Baa – April 25, 2010 Sermon
April 25, 2010
Scripture: John 10: 22-30
They were celebrating Hanukkah just then in Jerusalem. It was winter. Jesus was strolling in the Temple across Solomon’s Porch. The Jewish leaders, circling him, said, “How long are you going to keep us guessing? If you’re the Messiah, tell us straight out.”
Jesus answered, “I told you, but you don’t believe. Everything I have done has been authorized by my Father. Actions that speak louder than words. You don’t believe because you’re not my sheep. My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him. I and the Father are one heart and mind.”
Sermon: Baa
Reverend Doreen Oughton
One of my favorite parts of the Christmas pageant is to see the little lambs parading down the aisle. They are the sweetest, cutest things. And I remember as a child just loving that photograph of Jesus carrying the lost little lamb across his shoulders, bringing it back into the fold. So this week’s lectionary readings, with their shepherding images, immediately brought warmth to my heart. And after the warmth passed, a sense of panic quickly followed. What could I possibly have to say about these readings? The Psalm really speaks for itself. It’s so well-known that even that majority of the population, all those unchurched people, recognize it, feel its comfort, lean on those holy words in times of grief and loss. And the gospel reading, while the scene and action are not as pastoral as those of the psalm, also offers the promise of Jesus’ protection. But there is definitely more of an edge there, a stark statement of what the sheep are to be protected from – the destroyer and the thief, people out to get them. There’s an edge to the Psalm as well, but we are gently led into it – green pastures, still waters, and right paths before the darkest valleys and the enemies, and we move out of those shadow places quickly into the blessings of abundance.
Not so with the Gospel reading. The tension is there right from the start, with people “circling” Jesus. The scripture says the Jews were circling him. I do just want to remind people not to read this as an anti-Semitic remark. The Gospel of John often makes reference to “the Jews” in a critical tone, but we must understand this in the context of John’s time. Christianity started out as a sect of Judaism, and over time spread to Gentile communities. The Jewish Christians continued to worship at the synagogues for a long time, but at the time that John was writing, they were getting banned from the temples, and were being persecuted in other ways. The leaders of the Jesus movement needed to help the followers persevere and hold on to their faith in the face of this oppression. So when John refers negatively to “the Jews,” he wants his listeners to think of those who have tossed them out of the temple.
So anyway, you can hear the hostility implied in the word “circling” – like vultures. Are they trying to set a trap by asking him to tell them straight out if he is the Messiah? After all, calling oneself the Messiah was considered blasphemy, punishable by stoning. Never one to just go along with the terms established by the questioner, Jesus reframes, pointing to the clarity of his actions rather than their efforts to extract words. And then he shifts the conversation to the response of followers. Those that recognize his voice, those that follow him, are protected no matter what other authorities may think. Those that recognize his voice, those that follow him, are given eternal life, no matter that they have been banned from the temple or are persecuted in this life. These sheep are not fools, not blind followers, but discerners of truth.
Has anyone ever seen a shepherd in real life? I haven’t, and until this week, never gave much thought to them despite their prevalence in the bible. This week I learned that shepherding is one of the oldest professions, about 6000 years old. The duties of the shepherd were to keep the flock intact, and to keep them moving. The shepherd protected the sheep from predators, got them out of jams when they fell off cliffs or got tangled in bushes, brought them back when they wandered off, moved them to new pastures, and made sure they got to market in time for shearing. Though it was an old profession, at the time of Jesus, it was considered a lowly and undesirable one. It was an itinerant life, one for someone who had no property of their own, nor obligations to a family. To bring to a modern analogy, it would be like Jesus saying, “I am the good migrant worker.”
One commentator suggested that the religious elite would be offended at Jesus referring to himself and to God as shepherd, but I have my doubts about that. Even in non-scriptural writings of that time, kings were referred to as shepherds, and the history of Israel included many shepherds – Abraham, Jacob and all 12 of his sons who the tribes were named for, Moses, David and the prophet Amos. Did you know that the term pastor is the Latin word for shepherd? When we think of a shepherd, we conjure up these peaceful images, but I suspect there was a lot of tension for the shepherds. The threats of predators and thieves were constant, as was the need for watchfulness and attention. As the sheep knew the shepherd, so the shepherd needed to know the sheep.
Now I’ve never seen a real shepherd, but I’ve seen plenty of sheep. And while the little lambs are adorable, the adults are sort of dull. We count them in order to sleep, yes? They all look awfully alike to my eyes. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. But not so for the shepherd. The shepherd watches each of them and gets to know their individual quirks, their distinguishing marks. And I learned that sheep recognize not only the shepherd’s voice, but the shepherd’s face. They can recognize individual human and sheep faces, and remember them for years. Still, as much as I like the image of the Lord as my shepherd, I’m not too thrilled with the image of me as a sheep. Not something many people aspire to, I would guess. They are the followers, dull, helpless. Not a lot of ingenuity or creativity there. No such thing as a self-made sheep. How many of us hope our children will be good sheep, following along, sticking with the flock? How many of us strive for that ourselves? No, we value leadership and independence. We may appreciate the sense of belonging to a flock, but who wants to only be led.
Well here’s an interesting thought – maybe we are called as both shepherds and as sheep. Jesus was and is the good shepherd, but he is also the paschal lamb. He watches out for us, and is watched over by his Abba. He leads us, and follows God’s will. Likewise we are asked to recognize our need for guidance and care, accept that we are not self-made, and follow the right paths, even to the darkest valleys. And we are called to look with the eyes of a shepherd when we are tempted to see others as just part of a flock. We are called to pay attention to individual quirks and distinguishing marks. Let’s face it. We are often tempted to turn people into sheep in that all look alike. Those teenagers, those criminals, those immigrants, those welfare folk, those democrats, those republicans, etc., etc. It makes our lives easier to do that – to distance ourselves from individual lives, individual pain, individual suffering. But we are asked as Christians to be more watchful, more attentive, more invested, like Jesus is in each of us.
We will not ever get it just right, though. It’s not possible in our human relationships. We can’t ever fully know someone, nor ever be fully known by another, or even by ourselves. But we are fully known in our relationship with Christ. In this, we can accept the humble status of sheep and let our masks and defenses drop away. If we can tolerate the pain and discomfort of such exposure, such vulnerability, then our eyes and ears are opened to the truth, the comfort, the protection and love of our shepherd. We shall not want. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives. May it be so.
