The Valley and the Voice

Marc My Words, Season 2, Episode 4 The Valley and the Voice Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday DeSoto and Freeman Lutheran Churches, April 26, 2026

The Readings

• Acts 2:42-47, the early church
• Psalm 23, the shepherd through the valley
• 1 Peter 2:19-25, returned to the shepherd and guardian
• John 10:1-10, the gate, the voice, the shepherd

The Hymns

🎵 Gathering, Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (ELW 858) https://youtu.be/JEh7Vt9sxmc

🎵 Hymn of the Day, Shepherd Me, O God (ELW 780) https://youtu.be/YFgZGlZ5t80

🎵 Closing, The Lord's My Shepherd (ELW 778) https://youtu.be/pN4tPkX0MG0

The Episode

This episode keeps the morning reflection that came before the sermon was delivered. A line from Billy Joel's This Is the Time arrived differently on the drive in. You've given me the best of you, but now I need the rest of you. Not a love song that morning. An invitation. God does not want only our polished parts. He wants the rest of us. The tired parts. The wounded parts. The parts still trying to prove something.

Then the sermon. Psalm 23 in a week when the valley is real.

An EF3 tornado tore through Vernon County on April 14. 140 mile per hour winds. Nine miles of destruction.

Verna Fladhammer's memorial service at DeSoto Lutheran is May 2.

The shepherd does not promise the valley disappears. He walks through it.

The shepherd calls his own sheep by name. He goes ahead. Into Good Friday. Into the valley. Into the hard place. So that when you arrive, the shepherd has already been. Peter's word to a scattered church says it plainly. You have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. Not arrived brand new. Returned. The shepherd was already there.

Acts 2 is what the flock looks like when it shows up. People sharing what they have. Eating together. Praising God in the ordinary rhythm of the days. That is what is happening in DeSoto and Freeman. Pastorless for some time. Doors still open. Coffee still on. People still showing up for each other through hard winters, funerals, and storms.

Sugar Creek Bible Camp sits on 600 acres above Ferryville. Owned by 125 churches. Supported by the La Crosse Area Synod. 2,500 kids every summer hearing they are known by name. Same flock. Same shepherd. Same voice across a wider field than any of us can see from where we are standing.

You did not find the shepherd. The shepherd found you.

The shepherd's voice travels through hands and phones and front porches and pickup trucks on gravel roads.

About Marc My Words

A weekend podcast grounded in scripture, preached and lived in two small Mississippi River congregations in the Driftless region of Wisconsin. Marc Bulandr serves as lay worship leader at Freeman Lutheran Church in Ferryville and DeSoto Lutheran Church in DeSoto.

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Grace and Peace.

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Transcript

The Valley and the Voice

Marc My Words, Season 2, Episode 4

Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday

DeSoto and Freeman Lutheran Churches, April 26, 2026

Preached by Marc Bulandr

* * *

Opening Reflection

Grace and peace to you. Before I share this sermon, I want to begin with a reflection from this morning. Every day I begin in prayer and scripture. I sit with the readings. I listen for guidance. I try to let God’s word shape the direction of my heart before the noise of the day has a chance to claim it. This morning was no different, but it felt especially meaningful because I was preparing to preach.

For much of my professional life, especially in corporate America, I lived under the pressure of proving myself. Proving my value. Proving my contribution. Proving that I belonged in rooms where decisions were made and people were measured by performance, results, titles, and revenue. But preaching is different. Standing in the pulpit is not about proving myself. It is about honoring him.

It is about surrendering my voice, my story, my wounds, my gifts, and my life to the one who gave them in the first place. The prayer that settled me in this morning was simple. Lord, I am not here to prove myself. I am here to make you visible.

On the drive to church, I heard Billy Joel’s This Is the Time. One line stayed with me.

You’ve given me the best of you, but now I need the rest of you.

I heard that differently today. Not just as a lyric between two people, but as an invitation from God. So many of us give God parts of ourselves. Our best intentions. Our Sunday mornings. Our polished prayers. Our moments of need. But God does not want the best looking parts of us.

He wants the rest of us, too. The tired parts. The wounded parts. The proud parts. The uncertain parts. The parts still trying to prove something. The parts we have kept hidden, protected, or unfinished. He wants all of us. And maybe that is the invitation today. This is the time.

Not someday when everything is cleaned up. Not after the promise is fulfilled. Not after performance is perfect. Not after we feel worthy enough. Now. This is the time to stop proving and start surrendering. This is the time to let God have the rest of us. This is the time to make Him visible.

* * *

The Valley and the Voice

Two Sundays ago, we talked about faith putting on its boots. We talked about Pool Nine coming alive, the eagles in the sandbars, the volunteers out at the fish hatchery before Easter even arrived. We talked about Thomas behind the locked door and Jesus walking through it anyway. We said the risen Christ comes back for the ones who missed it. We said blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

That was two weeks ago. A lot can happen in two weeks. On Tuesday, April 14th, an EF3 tornado cut through Vernon County. 140 mile per hour winds. Nine miles of destruction through farms and fields and homes belonging to people just like the ones sitting in these pews. People in communities just like this one.

Some of you know people up there. Some of you may have driven through the damage already. And in the next 10 days, this congregation will gather again, not for a Sunday service, but for a memorial. Verna Fladhammer will be laid to rest at DeSoto Lutheran Cemetery on May 2nd. And the people who loved her will sit in these same seats and feel the weight of that kind of goodbye.

So when we open Psalm 23 this morning, we are not doing it as a religious exercise. We are doing it because it is true and because we need it to be true right now.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for you are with me.

It is not a promise that the valley disappears. The shepherd does not promise the valley will disappear. He walks through it with you. Not around it. Not above it. In it. My rod and my staff right here beside you. That is Psalm 23. This is not comfort for people whose lives are going well. This is comfort for people walking through something hard. It always has been.

The psalm does not begin with sunshine and end with clouds. It begins with green pastures and still waters and then it walks straight into the darkest valley. Eyes open. And says, I will fear no evil. Not because the evil is not real, but because the shepherd is more real.

In the gospel this morning, Jesus calls himself the gate before he names himself the shepherd. He is telling them he is the way in. The safe way through. And then he says something that should give us all pause. He says, the shepherd calls his own sheep by name. Not by number. Not by category. Not by which pew they sit in. Not by how long they have been members. Not by whether or not they showed up last Sunday or have not been here in a while. By name.

That means the shepherd knows your story. What you are carrying right now that nobody else in this room knows you are carrying. The shepherd knows the name attached to it and he calls it. He calls his own sheep by name and he leads them out. And then notice what Jesus says next.

When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them.

The shepherd does not stand at the back of the flock and push. The shepherd goes in first. Into the valley ahead of you. Through the storm before you get there. Into the hard place. So that when you arrive, the shepherd has already been. That is Good Friday. The shepherd walking ahead into the worst valley there is so that death itself no longer has the final word.

And because the shepherd went first, you can follow. Not without fear. But without being alone in fear.

Peter writes to a community that was scattered and suffering. People who had been through things that left marks. And he says something extraordinary. He says, you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and the guardian of your souls. Returned. Not arrived brand new.

Returned. Like a sheep who wandered, but found the shepherd waiting. The shepherd was already there. Not angry. Not keeping score of how long you were gone. Just there. Ready to be the shepherd and guardian of whatever you brought back with you.

That is the word for anyone in this room who has wandered. That is the word for anyone who came this morning carrying something that made it hard to get out of the door. The shepherd is the guardian of your soul. The actual you.

Now look at what the early church did with that. Acts 2 says they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. They sold what they had and gave it to anyone who had need. They met together every day. They ate together with glad and sincere hearts. That is just the sheep showing up. It does not look like a program. It does not look like a committee. It looks like people sharing what they have and showing up for each other and eating together and praising God in the ordinary rhythm of the days.

Look around this room. That is what is happening here. This congregation has been without a settled pastor for some time. You have gathered anyway. You have kept these doors open. You have shown up for each other through funerals and through hard winters and through mornings when the parking lot was less full than it used to be and you came anyway. The shepherd has been present in that.

Not despite the empty chair at the front of the room. Through it. Through you. Through the people who made the coffee and stayed for fellowship and drove the extra miles to be here and picked up the phone to check on the neighbor after the storm. That is the voice of the shepherd. It does not come from a pulpit. It comes through hands. Yours. Mine. The ones holding the coffee pot and the phone.

There is a camp up the road from here.

Sugar Creek Bible Camp has been on those 600 acres above Ferryville since 1966. Owned by 125 churches. Supported by the La Crosse Area Synod. Every summer, somewhere around 2,500 children come to those hills to hear that they are known and loved by a God who calls them by name. That is not separate from what happens in these buildings on Sunday morning.

That is the same flock. The same shepherd. The same voice calling across a wider field than any of us can see from where we are standing. The shepherd’s flock is larger than what fits in these pews. And he knows every one by name.

Now I want to say something directly to anyone in this room who is in a valley right now. Some valleys last longer than we want them to.

Maybe it is news from Vernon County and the fear that brings close to home. Maybe it is the grief that is already here, 10 days ahead of a service for someone you loved. Maybe it is something quieter and more private that nobody around you knows about. The shepherd does not need you to be out of the valley before he comes for you.

He comes into the valley. That is the whole point of the psalm. That is the whole point of the cross. That is the whole point of what Jesus said in John. I came that they may have life and have it to the full. Not life after the valley. Life. Full life. In the valley and through it and on the other side. The shepherd goes ahead. And he knows your name. And he does not stop calling it until you hear it.

Two Sundays ago, we said the river is open, the birds are back, Easter happened and you are still here. All of that is still true this morning. The birds are still coming through. The spring migration hike is coming. Pool 9 is still alive with the work of the season. The current outside this window has not stopped moving. And somewhere beyond the bluffs, fields are being tended by people who plant before they see the harvest. And this congregation is still here. That has not changed.

What I want you to carry out of this room today is this. You did not find the shepherd. The shepherd found you. He found you when you were going astray and he did not wait for you to get yourself together before he came. He came first. He goes ahead. He walks through the valley beside you. He calls you by name. And the voice you have heard in this place, in these people, in this community that keeps showing up for each other, that is not an accident. That is what a shepherd sounds like.

This week, when you find yourself in the valley, call someone. Check on a neighbor. Sit with someone who is carrying something heavy. The shepherd’s voice travels through hands and phones and front porches and pickup trucks on gravel roads.

And so we trust.

Amen.

* * *

Grace and Peace.