We Are the Good Sheep John 10:1-15 Do you remember that first time you said to yourself, oh my gosh, I sound just like my mother, or my father? after all those years as kids when we swore to ourselves that we would never count to three to warn our kids that they were about to be in trouble, or utter the words, because I said so, or, and if all your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too? I was mortified the day 3-year-old Drew grabbed my face and looked me right in the eye and said, Young man, I said NOW! As I get older I hear and see my mother in me more and more. And I did again this week as I was studying this text. Eager beavers, I heard her say, even though I ve never used that expression myself. If there is anything we Christians are good at, it is doing. We are good at being busy. Jesus says we should feed the hungry, and we jump to it, giving food and money to combat hunger here in Kingsport, nationally and globally. Clothe the naked one of the biggest and most important ministries of this church. In fact, doing the work of Jesus is so important that we even put it in our mission statement: we are seeking to be the hands of Christ, doing the very things that Jesus did and left us here to do until his return. We are eager beavers energetic, enthusiastic, earnest and diligent, trying to be and do like Jesus to the best of our ability. And then we venture into the gospel of John and try that same approach with Jesus I Am statements: if Jesus is the light of the world, we should be little lights in the world. At the communion table we sometimes say something about how we should also let ourselves be broken and given to others, the way Jesus was. And now this week, the obvious homiletic jump from Jesus being the good shepherd is that we, then go out and shepherd others who need his love and care. In fact, that s what my official title is: Pastor. Shepherd; the one who leads others to pasture where they can safely graze. But never, in John, does Jesus say you are. You are light. You are bread. You are the gate. He never says, I am the good shepherd, and now you all are little shepherds. The closest he ever gets to saying that is when he is after the resurrection and he tells Peter, feed my sheep. So, we do bear some kind of responsibility for each other? Yes. From Genesis on there is no question that, yes, we are our brothers and sisters keepers. The well-being of every other human is my responsibility in some way. But we are still just sheep. We haven t been promoted. And we haven t been genetically altered so that we are something more inherently capable or impressive than wooly sheep. We haven t been exposed to radioactive material that gives us shepherding superpowers. We are just sheep. In each and every one of the I am sayings only Jesus is the subject of the statement; we are the inferred direct objects. We are at the receiving end; we are in the passive position. The light shines on us. The gate keeps us where we need to be. The bread satisfies us
2 and keeps us alive. We are grafted onto the vine. And, we need tending. We have to be good sheep. So what does that mean? This is about as close to a three-point sermon as I m ever going to get, so if you are taking notes, here s number one: We need to claim and embrace our inner sheep; our sheep nature. From the church nursery to seminary we have always been taught that the scripture uses the shepherd/sheep metaphor to describe the relationship between God and his people because everyone would get it. It would be like us using Walmart or kudzu as a metaphor for something today. But I m not so sure that God didn t create sheep for the sole purpose of having some living breathing thing to be able to point to to say, see, that s exactly what you guys are like (that and so we would have wool socks). Think about all of the other animals around the Middle East that people knew about the tough and majestic Ibex, the resourceful and independent wolf, the snake (I couldn t come up with an admirable trait for the snake, sorry). But no. God points to the weak, defenseless, clueless sheep that can t even find their own food, and says, yep, that s you. This, I think, is what is the hardest thing about being human. Because for as many places as there are in scripture that say we are sheep, or made out of clay and ash and as fragile as the day is long, there are just as many parts that declare that we are made in the image of God, and that we are just a little less than the angels. Two paradoxical images of what it means to be a person. The very image of God! Can t be trusted not to wander off and fall off a cliff. Crowned with honor and glory! But left to their own devices would starve to death. Capable of figuring out how to make fire, preserve food, and cure cancer! But is so shortsighted it will gorge itself today and leave nothing left for tomorrow. How do you hold those two things in tension? How do you live your life and approach every little thing you do knowing that, on one hand our worth is infinite in the eyes of God, and our abilities so far at least- pretty darned close to infinite, but on the other hand, we are helpless, vulnerable and stubborn? How do you go boldly and tread softly at the same time? How can you be full of confidence and humility? How do you challenge yourself to accomplish some pretty amazing things in your life, and at the same time know that you can t even breath your next breath or furnish your next meal all on your own? How do you reflect the honor and glory of God and claim your inner sheep? Hang on to that question for a bit. We re going to come back to that. First, we are going to go on to points number two and three. Ok, what does it meant to be good sheep? Point one, claim your inner sheep. Point two, embrace the herd mentality. Normally that s meant in a negative sense. When you told your mom you wanted to go to the party at your friend s parents house while their parents
3 were out of town because all the kids were doing it, and she asked you if you would jump off the bridge just cause they were, that s the herd mentality. On our own we are pretty smart and use good judgment. Put us all together and you get hey ya ll, watch this! or the dumbest idea in the room prevails. On the other hand, though, there is safety in numbers. Together we stand, divided we fall. We are stronger together than we are alone. For the sheep, this is literal. Their physical survival literally depends on staying in the herd, staying together. When they get lost or wander off alone, they get picked off by the enemy, get hurt, or starve to death. They cannot survive alone. Look around you. This is your herd. Some days you graze next to Daisy and some days you are with Fluffy and Snowball, and even though you and Curly don t particularly care for each other, you always stay together. Why? Because we are herd animals. We aren t cats or rabbits or anteaters, you are sheep. And sheep don t congregate because they are gregarious, or to hunt in packs; they don t form herds with like-minded sheep. They don t have any say as to who is in the herd with them. Why? Because the reason we are in the herd is for our protection. We are together because we need to be together. One of the reasons this church decided to undergo a renewal and revitalization process a year ago is because the herd was thinning. People were wandering off for a variety of reasons. Because we were preaching this or we weren t preaching that; because someone in the herd made them mad or snubbed them; because dare I say it? - not everyone in the herd is likeable; because sheep can be uppity and hypocritical; because we aren t especially good at including the family who has a black sheep, or a spotted sheep, or any sheep that doesn t look and act like we think sheep should act. And whether you are a wanderer yourself, and you come and go from the herd from time to time, or you are firmly in the herd, but idly watching your fellow flock members meander off in search of greener pasture or just getting lost, know this: it is dangerous out there. There are wolves and mountain lions, and there are people who tell us that they know where the grass is greener and sweeter, or that we don t have to be sheep anymore, that we could be something better, or that we don t need a shepherd. Maybe that you don t have to be in an organized herd to be a sheep. But they are wrong. We wanted to know where all the dangers lie, what was good for us and what wasn t. That was how we got into the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That s also why we tried to build that tower up to heaven. The more we knew and understood and could work out for ourselves, the better off we would be. The more independent we could be. Who doesn t want to be able to tell whether that snake on the trail in front of them is
4 venomous or harmless? But while we could figure out how to eradicate polio, we aren t nearly so good at figuring out if something is a harmless pastime and the world at our fingertips, or something that has the potential to rob us of our ability to have meaningful conversations with each other. And that leads us to point number three: being a good sheep means we need to cooperate with the shepherd. We need to trust the shepherd, and just as importantly, trust that we need a shepherd. Because we don t know where all the dangers lie. We can t always tell what is food and what isn t, what means us no harm, and what could rip our throats out. We don t know which way is home, and which way leads to the wilderness. But the shepherd does. The shepherd s job is to lead us in the direction of things that are life-giving, and keep us away from things that are life-taking. It s really as simple as that. The bandits and hired hands will get us into things that leave us hurt and empty, things that will kill our souls. But the good or true shepherd gives life, abundant life. So how do you know if you are following the true shepherd and not a thief or bandit? That s a fair question- Jesus makes it sound like we can t always be trusted to follow the right guy. Remember, it was a beautiful, shiny red apple hanging from that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not a scorpion. Looks can be deceiving. What Jesus says is that the sheep know the shepherd. They know the shepherd s voice. It s a familiar voice, one they hear often. And they know the sorts of things the shepherd is likely to say. The shepherd talks about people a lot, and hardly ever about things. The shepherd talks about abundance, not scarcity, and about parties and feasts and rejoicing, and almost never about guilt. The shepherd can spend whole afternoons talking to his sheep about how much he loves each and every one of them, even Curly, the difficult sheep no one much cares for, and young black sheep, and the ones who are prone to wander. The shepherd never whispers in the ear of one of his sheep that she is worth more than the rest, or says that some of the sheep deserve more than the others. The shepherd never tells them that indulging in hedonistic, guilty-sheep-pleasure will bring them happiness and peace. The true shepherd never tells the sheep that they need to do more, or do better to earn the right to the shepherd s care. And if you still aren t sure if you are following the voice of the Shepherd, or if we, collectively as a herd are following the voice of the Shepherd, there is one sure way to tell: How do you feel? Are you filled up and energized and connected to people by the things you are doing and consuming, or do you feel drained and depleted and empty and lonely? Do you feel like there is enough, or never enough - be it time, money, shoes, piece of pottery, awards, church activities, whatever. Were you so worn out from your week that you could hardly drag yourself out of bed to be here with the herd this morning? And what about your herd-life, your church involvement does it leave you challenged and fill your soul, or does it leave you burned-out and dry? Whose voice are
5 you listening to? Whose voice are we listening to, the one who satisfies us and gives us life, or the one who leaves us aching and hungry and tired? It s time to come back to that question we posed earlier: How do you reflect the honor and glory of God and claim your inner sheep? How can you be glorious and humble? Reach your potential and be docile, dependent and vulnerable? Fair warning, you may not like my answer: what if we reflect the glory of God and live in God s image precisely by embracing our inner sheep, by being good sheep? Isn t that how gophers glorify God, by being gophers, and how hawks praise and glorify God, by doing what hawks do, and not what flamingos do? Being sheep doesn t have anything to do with whether or not we can figure out how to save the American chestnut tree or be the best greens keeper in the country. If God gave you a keen mind, use it. Be the very best telephone lineman or counselor or salesperson you can be. But never forget you are a sheep, that you are a part of a herd, and not a lone wolf. You need this community of believers around you, and the shepherd to protect you from yourself, and from the allure of the voices around you that make empty promises that your worth comes from things, and impressing people, and looking fine, and that you don t need anyone to look after you. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. We are his sheep. Be a sheep. A good sheep. Of infinite value, but helpless. Created in the image of God, but docile. Filled with the light of God s glory, but totally dependent. Just like everyone else in the herd.