Hearing the Good Shepherd

Sheep have a long-standing, rather pitiable, reputation as one of God’s dimmest creatures. Sheep wander – often into treacherous situations of self-endangerment; and once they get themselves into some precarious circumstance – they are not only blind to their condition, they are also inclined to meander ever further into disaster - in complete oblivion. What’s more, sheep are skittish - even in their roaming stupidity. So, once startled, they are likely to bolt – right into the heart of disaster – racing over cliffs, or into raging waters, or some other calamity. Sheep are gifted however at grass-eating and ... well, grass-eating. That’s about it. They are good at eating grass. You’d think that, with such a limited repertoire of talents, they couldn’t get into but so much trouble, but they are sheep, and they seem only to be able to focus on that one next, juicy blade of grass to fill their insatiable appetites… juuust over that tiny little … ravine.

It is, I imagine, one of the Lord’s little reminders that He too has a sense of humor - that such a creature as this has been so central to agrarian life over the millennia. For, as dull as sheep are, they also provide wool for weaving, skin for warmth, milk for drinking, meat for eating… humans needed sheep. It is no wonder, then, that when a good Israelite made his offering to YHWH, the sacrifice of a perfect young lamb – with all its untapped and untainted potential for nourishment and provision – this represented a very great offering. Sheep were valuable, and lambs embodied one’s future and ongoing security in a very unpredictable world.

But, in a world without sheep-dogs, or barbed wire fencing, or John Deere tractors, how did the shepherd manage his precious – if dim-witted – treasure?

The shepherd lived with his sheep – quite literally. He alone stayed with his herd through extremes of heat and cold and storm; he alone stood guard over his flock, and often had to face the attacks of wild animals – and predatory robbers. The shepherd’s life required great watchfulness, especially at night, and great tenderness – for the young and feeble in his flock. His was a solitary life, devoted singularly to caring for the sheep. Often – to keep his sanity, I imagine - the shepherd talked to his sheep – and even gave them personal names. And he came to know their individual personalities. He learned which ones were likely to stray, which would lag behind the herd, which were compliant, and which were obstinate. The sheep, in turn, learned to recognize the voice of their own shepherd. And they came to trust the sound of that one man’s voice. They would follow wherever he led them.

Jesus describes this relationship between the shepherd and his flock throughout John chapter 10 – only a small part of which we read today. In this lengthy quasi-parable to the Jews in Jerusalem, they finally – in frustration – ask Jesus THE question. “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” (John 10: 24.) This is the question everyone asks (consciously or unconsciously) on their own path toward faith. We all want to know about God, and Jesus. It is those who never even explore faith, who are most pitiable.

So, I have to pause here, and tell you that I have great empathy for those Jews. All their lives, they had assumed – had been taught – that the Messiah would be a conquering, warrior King. They had taken for granted that their Messiah would wield fierce – and fearsome – worldly power. Their Messiah would make them look good – would be impressive and dangerous and a threat to any who dared challenge God’s. Chosen. People. I get that! In fairness to those Jews, that’s exactly the kind of Messiah I would want! With that sort of Messiah, the world is your oyster! No one would dare harm you, for fear that the “Gotcha God” would “Smite” anyone in their miserable little footsteps. That’s my kind of God! And, from all appearances, this Jesus character was nothing like that God.

Because I, for one, can so easily understand these Jews – even want the same God they had expected - it might be important that we – who are so like them, and are their spiritual progeny in many ways - that we learn carefully the lessons Jesus offers in his analogy of The shepherd and His sheep.

How were these Jews, who heard and saw, but did not believe, different from the people who also heard, and saw – yet did believe? John Calvin would say the whole thing was rigged; that God had already selected His flock, and we need not concern ourselves with much beyond that. So, if this passage is really about those who are pre-destined into or out of salvation, we waste our time thinking about our relationship to the shepherd, and (conveniently) we are also not responsible for applying any potentially uncomfortable lessons to our own lives.

I prefer to let the Lord worry about pre-destiny, and go boldly where Calvin’s angels might fear to tread, to look for the differences between those whom Jesus identifies as His own, and those He says are not.

So, listen again to the tone of their question: “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” (John 10: 24.) Nowhere in their question is there any notion of faith. Quite the reverse. These people want the facts – just the facts. They had completely missed the central message of their own patriarchs – that faith and belief in God was exactly what was supposed to undergird their Covenantal relationship with God. So, even though Jesus has been telling them, and he has shown them in his countless miracles, that “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish” (v.28) - these people cannot hear. And so the sad answer to their question is: “I did tell you, but you do not believe…” (v.26.) They do not believe; they did not recognize His voice – and as a result they are not His sheep and He is not their shepherd.

After all, instead of a majestic, conquering King - this sandal-footed carpenter from Nazareth, of all places, wanders into town with a rag-tag band of the most pitiful – and questionable – followers… and dares to tell them that they’ve got it all wrong! Instead, they’re now to understand, God’s Messiah would smell like sheep, and suffer death on a cross – and, instead of bringing their elevation to the position they had always deserved - He would speak of carrying one’s own cross, and offering one’s own body – not some wooly beast - as worship to God. Worse yet, He was going around telling folks that the last would be first, and that He alone would provide Eternal Life. What an offence to the best of the best of God’s. Chosen. People. Ridiculous! Not in a million years! Over His dead body!

Might it be that these men could not – would not believe – because they misunderstood who they were before a Holy God? What if the Jews had been chosen – not to be served as elevated nobility, but to serve as YHWH’s servant people, whose dependent relationship to YHWH would reveal the mighty acts of their God throughout the world? What if they were chosen for service – not to be served? It was their Pride that made them deaf to the very notion of a servant Messiah, who would suffer and die for the very Pride they would not confess. Pride can – and will – deafen any of us – to the gentle voice of the Good Shepherd... even those of us who do believe.

And that, perhaps, is the really offensive thing about the Good News of Jesus Christ. Pride was not a Jewish issue, nor was it a Jerusalem issue, nor was it a 1st century issue to be settled in the pastures of Palestine. This is not a subject we can dismiss as a non-believer problem. This is our issue. And the minute we think that “deafness” is not our own human issue, we prove our pride - and grow deaf to the shepherd every bit as surely as His interrogators did that day at the Temple.

The satanic thing about pride is that it comes in so many different forms. For those at the Temple, it was pride in their assumed position – even before a Holy God. It was pride in what they thought they knew – their own wisdom and education. It was their pride that refused faith – or rather warped their historical faith – seeking proof in order to believe, rather than belief in order to prove. We are each susceptible to exactly those kinds of pride – along with more seemingly appealing traits like - - determined self-sufficiency, which refuses to hear God’s knocking on your own wounded hearts -- or hyper-rationality, which trusts only what is fully explicable to limited human intellect -- or perfectionism, which cannot accept human frailty – in oneself or anyone else -- or Control, which will not admit the self-doubt and paralyzing fear it feeds upon. We humans are quite ingenious in masking our pride – and the fear behind it – in uncountable large and small ways.

I suppose, then, that the real offense of the Gospel is that – like it or not – we are Known. We cannot hide. We cannot hide from God. And hearing that bit of the Good News can be as daunting for us as it was for those at the Temple that day. Being Known will absolutely make us humble. So even if we declare Jesus is not our Savior, or even that there is no God - the LORD we choose not to believe in, knows even that about us… and He still, like a Good Shepherd, came to live among us, so that we could come to know and trust His voice – and find peace.
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There was another form of devotion the shepherd assumed for his flock. When one of the sheep was injured, or a lamb was too weak or tired to continue its journey, the shepherd would go back and find it, and gently hoist it up around his strong shoulders – holding it so close that the anxious animal’s breath filled his ear, and its dusty face pressed under his bearded jaw… and the shepherd would carry his sheep across the stony terrain – as they swayed together through the shifting underbrush. The shepherd would quietly whisper to his fretful burden. And as the animal heard the soothing lull of its shepherd’s voice, it would relax its weight, leaning ever more fully into the shepherd’s form. Before long, the two were shaped together - as if just one body. And the sheep would hear its master’s voice - breathing in the shepherd’s very breath which His words had delivered. “Be at peace. All is well. I am here.”

This is Our shepherd - the One who came to live with us, and be our guide. This is the One Good Shepherd we can lean on when we can go no further. This is The Good Shepherd who will show us how to shepherd others in a world desperately looking for Easter Hope. Lean into His shoulder, and let His voice carry the very breath of Life deep into your soul. Follow His voice; Listen to Him. Believe.

“Be at peace. All is well. I am here.”

Thanks be to God. AMEN.

Yr. C, 4 Easter
Acts 13:15-16, 26-39
Rev. 7:9-17
John 10:22-33