The truth is that everything I know about sheep and shepherding I’ve learned from old Warner Brothers cartoons involving Ralph Coyote (not to be confused with Wile E.) and Sam Sheepdog who both punch in to work on a time clock before a day of mayhem.
The funny
thing is that we preachers who get so distracted by the nature of sheep and
their behavior forget that the passages that show up every Fourth Sunday of
Easter—traditionally Good Shepherd Sunday—are never about the sheep. They are always about the shepherd!
It’s a
classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees, or the not seeing the
sheep for the flock…. Oops! There I go again!
It’s all
about the shepherd!
Jesus
describes himself as the shepherd. The good shepherd. Who is very
different than all those bad shepherds, not to mention the thieves and wolves
and others who are bad for sheep gatherings.
Jesus says in
today’s Gospel that the good shepherd can come and go through the sheepfold.
What’s a sheepfold? Okay, I had to look this up. It’s a kind of pen, or corral,
used to gather up the sheep at night. And the sheepfold is guarded by a
gatekeeper who checks to be sure that only shepherds enter the gate. And I
guess in those days, sheep only heard and responded to the voices of their own
shepherd, so instead of branding them they’d…. Oops. Sorry. My bad! I forgot.
Old habits, you know.
It’s all
about the shepherd!
It does not
help that not only have modern, urban, preachers been misunderstanding sheep
and shepherding, there is also a tendency to make the passage into an allegory
that neither Jesus nor the Gospel of John intended.
So the
sheepfold in this passage represents… wait for it… a place to keep sheep at
night. That’s right. It is not heaven and it’s not really the church. This
passage is not about those who try to get into heaven by dodging the turnstiles
or entering the theater without a ticket. If it were, he’d be talking about
sheep sneaking in over the gate after curfew.
And no, this
passage is not about heaven, who’s in and who’s out.
It is about
the Church. Specifically about the nature of Christian community. This passage
is a riff on Christian leadership and a warning to Christian followers to
choose wise leaders.
So the Church
is the place where the sheep go for protection and safety. And it’s all about
the shepherd.
Fortunately,
this is only a first century problem, right?
I mean, there is no one out there today competing for our attention,
right? There’s no one out there who wants to sway us into doing something
harmful, right? There’s no one out there using the language of our faith to trick
us into prejudice, fear, and tribalism, right? No! Not in our modern,
enlightened 21st Century world!
Right!
But let’s not
just focus on the obvious. The typical American is confronted by over 5000
advertising exposures. Every. Single. Day. From the car logo on your steering
wheel to the brand name on your jeans to the ad on tv or on the back of the
bus…we are exposed to over 5000 advertising messages a day. And what’s their
goal? To make you feel that the only way your heart will be satisfied will be
to open your wallet and buy this or that gadget, thingee, or food item.
Anybody
raising a kid these days knows that they will know the different fast-food
logos are and what they are for long before they can even read…before they can
even form sentences.
In our world,
the bad shepherds may not be climbing over the fence, but they have surrounded
the sheepfold with billboards and flat screen televisions. We live in a world of loud, persistent voices
vying for our attention… trying to take us away from the main thing. What do we
do?
Remember…it’s
all about the Shepherd.
The Gospel
today reminds a few things about who Jesus is and about what good Christian
communities do to stay together.
First of all,
Jesus teaches with authority. In the church we hold out a balance of scripture,
tradition, and reason as the basis for what we teach and believe as a
community. The Good Shepherd…and good Christian leaders…use their authority for
the good of the community, based on what the church has learned and known over
time and in community.
The image of
the Church we hear in the book of Acts today reminds us of the real, practical
ways in which from the very beginning, Christians gathered into communities to
hear again the voice of the Shepherd and to care for each other.
Second, the
Good Shepherd knows us and meets us where we are. The Shepherd guides us as we
move around in the proverbial pasture that is the world. Do you experience too
many voices, too many distractions in your daily lives? Jesus says that instead
of bouncing from one thing to another, go to the place where the Good Shepherd
is found. Go to the place where the community of the faithful is gathered. In
that community you’ll find the Shepherd…Jesus… who leads us and cares for us
wherever we go.
It is the
sacramental life, lived in community…a life grounded in scripture, in
Eucharistic sharing, in prayer—both alone and in groups, as well as in worship--
is all about the Shepherd. Focusing on Jesus the Good Shepherd will help us
sort through all the competing voices in the world. And together here, in our little sheepfold, is
where we learn to know Jesus’ voice and follow him. This is where we learn and
do the work of Jesus.
The world is
a noisy place, full of distractions. As a people of God, we are not alone, but
are a community of people gathered in Jesus’ name. We are a people who are “on
the way.” And together we keep an eye out for the Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who
knows us, cares for us and leads through our complicated and distracted world and
brings us safely home.
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