Flock Life
April 29, 2012
Easter 4B
John 10:11-18
This is one of the most familiar, and perhaps, comforting images of Jesus that we know. Since we’ve been “knee high to a grasshopper”, we’ve heard about Jesus as our shepherd. It’s lovely. Except that I, for one, picture this as idyllic-- I see it like a painting, filled with bright greens and blues, and very white sheep. I see the shepherd reclining peacefully, and smiling gently as he watches his beloved fold, as golden light surrounds him. In my mind, this shepherd doesn’t even have any dirt under his fingernails. I bet you’ve seen pictures like that-- pictures that somehow still your anxious heart.
But if you’ve spent any time around sheep or shepherds or pastures, you know that perhaps that mental picture we have isn’t terribly realistic. I haven’t spent a lot of time with sheep, but when I have been up close and personal with them, I’ve never seen one that was cottonball white. They’ve been dirty and smelly, and more often than not, their wool was all matted down. And the shepherds I’ve met have smelled a lot like their sheep, and have mud caked on their hands and ankles-- just like the sheep. Shepherds seem to come off pretty well in the bible--David was a shepherd after all. And we all know that you can’t have a nativity scene without shepherds. Shepherds seem to represent to us all that is kind and gentle.
Truth be told, though, shepherds have to be quite fierce. Their whole job is to make sure the sheep stay safe. Storm’s coming? No time to seek out warm, cozy shelter. Hungry wolf on the loose? Don’t even think about hiding. Silly sheep wandered off and is about to fall down a ravine? Well, don’t plan on getting any sleep until you find him.
We’ve done a disservice to Jesus’ metaphor about being the good shepherd by romanticizing it. We like the gentle pictures filled with golden light and a smiling shepherd, but they don’t tell us much about Jesus-- or to what great lengths Jesus is willing to go to tend his flock. If we think about it, that brightly colored painting that is in our brains when we think about shepherds is probably a picture of the hired hand that Jesus says he isn’t. The only one that could look as clean as we imagine a shepherd to is one who ran away at the first sign of danger. If he’s reclining on a hill and smiling, it’s probably because he isn’t taking very good care of his flock. The hired hand, in contrast to the True Shepherd, is only concerned about monetary gain, and is interested in the minimum amount of work need to care for the sheep.
This passage is about a shepherd who wants the very best for his flock, and will do anything to take care of them. It’s about a True Shepherd who is willing to get his hands dirty, who loves them so much that he is willing to lay down his own life to make sure that his sheep are safe. That speaks so strongly to me of the relationship present between the shepherd and the sheep--which seems like a funny thing to those of us that don’t know much about sheep. We have relationships with pets-- but sheep? The truth is that, in contrast to our notion that sheep are dumb, they are actually quite smart. Did you know that sheep who are taught their names will come when they are called? I’ve got two dogs, who I would think are pretty smart, but they have a problem understanding that “Bella” means one of them, while “Beauford” means the other. But sheep understand their names. Sheep are also smart enough that they recognize voices--this isn’t just a metaphor that John’s Jesus uses. If the sheep hear their shepherds voice, and the shepherd has proven to be trustworthy, the sheep will go anywhere that the shepherd leads them. If the voice, however, has proven to be untrustworthy, the sheep will actually refuse to go anywhere and the shepherd can’t do anything about it. It turns out that sheep actually consider the shepherd to be one of the family--which winds up being a strong enough bond to allow the shepherd keep the sheep safe. Because the truth of the matter is that sheep are lost without the constant and vigilant care of their shepherd.
That changes how we hear these words about Jesus. These words aren’t just about the Shepherd, though they do tell us a lot about Jesus and how he takes care of us. These words are also about the health of the flock, which is of course, overseen by the shepherd. It’s about life in community-- or maybe “The Flocked Life”.
The first question is “What does the flock look like?” For John, anyone who sees, hears, and believes in Jesus is part of the community. If you read through just John’s gospel alone, that lets in a lot of outcasts--sinners, lepers, Samaritans, tax collectors-- women! All of these that society considered to be outside the margins of what is acceptable are all under the care of the True Shepherd.
Despite the number of times I have read and heard this passage, I must have zoned out a few times when Jesus said “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.” So here we have these comforting words about life in community-- but there’s a bit of a news flash that somehow we miss. The “community” isn’t just about the people who fill our pews or whose faces fill our church directory. There are people who aren’t of “our” flock who Jesus will join us with. And that’s hard in some ways. Who are these “new” sheep? What if they don’t think and act like we do? What do we do with them? What if there are so many of “them” that they outnumber “us”? What if “they” start to change the community we’ve come to know and love?
And Jesus doesn’t offer us any wisdom on what to do about those questions. It’s as if the fact that we like things the way they are is kind of a non-issue to our Shepherd. It’s not like he says, “If it’s alright with you, I’m going to bring some new sheep in. I hope you’ll like them.” That’s not what he says at all. He says, “These are mine too... and I am bringing them into the community.” Thankfully, at least here, he doesn’t charge us with bringing them in.
So what is our job here-- as part of the fold? I think that, believing Jesus is our Shepherd, believing that Jesus is the one who watches over our community, that our job is to intentionally make the community a safe place for all who would enter here. The verse that keeps lurking in my head as I think about this is “Love, even as I have loved you.”
Jesus has brought us into not only this community at Sherwood Presbyterian Church, but it’s bigger than that. Christ has brought us into his fold where we receive the things we need most in this world: love and protection.
Do you remember the story where Peter is trying to prove to Jesus that he loves him and Jesus says “Peter, do you love me?” And Peter says, “Yes, Lord, you know that I do.” And Jesus counters with a strange answer-- “Then feed my sheep.” And Jesus keeps asking if Peter loves him, and Peter keeps answering. But the thing is, Jesus’ request of him at that point is the same all three times. “Then take care of my people” is at the heart of what Jesus asks.
So here we come, to this 4th Sunday in Easter-- a Sunday that every year is called “Good Shepherd” Sunday. As we live in the hope of Easter, especially during the Great 50 days, we’re talking about bearing witness with our lives to the power of the resurrection in our midst. And today, we’re talking about the comfort and care our Shepherd provides us. But the problem is, we can’t talk about the Shepherd-- without also talking about the sheep. And it turns out that Jesus’ command to us is the same as it was to Peter-- “Love and nurture and support and welcome my people.”
The calming, leading voice of the Shepherd calls out to all the sheep, just as it has surely called out to us, over and over and over. We’ve heard that voice, or else we wouldn’t be here. But now what? We have to look out for all of the other sheep-- not just the ones that think and act like we do, but even the ones who are radically different from us. Jesus, throughout his ministry, made a point of seeking out the lost and the lonely and the ones who need to be rescued from themselves and the ones who aren’t thought of well by society.
A worship song says, “Come let us worship and bow down. For he is our God, and we are the people of God’s pasture, the sheep of God’s hand.” Being the people of God’s pasture means that we’re all flocked together. It means that we trust Christ to lead us and keep us safe--even when the danger is us-- how we would like to be and do and think. It means that just as we’ve heard God’s voice calling out to us, that we have to allow the Shepherds voice to speak through us, even as we reach out to the lost and hurting people we meet every day.
“Do you love me?” asks Jesus. As my grandmother said, “the proof is in the pudding!” Do we love Christ enough to submit all we are and have to the gentle rule of the Shepherd--even and especially our community? Do we love Christ enough to care for all the sheep?
