St. John’s Lutheran Church, Toluca, IL – 4th Sunday of Easter
Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10
John 10:1-10
1 “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3The gatekeeper opens the gate for the shepherd, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5They will not follow a stranger, but they will run away because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
NRSVue
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The Sheep Shall Dwell with the Sheep
Grace to you, beloved of God, and peace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I am not sure everybody feels great about being compared with sheep. I will demonstrate my point.
If you watch the TV show, Ted Lasso, in the current season, Keeley, the former fashion model and footballer girlfriend, made CEO of a start-up PR company, hires Shandy, one of her best friends, to help develop their brand. Now Shandy is a dynamic self-starter who feels comfortable taking bold initiatives in their enterprise because of her history with Keeley. The problem is Shandy ends up risking the brand Keeley wants to build. So after a particular inappropriate unilateral decision by Shandy, Keeley lets her go. As a disgruntled former employer still holding a security card, Shandy lets a sheep loose in the conference room. When Keely is back in the office, the smell is unbearable -apparently, sheep cannot do much besides walk around and poop – Shandy saw herself as an independent thinker and go-getter, while the rest of the people working for Keeley were lazy and dumb sheep who would do nothing unless they were told. The point is that sometimes being called a sheep may be an insult.
This is the very reason I think Lutherans don’t quite feel comfortable in the role of sheep. We are too proud and don’t quite like to be told what to do, right? Yet, my sisters and brothers, beloved children of God the most high, this is who we are, and Jesus, obviously, is our good shepherd – this often gets me thinking about who pastors are in this context. If Jesus is the shepherd, maybe we should be the sheepdogs barking and curbing, here, not there, go the other way, turn around, follow him!
It is not so bad being part of Jesus’ flock, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, it’s awesome to belong to him. The Lord is my shepherd; therefore, I shall not want. It’s liberating. Those who confess Jesus as Lord will lack nothing. The voice of our shepherd will always resonate in our souls. We know him, and he knows us. He knows what we can do and our shortcomings. He will never ask of us more than we can handle. He will open our eyes, heal our wounds, calm the storms, protect us from enemies, and give us green pastures. All true!
But then comes the time when the valley of the shadow of death seems to have no end, even to those who can best tune out the noise and focus on his voice. It keeps pulling our legs. This is when the child of a drugs-and-alcohol pregnancy begins to struggle at school with no supervising parents; when the company re-restructuring finds a person too old to bounce back; when the disability payments run dry after a serious injury and proper health care is absent; when health care is available, but the illness is too much to overcome; when the unmarried only child who took care of her parents finds herself alone in a nursing home and becomes a warden of the state; when the abused mother must flee with their children for safety; when the migrant and the refugee fleeing home from famine, war, persecution, or disaster finds tall walls and closed gates; when the spouse is no longer remembered by the debilitating mind of their partner; when the prisoner receives a longer sentence because of race; when the man born blind is deemed suspicious and expelled from his community because he spoke on behalf of the one who restored him, for he was anointed a shepherd, yet no one heard his voice.
The image of belonging to the flock of Jesus gets a little interesting when we realize that the Good Shepherd Discourse begins after Christ met with the man who now sees but just became an outcast again. There is never a dull moment. Wolves, thieves, threats, uncertainties, vulnerability, fear; alone, we are dead out there.
But we were taught well, weren’t we? Moved by the Holy Spirit, we dedicated ourselves to the apostles’ teaching. We shared our time, talents, and resources with joy and generosity to create a safe place of trust where anyone can belong. On the road, walking away from disappointment and hopelessness, we can still find forgiveness, we can still find hospitality, we can still extend care and compassion, and we still hear the voice of our good shepherd made known to us when we break bread in remembrance of him.
There is a mission that belongs to all of us after we rose anew from the font we give thanks to. There are those among us dedicated to taking that mission to those without a shepherd. For this, we were guided out of the valley; for this, we were sat beside still waters; for this, our table was overflown; for this, we were granted green pastures; so that anyone can live, love, and laugh abundantly. Please support the ministries of the Lutheran Social Services of Illinois in any way you can. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Bridging Faith 