A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — May 15, 2011
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Texts:  Psalm 23;  John 10:1-16

The Lord is my shepherd… — Psalm 23:1a

 “…[the shepherd] goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.  They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him  because they do no know the voice of strangers.” — John 10:4-5

 “The Lord is my shepherd…” sings the psalmist in Psalm 23.  “I am the Good Shepherd,” says Jesus.  So I guess that makes all us people sheep—which is not an especially nice thought when we realize what sheep are like.  Sheep are, well, sheep.  They’re not very smart, and they panic easily.  They follow some other sheep blindly or just wander off and get lost.  They make most of their decisions based on their appetites.  And they tend to get into head-butting contests for no reason at all.  OK, maybe we are sheep… but it’s not very complimentary at all.  Still, there must be something here, for this images of Jesus and God as a Good Shepherd have always been favorites throughout the church.

I used to see a lot of sheep in the winter fields of Western Oregon where farmers grow grass seed.  But I can’t recall seeing any sheep here in Ohio except at the state fair.  I expect few of us have any direct experience with shepherding sheep.  In the American west range wars were fought between cattle ranchers and sheep farmers mostly because sheep don’t behave like cattle.  If you don’t stop them, sheep overgraze and will eat everything in sight.  But the big difference is that you can herd cattle from the rear by hooting and hollering and cracking whips and such.  But if you get behind sheep and make loud noises, all they’ll do is run round behind you because sheep prefer to be led.  You push cows, but you lead sheep.  Sheep will follow after a shepherd who goes before them.

 

I’m told it is still possible in the Middle East—in Palestine, for example—to observe a scene that would be completely familiar to Jesus and his followers:  that of Bedouin shepherds bringing their flocks home from the various pastures where they grazed during the day.  It’s not like the U.S. where sheep are trucked around to fenced fields.  There, sheep and shepherd seem to share an especially close relationship, as if the sheep consider their shepherds to be part of the family and share with them a private language.  Good shepherds learn to distinguish between bleats of pain and pleasure, and the sheep learn the various calls, clucks, and whistles that mean food or danger or time to go home.  At dusk, different flocks often end up at the same watering hole, so they get all mixed up together.  But when it’s time to head home, each shepherd issues a distinctive call, and the shepherd’s sheep follow, for they recognize their shepherd’s voice. 

In Jesus’ time, the village sheep were penned together in a common sheepfold for the night, and the same kind of separation would occur in the morning as each shepherd called forth his sheep.  John tells of Jesus using this image to explain how his followers know him and know God.  In his life and teachings they see God in human flesh and thereby come to know and recognize the voice of God.  The same is true for us today… or should be true—except that we live in a vastly different world from 2000 years ago.  Ours is not the pastoral world of sheep and shepherds, but the high tech world of gigabytes and Google, of iPads and pop-up ads.
Any one of us can have almost instant access to more data, more information, and more opinions than the wealthiest, most powerful ruler of Jesus’ day.  And so we hear many more voices calling to us, enticing us, clamoring for our attention, demanding our allegiance.  It can be deafening… and terribly confusing. 

 

Advertising alone bombards us with a dizzying array of messages.  I have in my files a listing of some familiar advertising slogans that could well refer to God:  “It’s the real thing”;  “It brings good things to life”;   “Don’t leave home without it”;   “You’re in good hands with…”  with God?  Nope, they’re not at all about God.  They’re about corporations like Coca Cola, General Electric, American Express, and Allstate Insurance—all trying to sell us things.  And don’t forget to incessant babble of politicians.  With so many voices filling our ears, how can we hear and recognize the voice of the Lord who is our shepherd?

I don’t have a guaranteed prescription for this.  But I do want to suggest that the image in John of the sheep and the Good Shepherd offers certain insights.  It seems that even when we listen within a religious setting, we get messages that are confusing.  All too often the institutional church acts as if its main function is to round up, herd, or hogtie cattle rather than to lead and care for sheep.  The church spends a considerable amount of its time and energy trying to manage and control people through rules, condemnation and exclusion.  Most people seem to expect churches to issue commands and enforce rules and pass judgments, rather than being open and inviting places of welcome and acceptance.  But if you look at the gospels, you can see that Jesus is entirely accepting of anyone who comes to him. In fact, nowhere in all the gospels is Jesus reported as ever demanding repentance of anyone in order to be welcomed.  It’s like he goes looking specifically for people who are not part of our particular in-group to see that they are included.  “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.” he says.  “I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.  So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”  Sometimes the church even catches up to Jesus—like the recent vote in our own denomination that finally “opens up the possibility that persons in same-gender relationships can be considered for ordination,”¹ instead of excluding out-of-hand any possibility of God calling them to such ministries.   Jesus’ life and teachings consistently reveal a God who is interested in love and mercy above all else.

There are indeed some guidelines for recognizing God’s voice in our lives.  First, it is always a loving and caring voice.  The voice that whispers (or shouts) within us that we are no good and never will be is not the Good Shepherd’s.  The Shepherd’s voice calls us share God’s love expansively with all people.  The voice that says, “If you want it, take it,” is not the Good Shepherd’s.  And neither is the hard-driving, competitive voice that declares, “Winner take all…no mater the cost.”  The Shepherd’s voice speaks out on behalf of the last, the least, the littlest, and the lost in our world, because this is the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to go and seek out the one sheep that is lost.

The Good Shepherd sees all people everywhere as part of the one flock and so speaks with a voice of forgiveness and mercy.  The angry voices in our world that demand punishment, retribution, and retaliation are not the Good Shepherd’s.  And neither are the voices that cry, “My way, or the highway!”  The Good Shepherd’s voice is inviting and welcoming, calling each and every one of us without any kind of threat or coercion.  It’s never “Come with me, or else.”  The Good Shepherd’s voice—God’s voice—says things like, “Come unto me all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest” [Matthew 11:28] and “There will be one flock and one shepherd” [John 10:16] and “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” [John 10:10].  It is a voice that comforts even as it invites us all into community and challenges us to be our best.

If we are not a herd of cattle but the one flock of the one shepherd, it is at least as important to remember that the shepherd calls the flock and goes before to lead them out of the walls of their sheepfold to green pastures and still waters.  The sheep are to be nurtured and fed.  We enact this image regularly at the Table of Union—Communion—where the Lord’s Supper begins with the voice of gladness:  “This is the joyful feast of the people of God!”  Then the voice of inclusiveness:  “People will come from east and west, and from north and south, to sit at table in the kingdom of God.”  And at the climax comes the voice of the Good Shepherd himself, the one who lays down his life for the sheep:  “This is my body, given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me…  And this cup is the new covenant sealed in my life blood.  All of you, drink of it… Do all this remembering me.”

Eating and drinking as “one flock” in communion together and with all other followers of Jesus, we taste of the abundant life that Jesus promises.  We receive sustenance from the Good Shepherd and come to recognize his voice.  And thereby we learn to know and follow the voice of God.  Thanks be to God.  Amen and amen.

_________________________
¹ “Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approves change in ordination standard: ‘Submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ’ replaces ‘fidelity and chastity’”  http://www.pcusa.org/news/2011/5/10/presbyterian-church-us-approves-change-ordination/