Sermon by Pastor Mike Buttonnn
You, Me, and the Good Shepherd
Text: John 10: 11-18
NRS John 10
11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.12The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away-- and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I 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. 17 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father."
Sisters and Brothers in Christ, may the Lord keep all your days and deeds in grace and peace; for the sake of Jesus the Messiah. Amen.
There’s no getting to the bottom of true genius, but in his book Will in the World, Stephen Greenblatt takes a pretty good crack at explaining the genius of William Shakespeare. The John Cogan Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, Greenblatt takes his reader on a wide-ranging tour of the social and economic, religious and political geography that Shakespeare inhabited. He uncovers the bard’s mastery of language, the compelling force of his meter, and the many dimensions of his plot lines. On the one hand, Greenblatt notes how so many of Shakespeare’s plays deal with eternal themes that are accessible to everyone – war, romance, revenge, sex, jealousy, things that virtually anybody can relate to. On the other hand, the professor also points out how Shakespeare so often invests these common, easily recognizable themes with twists, turns, and ambiguities that four centuries later still have scholars scratching their heads. Who really knows what makes Hamlet tick? What feeds Iago’s hatred to such a fever pitch? How does a basically good man like Macbeth become so consumed with ambition that he turns into a monster?
What Greenblatt observes about Shakespeare might apply as well to today’s gospel, in which Jesus twice declares, “I am the good shepherd.” In the great gallery of Christian art, I don’t think there’s any image more beloved than that of the good shepherd. Before Christian art could even be publicly displayed, you find the good shepherd gracing the tombs of the faithful in the second century catacombs of Rome. Eighteen hundred years later, you can search Google images for the good shepherd and in a little less than two/tenths of a second you find hundreds of good shepherd paintings, icons, mosaics, sculptures, crosses, coloring books, key chains, and photos, including several shots of Matt Damon from his starring role in the spy thriller, “The Good Shepherd.” I’m thinking that only the Lord knows how many good shepherd churches there are in the world, but according to the office of the secretary, there are 194 in our own ELCA, and a total of 289 congregations with the word shepherd somewhere in the name.
You don’t have to search very hard to appreciate the good shepherd’s appeal. It’s an image that anybody can get, man, woman, or child. It translates into practically any culture. And even if you’ve never seen a sheep, much less watched a shepherd at work, you can still relate to the universal themes of safety, support, and nurture. The good shepherd taps into the longing we all have for a strong father, a gentle mother, a caring community. But what keeps this image from dissolving into kitsch is the theological depth with which Jesus invests this basic vision of comfort and kindness.
“I am the good shepherd” is one of the seven great “I Am” statements scattered throughout the Gospel of John. I bet some of you had to memorize them in confirmation. So along with “I am the good shepherd,” Jesus also declares, “I am the bread of life” (6:35), “I am the light of the world” (8:12), “I am the gate of the sheep” (10:7), “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25), “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (14:6), and as we’ll be hearing for the next two Sundays from John 15, “I am the true vine.” What makes these “I Am” statements so powerful is that Jesus intentionally echoes the words of the Lord to Moses in Exodus 3. That’s where God reveals himself to Moses in the burning bush. At that epiphany God commissions Moses to divine leadership over Israel, but when Moses asks by what name shall he tell the Israelites that God has sent him, the Lord answers, “I Am Who I Am. … Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you” (3: 14). So when Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd,” he is speaking in, with, and from the very heart of divine being. God’s “good shepherd-ness” is not merely a quality or attribute, but as embodied in Jesus, God is the Good Shepherd, seeking, searching, laying down his life to protect his sheep from the predator’s ravages. Along with light, and life, and truth, and all the other “I Am” predicates, God is, in Jesus, for us in a way that cannot be undone or unraveled. As I heard a friend once put it, God is for us in the same way that a bell cannot be unrung. “Though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters rage and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult” (Psalm 46:2,3), God will not be moved from our side.
“I am the good shepherd” also plays on deep chords from Israel’s historical imagination. A thousand years after the reign of David, the people of Jesus’ day were still looking back to the Shepherd King as the closest thing they’d ever seen to the actual rule of God on earth. For all of David’s many faults and deep flaws, he was remembered for his leadership – feeding the flock, fending off the wolves, first to lead the charge and last to leave the field of battle. When Jesus declares that he is the good shepherd, he is announcing that he has taken up the mantle of David -- that what was at one time a faint reflection of God’s reign will come to pass once and for all. Again, this is a theme that runs through all ages and stages of human civilization, up to and including our own. We all want, sometimes desperately, the leader who will unite us, who will bring us together, who will end the bickering by appealing to the better angels of our natures. No less than ancient Israel, we also long for one shepherd who will hold us together in one flock. But then Jesus adds an unexpected twist, when he says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold” (v. 16).
Huh? Other sheep? Another fold? Who are these others that I don’t know and may not like? Jesus doesn’t explain, except to say, “I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”
Lots of people have suggested who these other sheep might be. Some commentators are sure that Jesus is referring to his own fellow Jews who have not yet answered his shepherd’s call. Others think that through the words of Jesus the evangelist John is tipping off his readers to communities of other Christians of whom they might not be aware. Many people today read Jesus’ words as a reproof of the denominationalism that has divided the Body of Christ into just so many competing tribes – Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, and on and on and on. Some years ago theologian Karl Rahner wrote that these other sheep may be what he termed “anonymous Christians,” people who are Christian in all respects but name, who have just yet to hear the good shepherd summon them into the community of his love.
But the simple fact is that Jesus doesn’t fully explain. He leaves the identity of these other sheep just kind of hanging, which may well be his point. We don’t know who these other sheep are, which means that we are to treat each person, whether we like them or not, as one for whom the good shepherd lays down his life. And precisely because we can’t be sure who these other sheep are or from what fold they came, we have no choice but to regard every stranger a fellow member of the one flock over which the Lord will be the one shepherd.
How do we rise beyond the terrible divisions that blind us to our common humanity? How do we get beyond the endless attacks and counter-attacks to resolve the mounting crises that threaten our very existence? How do we get out of our bubbles to hear the cries of all and the aspirations of many? That would require us to listen as attentively to the Good Shepherd as he listens to us.
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
