[Machine transcription]
Christ is risen.
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
This Sunday, you might often hear it referred to as Good Shepherd Sunday,
and I think it’s interesting that in our gospel text, we really don’t even get to the verses that talk about the Good Shepherd himself.
But to follow the sequence of events in today’s gospel lesson,
and we need to rewind and go all the way back
to the fourth Sunday in Lent,
when we heard how Jesus had healed this man
who had been blind since birth,
and many there who saw this happen,
or saw this man, including Jesus’ disciples,
well, they wondered at the man’s blindness,
and they said, well, this blindness must be
some punishment for his or his parents’ great sin.
And so after Jesus gives the man his sight back,
the Pharisees pounce on him and they interrogated him ruthlessly, demanding to
know how he’d been healed, who had healed him, and he told them the man called
Jesus did it, he restored my sight, and so the Pharisees proceeded to first doubt
that the man had really ever been blind at all, and they continued to hound him
mercilessly about this healing and about Jesus, and eventually they judged him to
just simply be a liar and a sinner and they cast him out of the synagogue. And
so Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for their own blindness, their spiritual blindness,
their lack of faith, and so that’s where we pick up with the gospel lesson this
morning. And so Jesus is not done with his rebuke to the Pharisees. We know
Jesus likes to speak in parables. This time he uses what they call a paramea, a
proverb or a figure of speech, and I think maybe Jesus did this to kind of
dumb it down for them, maybe, as he teaches this lesson. But as every time before, the
Pharisees, they still don’t get it. Jesus is attempting to show them the
difference between the sheep who respond to the shepherd whom they know and trust,
and how sheep react to strangers who want to lead them astray, and more
importantly, how the shepherd cares for his sheep. Now you probably didn’t come
here this morning thinking that you were gonna get a short lesson in animal
husbandry, but I want to digress for a few minutes and talk about, refresh our
memory really, about the role of the shepherd so that we really have this
picture in our mind of what Jesus is talking about here. And although the
vocation of shepherd today is really only practiced in, you know, some of these
most rural and unsophisticated regions of the world. It was, of course, a common
vocation in Jesus’ day, and the imagery of shepherd and sheep is found sprinkled
all throughout Scripture. So the shepherd is this picture of a simple servant,
often looked down on as the lowest of occupations. It was a very dangerous job.
He fended off wild animals.
The shepherd was never off-duty and almost constantly with the flock.
And I like to think we might want to think about David.
When Samuel came to his father Jesse to anoint one of his sons as king, and the Lord sent
Samuel to do this, and the Lord led him to pass over the first seven brothers, and he
asked, is there another brother?
Jesse says, yeah, there remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is with the sheep.
And I think Jesse probably said this for a couple of different reasons. First, it
was David’s job to be with the sheep, and he didn’t have any business leaving them.
And second, there’s no way that this little boy, this ordinary shepherd, is
going to be the king of Israel. And yet, this ordinary lowly servant was just the
person the Lord had in mind to be king. And since we look at the shepherd, we
have to also look at the sheep. Now I don’t think sheep have the reputation of
being the most attractive of God’s creatures, especially in terms of one that
we might want to compare ourselves to. True enough, lambs are cute. They are the
embodiment of innocence and meekness. The lambs grow up to be sheep. The sheep
Sheep can be stubborn and hard-headed.
They have a unique odor about them.
Dirt and dust stick to them because of the lanolin in their wool, and they will get you
dirty and greasy if they rub up against you.
They’re not really all that intelligent.
They frighten easily.
They have a herd mentality, a flock mentality actually, and people who are thought to be
timid or easily influenced, easily manipulated, what we refer to them as
sheep, or a more recent combination of words, sheeple. Sheeple are those who
can’t think for themselves, they’re oblivious to threats, they rely on the
strength of others. So let’s face it, you aren’t paying someone a compliment when
you say they are sheepish, and yet we are sheep because our Lord causes his sheep,
calls us his sheep, especially in the book of Psalms and especially here in the gospel
of St. John.
And as I said, it’s a little bit of a shame that we’re not going to get to the actual
verses about Jesus saying he’s the good shepherd.
Maybe I’ll have a word with the lectionary committee about that.
But for now, I want us to focus back on this lesson.
Jesus calls the one who doesn’t enter the sheepfold by the door a thief and a robber.
Now a sheepfold is or was a pen or a corral of sorts, probably made of rock or
stone, in which a flock of sheep or maybe several flocks of sheep would be kept
overnight. Now these sheepfold might be found out in the countryside, they might
be in a village. The sheepfold would have a gatekeeper or a watchman, one who was
charged with making sure no sheep got out and that only the shepherd was
allowed to access the sheep. And when the shepherd arrived, most of the time in the
dark before dawn, the gatekeeper would allow the shepherd access to
call his sheep out because they would follow him. Jesus says as much. Jesus says,
the sheep follow the shepherd even though they couldn’t see him for they
know his voice. And again, there might be several flocks in the sheepfold, but only
the sheep who belong to that particular shepherd are going to follow him. And even
Again, if a thief or a robber somehow is allowed access into the sheepfold, the sheep would
not be fooled into following him because they wouldn’t know his voice, and in fact, as
Jesus says, they would flee from him.
And again, the Pharisees are dumbfounded by all this, and it’s not like the Pharisees
didn’t understand the nature of sheep herding, and Jesus wasn’t trying to teach them about
animal husbandry.
No, as usual, the Pharisees don’t get it.
They don’t even think Jesus is talking about them when he calls them thieves and robbers.
They were still guilty, as before, of claiming to see, and yet they were still lost in their
spiritual blindness.
So Jesus tries once more, and he’s pretty explicit.
He says, I am the door of the sheep.
I am the one who guards the access to the sheepfold and to the flock.
I am the one who allows those who are the right preachers and teachers of the
Word to lead the flock. You, you Pharisees, you are among those who came before me as
thieves and robbers. You are those who the Lord called the prophet Ezekiel to
warn the people of Israel about.” Ezekiel chapter 34 would have been a good first
reading for today. Something else I’ll get with the lectionary committee about.
And in chapter 34, God tells Ezekiel to go to the shepherds of Israel and say,
Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves, should not shepherds
feed the sheep? The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not
healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back,
The lost you have not sought.
So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the
wild beasts.
Jesus says, guess what?
The sheep belong to me, and they won’t listen to you.
You come only to steal and kill and destroy, but I have come to seek out my sheep, to rescue
them from all the places where they have been scattered.
I will seek the lost.
I will bring back the strayed. I will bind up the injured. I will strengthen
the weak. I will feed them in justice. They will have life, and they will have
it abundantly. Just like this blind man who you cast out of the flock, but I now
return to the sheepfold.” And dear brothers and sisters, the sheepfold that
Jesus speaks about is the church, and Christ shows that there is only one way
into church, into the church, the body of believers, and that is through him, the
door of the sheep. And though Jesus is the only Good Shepherd over his church,
over his vast flock, he does call and appoint servants to serve and shepherd
sheep of their own here on earth. And before his ascension, Christ charged his
disciples with their own flocks here on earth. Now in a few weeks we’ll enter the
season of Pentecost, we’ll leave the gospel of St. John behind. We won’t make
it to this closing chapter where St. John recounts this third appearance of
Jesus after his resurrection. And as Jesus is there, among the disciples is the
one who strayed from the flock in a moment of weakness, the one who actually
denied Christ. But Jesus asked him, he asked Peter, do you love me more than
these? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Feed my lambs. Do you love me? Yes, Lord,
you know that I love you. Tend my sheep. Simon, son of John, do you love me? Lord,
You know everything. You know that I love you. Feed my sheep.” What an awesome
responsibility Christ gives to his shepherds here on earth. And no doubt we
are sheep, but we’re exactly the opposite of the world’s perception of sheep. We
don’t follow blindly. Just as our Lord gave sheep some innate inner ability to
hear and know their shepherd’s voice, he does the same for us by the Holy Spirit.
We know, trust, and believe that he is our Good Shepherd, that he feeds us and
keeps us safe from harm because he loves us. He loves us even when we’re unlovable.
He loves us even when we’re stubborn and hard-headed. He loves us even though we
We are smelly and greasy and covered in the corruption of sin, but when we wander off,
he grabs us by the neck with his rod, with his crook, and puts us back on the path to
green pasture.
And when we go astray and we call out for him to rescue us, he searches us out, he picks
us up, he carries us on his shoulders and brings us back to the sheepfold.
He washes our dirty bodies clean in our baptism, taking our sins that though they
be like scarlet, they become white as snow. That though they are red like
crimson, they become like wool. He takes our dirty robes, He washes them white
with His own blood, the blood of salvation on the cross. And though we are
the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand, we will always be his little
lambs. And in a few minutes, one of our communion hymns will be, I Am Jesus’
Little Lamb. When my family and I were members of St. Peter up in Bowie, we
always sang this hymn at a baptism. And as the congregation sang, Pastor Brummett
would carry the newborn infant up and down the aisle so everybody could see
this new brother or sister in Christ, this new little lamb who was now a member of
the flock. But I’m afraid that, kind of like with Jesus Loves Me, we think of I
Am Jesus’ Little Lamb as some kid’s song. But I think we should be delighted that
we get to sing it today, and as we do, I pray that we really reflect on its
simple words. I am Jesus’ little lamb, ever glad at heart I am, for my shepherd
gently guides me, knows my need and well provides me, loves me every day the same,
even calls me by my name.” Dear friends, we belong to Jesus, and we belong to
Jesus because we belong to him we joyfully go in and out. We are freed from
condemnation of the law and from sin. Jesus is our shepherd. He’s always right
there in front of us leading us in the way to salvation. He daily and richly
supplies us with his grace and he has given his own life for us that we may
have life and have it abundantly and his love is unchanging and never-ending. He
knows us and we know him and he is our Good Shepherd. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and
through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. Christ is risen.
