Sermon - The Rev. Dr. Paul Kolbet, April 21st, 2024
Most of our Scripture readings only come around every three years. There are other things in the Bible that never show up in our Sunday morning readings. And then there a few passages that come around every single year because our tradition has found that they contain something we benefit from by reminding ourselves of what they contain with greater frequency. Jesus the good shepherd is one of those things. We are told of this four weeks after Easter every year.
The language of shepherds is one of the ways the Bible talks about who our leaders are. Moses was a shepherd before he ever led the Israelites out of Egypt (Exodus 3:1). We meet David as a shepherd before he ever becomes King (1 Samuel 17:15). We are thinking a lot about choosing leaders these days. There is not only the choice of the next rector of this parish, but on May 18th our clergy and lay delegates will choose the next bishop of Massachusetts. On November 1st of this year, there will be a new presiding bishop of the national Episcopal Church that will start a nine-year term following popular presiding Bishop Michael Curry. And then, of course, also in November is the election of the next president of the United States. It’s a lot isn’t it?
We don’t need Jesus to tell us a lot is at stake in these decisions, but he tells us that anyway. In today’s reading he warns against false shepherds, those who do not care for the sheep, who run away as the wolf approaches the sheep and the sheep are snatched or scattered. Just before the passage we read this morning Jesus warned against those who look like shepherds, but are, in fact, thieves and bandits, who only “steal, kill, and destroy.” Readers of the whole Bible are familiar with its preoccupation with how to tell the difference between true prophets and other so-called “prophets” whose flattery and falseness makes them popular even as their words lead people to ruin (see Jeremiah 19, 28-29). Readers of the whole Bible are also familiar with how several of its longer books are devoted to chronicling the history of the kings of Israel and the Bible’s forceful opinions about what distinguishes a good king from a bad king and its warning that leadership has such broad affects for good of for ill that it matters even for the welfare of the land.
It is a question of who you can trust with you. We are pulled in so many directions by every website, podcast, streaming channel, radio broadcast not just in making decisions about our health, but in everything that matters about us. All the frequencies are full and it is a necessity–and even a moral choice–to decide whose voice we listen to and whose we do not. There are so many false shepherds right now and they are all on my phone … and yours.
The Bible warns us that there are people who may have good qualities otherwise, but they are not reliable shepherds because they cannot be trusted with the vulnerabilities of others. Our reading from John’s First Epistle presses the issue when it asks, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” He continues, “We know love by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us–and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”
That kind of sacrificial love for others may seem like a fantastically high bar as we think about our leaders. That may say more about us and our diminished expectations about leadership than these days than it says about Jesus. These days we tend to only hope that our leaders at least just don’t commit crimes. What we have in writing of the followers of Jesus is the leadership they learned by those who witnessed him carry his own cross and die for them. They tell us to lift our hearts and expect more. This is when it becomes clear that we circle around to Good Shepherd Sunday every year because we encounter these readings once again after we all have endured another year, like all human years, where we have had to think about who we can trust with ourselves, and today we meet Jesus saying, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life the sheep.”
The earliest pictures of Jesus that we have don’t depict him on a cross. They portray him as a shepherd carrying a sheep on his shoulders. That is the picture on the wall of earliest preserved ancient Christian church we have found. It’s in Syria. The same picture is found in the early Christian tombs under the city of Rome. That is who he was for the first Christians. Borrowing language from the 23rd Psalm, Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The Good shepherd lays down his life the sheep” (John 10:11). People knew that that was the one who cares for his followers like sheep and supplies them “with green pastures,” leads them “beside still waters,” and guides them along “right pathways.” Even as they walk “through the valley of the shadow of death,” the sheep fear no evil because the good shepherd accompanies them. Indeed, they can say “Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” He could be trusted with their vulnerabilities. They could trust him with them and all that they loved and everything they hope.
According to Jesus, his sheep have somehow taught themselves to recognize the Good Shepherd. He says, “I know my own and my own know me.” They have learned what to look for and what to listen for. To teach yourself to recognize the voice of Jesus requires coming to know who he is.
Anyone reading through the gospel of John, notices a series of sayings where Jesus explains who is and can be for each one of us. In the same speech where Jesus identifies himself as the Good Shepherd, Jesus also explains “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep… Whoever enters by me will be saved… I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Jesus says, I am both the bread of life and the one who gives it. Jesus speaks the truth yet he says “I am the truth.” He shows people the way, but he says “I am the way.” He enlightens those who meet him, but he says, “I am the light.”
Ultimately Jesus really is different from the other shepherds, no matter how good they may be. When Jesus says, “I lay down my life for the sheep, he is not only speaking about how he voluntarily chose to sacrifice himself for us, but is also explaining his divine capacity to become whatever he needs to be for us to reach us: light, bread, way, life, truth, shepherd, and gate. He has the capacity to become all of them without ceasing to be who he is. The very same ability that made it possible for him to be Jesus Christ in the first place makes it possible for him to be everything else. Unlike the writers of our ancient creeds or the composers of the hymns we sing, we have become somewhat shy these days to say out loud who we know Jesus to be for us. But even if we are not loud about it, we know or suspect that what makes it possible for Jesus to be everything he is to us is that he is “God from God, light from light, true God from true God.” And he is all of them for us wherever we are, whenever we are, whoever we are.
If you pay attention to your own experience, if you pay attention to your own vulnerability, you can see Jesus becoming whatever you need him to be moment by moment for you. What do you need Christ to be for you this morning? Think about it a minute. And then consider how he can be that for you: father, mother, sister, brother, friend, counselor, healer. And then look for him to find you. Let him comfort you with his rod and his staff, restore your soul, and lead you beside the still waters. Wherever you are, whoever you are, listen to the voice of the Shepherd calling your name. Each time you dare to step in life (no matter how scary) you will find him already where you going even if he was also where you once were. He leads you step by step from him to him as he becomes whatever you need the most when you need it: light, bread, way, truth, life, shepherd and gate.
This strangest thing about the voice of Jesus, especially when you first come to hear it welling up inside your own heart, is that comes from someone who seems to already know you and it can be heard by us even when we are tired and weary because Jesus has the power to come to us where we are in a way that we understand. Let us hear the voice of Jesus as he calls each of us by name; may he be the shepherd we trust with us, but may he lead us beside still waters, as we discover him to be whatever we need him to be as we go with him together.