’s pod, as I’ve been referring to it in my head, is kind of a gift of like, oh, there’s another space for it. So I think that part was challenging. But one thing I appreciated was I use an app called Dwell to listen to scripture read, and you can kind of loop it, so you just kind of listen to it over and over again. And even in my preparation this week, just listening to Psalm 23 over and over again, I could feel like my own blood pressure going down, which I don’t think church planting usually correlates with, like, lower blood pressures, right?

Jeremy Howard:

I wouldn’t imagine that it does.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

So I think for any of us in life, in fact, who, if you’re like a solopreneur or an entrepreneur, you’re a boss or a manager, you’re trying to lead a family, whatever it is. Listening to this psalm can be such an encouragement of, like, I’m not actually my own shepherd. That is good news.

Jeremy Howard:

Yes. Yeah, yeah, amen, definitely. And how did it impact you personally preparing for it this time around?

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

Well, I do think the, the like, oh, that calming of like, the Lord is my shepherd. I think also it’s just so helpful for me to almost name like, the false shepherds or even what I shared in the sermon of, like, oh, it actually goes back to distrust or mistrust. Right. It’s a misplaced trust that can cause us to think, oh, I have to be my own shepherd. So I think just that opportunity to reflect on who God is and his faithfulness is such an encouragement, especially as we go through these still early days of planting a church and all the challenges therein, to remember that the Lord is my shepherd, but he’s also the shepherd of our flock and he’s the shepherd of all the people that are out there that we’re trying to reach. And that’s encouraging to.

Jeremy Howard:

Yeah, definitely. Definitely something that I just had a thought as the scripture was being read today in that verse one, the Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. I wonder how that lands with different groups of people. Just, I wonder if there are some people who maybe feel as though they are lacking in some essential area of their lives, you know, financially insecure, you know, or otherwise. And I just wonder how a verse like that would really either comfort them or challenge them in their way of thinking.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. I think it depends on the community. Certainly in our community, we know a lot of people with a lot of lack. And that’s where it’s one of those really challenging. I wrestle with that in many, many different psalms or places in Scripture where it will talk about we lack no good thing, or the Lord opens his hand and provides food for all who need it. I’m like, Lord, all over the world there’s famine. You know, how do we reconcile these things? I think it’s helpful in the macro scale of famine in the world to remember that the Lord designed this world good and beautiful and pure, and there is enough resource actually for everyone if we chose to distribute it equitably. And so remember, the Lord does provide, but sin, whether in our own hearts or in systems, gets in the way. And so I think that’s something that kind of helps me reconcile the Lord’s heart, the Lord’s intent and the places where we see loss or famine or lack in the world.

Jeremy Howard:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, in many ways, one big thing I took away from your sermon is that this psalm is really for people in any season of their life. You know, they talk about the green pastures, also the darkest valley.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

Yeah, yeah, I think it does. I think it’s easy to almost just kind of focus on the idyllic green pastures. But then when you realize it is really a more realistic psalm than that, because it does describe more of the breadth of human experience than just, I’m over here in my, you know, green pastures, looking up at a blue sky and hanging out. Not a care in the world. No. And it’s good and right for us to notice that life is different than that. It’s not all that all the time.

Jeremy Howard:

Yeah. Well, you’d mentioned earlier about you had to cut plenty of stuff from the initial draft. I want to give you the space and time here to be able to present some of those things that didn’t make the final cut.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

I appreciate that. I was saying to my husband, Joel, it’s like, so the preacher’s podcast, it’s kind of like the director’s cut, and you get to share some of the things that didn’t make it in. I was like, I have so many things. I think I need a second preacher’s pod. [laughter]

Jeremy Howard:

The PPS.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

Yeah, exactly. One thing that I really appreciated. So, a lot of my information about sheep and shepherds came from a book called A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by W. Philip Keller. Big fan of Keller’s. This is not Timothy Keller. It’s W. Philip Keller. And one of the things that really struck me was the still waters. The sheep, of course, they’re living beings, obviously need water when they do not have access to water and they can’t see their way to water. If they become dehydrated, they actually become restless and seek out their own sources of water, whether it’s good for them or not. And so what will often happen is they’ll settle for, literally, potholes that are filled with stagnant water that they will end up drinking from and making themselves sick. And so if we weren’t going with the false shepherds metaphor, we could have gone all the way there with that, because these things that we think will sate our thirst actually are like poison for us. Right.

Jeremy Howard:

Yeah, I know. [laughter]

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

I was like, that’ll preach. Ah, I can’t fit in. Yeah. And so I think to remember that our hearts are restless. Like Augustine says, our hearts are restless until they find rest in you, God, it is so fitting to human nature to be compared to sheep. We have much more in common than we realize, so definitely recommend that book. The other thing that’s cool is, like, the facts about the shepherd from that book. The shepherds that would go ahead and prepare a pasture for their sheep, they would often actually search the field beforehand and they would try to strip the field of anything that could harm or startle the sheep. So they could, like, weed out any poisonous plants that they didn’t want their sheep to eat or take out, you know, brambles and briars that could injure them. They’d look through the grass. If they saw any scorpions or snakes, they get rid of those. And so that level of care and detail is really beautiful. But again, we have to remember also the valley of the shadow of death, right? Because now we’re talking like, oh, that’s beautiful. Perfect. Like, it’s paradise in that pasture. There’s nothing you could need. But I just really appreciated that, that level of the shepherd’s heart and attention. I think another book to recommend to people who want to learn more is Ken Bailey’s The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament. And that, oh, is so good. So if you’re not familiar with Ken Bailey, he’s a Presbyterian pastor, scholar, professor, he spent 40 years living and teaching in seminaries in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem and Cyprus. So his grasp on languages in the area, the culture, super helpful. If I could have, I would have loved to include like, all the biblical cross references to shepherds. And he does, basically. So you can go and really appreciate that. I think if there’s one, if I had to pick one scripture to highlight people like, I just wanna look at this a little more to go to actual—actually, Ezekiel 34.

Jeremy Howard:

Okay.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

And so in Ezekiel 34, I believe that when Jesus is referencing being the good shepherd in the New Testament, he’s actually kind of creating this foil or contrast with the bad shepherds that God mentions in Ezekiel 34. And so this is 600 years before Jesus has come, and Ezekiel is prophesying against Israel’s bad shepherd leaders who were looking out for their own interests instead of caring for his flock. And then what’s so cool is that the surprise, the twist as you’re reading Ezekiel 34 is that for thus says the Lord God, behold, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered, I will bring them out from the peoples. I will feed them. I will seek the lost. I will bring back the strayed. I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak. And so it’s really beautiful there. In the Hebrew, the pronoun is usually just implied in the verb. But here we see that the pronoun, the actual pronoun, part of speech is inserted in there. And so it, like, emphasizes. Yeah, it emphasizes and underlines like, I myself am going to be the one who does this. And then who shows up in the New Testament? Jesus. Right. So that is a very cool love. Love, love, love. Ezekiel 34. I said only one, but I have one more.

Jeremy Howard:

Okay, go ahead, go ahead.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

Isaiah 40. I think what’s so beautiful is verses 10 and 11. See, the sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his heart, in his arms, and carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young. And so that beautiful, compassionate picture of the Lord’s heart to gather us to his heart is so beautiful.

Jeremy Howard:

Yeah. No, it definitely is. Yeah. Thank you so much for providing all those resources for people. It’s almost as if you could preach on this for months, right?

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

Indeed. Indeed. I will say, to make it less intimidating, The Shepherd’s Look at Psalm 23 is a tiny book. It’s like, almost like the size of my hand. I have pretty big hands, and it’s pretty short. So it’s a great kind of quick little read. Obviously, the Ken Bailey book is much bigger, denser, but both great reads.

Jeremy Howard:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Caitlin, for getting to chat here, and thank you so much for coming to preach here at Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church. And I just—I wish you all the best with your church plant, and I just pray that God will continue to bless you and your family.

Caitlin Rhodes-Karahadian:

Thank you so much, Jeremy.

Jeremy Howard:

Thank you, Caitlin. Have a good one.