(John 10: 11-18)
17A61. That was my call number when I was a police officer in Houston back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The city was divided up into twenty districts and I was assigned to Seventeen District. Including the Central station there were five more substations, and the letter A was the designation for Central. Seventeen District was divided up into six beats with the sixth beat being mine. Seventeen District was pretty diverse population wise. We had a wealthy white area called River Oaks, there was a gay section of town referred to as Montrose that was experiencing a rapid gentrification, there was an older black section known as the Fourth Ward, Allen Parkway Village was recently populated with refugees who had escaped the fall of Vietnam for the safety and security of America, and we had a Hispanic section with people representing every country in South America, Puerto Rico and Cuba. And we had a crime problem as these people, each in their own way, made for easy victims, other than the rich white folks who had their own private security force that kept folks that didn’t belong out of their neighborhood. My partner and I spent a good amount of our time looking for the wolves who would come in looking for easy prey. It was our job to protect and serve the flock. I didn’t think of myself as a hired hand who would turn and run at the first sign of trouble mainly because the Department was pretty firm in our running to the danger and not away, leaving the citizens unprotected. I considered myself to be a “good shepherd” or at least as best as I could possibly be. 17A61.
And being the good shepherd is what our scripture reading is about this morning. In the tenth chapter of John’s gospel Jesus says: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. To fully appreciate what Jesus is saying, you have to examine the context of when, where and to whom it was said. This statement follows an incident in the previous chapter where Jesus restored the sight to a man who was born blind, and on the Sabbath no less. When word of this miracle got back to the religious leaders, they summoned the man and his parents so they could investigate this so-called healing by this itinerant country rabbi. The religious leaders questioned the formerly blind man and his parents in an attempt to discredit Jesus and the inexplicable restoration of sight to a man they knew to be blind. When they couldn’t poke any holes in his story, they accused him of being steeped in sin at birth, bristled at being lectured to, and threw him and his parents out. When Jesus heard what had happened, he went and found the man and asked: Do you believe in the Son of Man? The man asked Jesus who this person was so he could believe in him. Jesus responded: You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you. The man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. Jesus then said: For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind. Now, there were some Pharisees nearby who heard this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” Jesus responded: If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
Jesus uses this opportunity to engage the Pharisees and, in the beginning of chapter ten, says: I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The Pharisees would have known all about keeping sheep and that sheep know the voice of their shepherd, following the shepherd wherever led, but they didn’t quite grasp what Jesus was saying. Jesus said again to them; I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.
Jesus said all this to now drive his point home where he said: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. Jesus, by saying he was the “good shepherd” implies that there were “bad shepherds,” and he knew that a few of the Pharisees would know what he was talking about. They might have recalled what was written in Jeremiah 23 where it was stated: “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord. “I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord. And in the 34th chapter of Ezekiel the prophet says the word of the Lord came to him saying: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. Quoting these highly regarded prophets of Israel in this manner had to ruffle more than just a few feathers if they caught Jesus’ meaning. He’s basically telling them that, as the religious leaders of Israel, they are merely hired hands tending the sheep for money, whereas a real shepherd does it out of love. He points out that the hired hand runs away at the first sign of danger because the hired hand does not really care for the sheep. Again, Jesus refers to himself as the good shepherd and says he knows his own just as his own know him, and just as the Father knows him, he knows the Father. The shepherd owns the sheep and is committed to them to the point of laying down his life for them. I don’t know if the Pharisees caught this, but Jesus is telling them that he is willing to die for the sheep they have neglected and abandoned. This is a pretty bold statement and he’s saying you are either with me or against me.
Jesus continues by telling them that I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. At this point the Pharisees have to be asking themselves to whom is Jesus referring? Other sheep that do not belong to this fold? Surely, he can’t mean Gentiles and Samaritans and other non-Jews from foreign lands. Who does this guy think he is? He must be demon-possessed. Jesus underscores what he has just said by telling them that it is for this reason that the Father loves him because he is willing to lay down his life in order to take it up again. He says that no one can take his life from him, but that he lays it down on his own accord. He says: I have the power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father. He really gave them an earful, and we’re told that the Jews were again divided with some saying he was raving mad and shouldn’t be listened to and others saying that these are not the words of a man possessed by a demon, and how could a demon open the eyes of the blind? Jesus really gave them something to talk about and there were some Pharisees who were willing to listen to what he had to say. He wasn’t saying anything they could disagree with.
Jesus had just given them a glimpse into his worldwide mission, to die for the sins of the world, the whole world, not just the Jewish world. His message is a message of diversity where all the sheep in the kingdom are valued. The Jewish elite of Jesus’ time were no different than the elite and privileged of our current world who seek to restrict God’s blessing to their own group, but Jesus, and hopefully his followers, refuse to be limited by the fences and walls that are erected by man to keep “those” people out. We can see this call for diversity in our United Methodist Book of Discipline in paragraph 162 of The Social Community where it says: The rights and privileges a society bestows upon or withholds from those who comprise it indicate the relative esteem in which that society holds particular persons (sheep) and groups of persons (sheep). We affirm all persons (sheep) as equally valuable in the sight of God. We therefore work toward societies in which each person’s (sheep’s) value is recognized, maintained, and strengthened. We support the basic rights of all persons (sheep) to equal access to housing, education, communication, employment, medical care, legal redress for grievances, and physical protection. We deplore acts of hate or violence against groups (flocks) or persons (sheep) based on race, color, national origin, ethnicity, age, gender, disability, status, economic condition, sexual orientation, gender identity, or religious affiliation. In theory and on paper, we get the concept of an all-encompassing and inclusive flock.
So how do we as a people and a church line up with the good shepherd? Like Jesus, are we willing to call out our own modern-day Pharisees? We certainly believe that there is only one true good shepherd, but how do our words and actions show how we really feel about there being one flock? Do our actions and lifestyles reflect a belief that God’s blessings are restricted to our own group of like-minded believers to the exclusion of the other? Or do our actions, how we put our faith into practice, reflect a belief that Jesus also has sheep that he truly loves who are not of our fold? And, if we believe that, then what can we do to dismantle those fences and tear down those walls that are designed to separate and segregate God’s beloved children, God’s beloved sheep, who don’t look like us, who don’t think like us, who don’t love like us, who don’t speak like us, who don’t pray like us, or don’t vote like us? Do we really love our neighbors without exceptions? Do we really live like there is one shepherd, one flock?
Please pray with me.
Savior, like a shepherd lead us, much we need thy tender care. In thy pleasant pastures feed us, for our use thy folds prepare. We are thine, thou dost befriend us. Be the guardian of our way and keep thy flock from sin. Defend us and seek us when we go astray. We pray, Good Shepherd, that you open our eyes so that we may see, and that once we see, we will do all we can to lead other lost sheep to your gate so that they may enter in. Move us through the guidance of your Holy Spirit to be more than just hired hands. Lead us and guide us to be loving and protective shepherds of your flock. Make it our life’s work, our mission, to show the world that there is but one shepherd and only one true flock. In Jesus’ name, the Good Shepherd, we pray, Amen.