We have had a rough week.
First Boston.
Then
the little town of West, Texas.
Also from the news Thursday a suicide bomber
killed 15 and wounded 32 in Baghdad.
-
That’s farther away from us, but more died there than
in Boston –
Remember Syria? – 327 killed there this last week.
And statistically there have been 322 homicides in the US
last week,
and
708 suicides.
Also statistically this last week there have been 1,706 reported
rapes,
but
this is only 15% of the actual rapes that have occurred.
We also have had a major earthquake in western Sichuan,
China
with
at least 186 are dead and more than
6700 injured.
And I have not said anything about
the negative impact
humans have had on the planet in the
last week,
remembering
that tomorrow, April 22, is Earth
Day.
As I said, it’s been a rough week.
The Gospel of John, chapter 10, the Good Shepherd chapter.
In this passage the Pharisees and
religious leaders are trying to work with Jesus.
“When will you stop holding us in suspense. Are you the Messiah?” they ask.
They are the good “church-goers,” the religiously upright
folks,
the
ones serious about the observance of their faith. BUT
They want from Jesus what fits
their expectations, their hopes and their desires.
And Jesus won’t let them have that.
So many of the Gospel passages are about confrontations
between Jesus
and
the Pharisees or religious leaders.
What Jesus is offering, what he came for
is
much more expansive than what they are asking for, what they want.
So their encounters with each other are confrontations.
Now always on the 4th
Sunday of Easter
the
Gospel lesson is about the “Good Shepherd.”
This year in the eucharistic lectionary we get the last
section
from
this 10th chapter of John.
It’s not the part we might really prefer hearing at the
moment,
the part where Jesus says,
"I am the good shepherd.
The
good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” etc.
The image or
metaphor of Jesus as the Good Shepherd
is
tremendously comforting for many people.
It is always
good to know that your Savior is compassionate and kind
and
cares for you and provides your needs and protects you.
But that is a
rather limited view of what is implied here.
One
big question that may arise for us in this selection about the Good Shepherd
has
to do with just who IS one of the sheep and who is not,
because Jesus
says to these religious leaders,
“…you
do not belong to my sheep.”
How much are we
like the Pharisees? – good folks, here in church,
leading
decent lives, I assume.
We want
from Jesus what fits OUR expectations, OUR hopes and OUR desires.
The
way we can accept him is in how he fits what we need.
We have our own ideas about what the Good Shepherd should
be like,
but
– and I’m going to say something tough here –
what
we need to do in our own best interests spiritually
is to stop thinking of Jesus in that metaphor of Good
Shepherd
in
terms of what will be a benefit for me.
Stop this metaphoric talk about who Jesus as Good Shepherd
is
and
what he is for
and
why he is valuable to me.
Let him do the
revealing.
Let Jesus reveal
himself to you.
People want to
look at this metaphor of Good Shepherd
as
some kind of affectionate leader
who
is patting the sheep on their cute little wooly heads
and
leading them beside still waters
in
pastures of lush green grass.
Look, folks,
we’ve got to see what the sheep are for,
because
if you want Jesus to be your Good Shepherd
then
you gotta be one of his sheep.
The sheep are
not there just to be taken care of,
to
enjoy the green pastures and still waters.
Why would
someone own sheep? -- for their wool and for their mutton.
These
sheep are for sacrifice.
The
sheep are food for the Life of the world.
Jesus, the Lamb
of God, is sending them just as he was sent,
to
be food for the life of the world.
The
metaphor of the Good Shepherd is about both the Shepherd and the sheep,
their
relationship to each other,
and
just as much about the sheep and their part in this passage.
The sheep are
being called into Jesus and his life offered discipleship
extending
the ministries of Jesus and his truth
as
creative revelations of the Kingdom of God present and active.
In this Gospel
reading Jesus says to the religious leaders,
you
do not believe the works I do in my Father’s Name,
so
you do not belong to my sheep.
This truth of
the situation is obvious throughout the text.
It is about the
Lamb of God, his being the Shepherd,
and
sending as he was sent.
But that
understanding of the character of the sheep
–
hearing his voice and following him –
is
excluded by the simple, sentimental, self-interested
and
presumably democratic and just idea
of
why isn’t everybody included?
They are not
sheep
because they
can’t see or participate in this other thing:
to
be a sacrifice for the sake of food,
spiritual
food in revelation of the truth.
So the question
of the day is: Do
you really want to be a sheep?
Are we open to being led by the voice of the Good Shepherd?
Do
we have ears to hear?
It
is his Holy Spirit breathed into us that is that Voice.
That
is revelation in us.
We have had a
rough week.
We
need to take time to exam our own reactions to these occurrences this week,
and
then consider our response.
Can we be sheep of
the Good Shepherd to the world?
What can we do
to respond in Life-giving ways?
How can we
provide ourselves, as the Lamb of God has, as food for the world?
We need a lot
more people whose lives radiate love,
who
are vessels of the Holy Spirit,
who
are awake and aware and sensitive to the wounds and the needs
that
are all around us,
and
who are willing to engage with others on the level of their suffering.
These are the
sheep,
the
sacrificial sheep offered up like the Lamb of God,
sheep
who will feed others with themselves.
Now wouldn’t you
really want to be a sheep?
May we be good
sheep of the Lamb of God
offering
ourselves to a world in need of comfort,
healing, reconciliation
and
guidance to the streams of the waters of life. Amen.
