The story is told about a group of tourists on a coach in the Holy Land.
“Oh, look,” said one excitedly, “There is a flock of sheep on the hillside. Doesn’t that make you think of all those lovely Bible passages about the sheep and the Good Shepherd?”
“Yes,” replied another, “but why is the shepherd following them shouting at them and beating them?”
The tour guide interjected. “That’s not the shepherd,” he enlightened them, “that’s the local butcher.”
On this Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Gospel reading is always a part of John 10, where Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd. The Lectionary being a three-year cycle and with us currently being in Year B, we get the second of three chunks this year, so we’re not picking up the passage right at the beginning.
Of course, this chapter is much loved, and over the centuries Christians have taken much comfort from knowing that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. I have, for one, not least when I was struggling with the pain of the neck injury that prevented me from taking my A-Levels.
But although it is comforting, it is not entirely cosy. As well as the comfort, there is also challenge in these famous words of Jesus.
Firstly, the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep:
11 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
We are used to hearing that Jesus died for us, as he says here. But have you noticed how this is different from other New Testament passages? This does not couch things in terms of Jesus dying for our sins – there are plenty that say that – but as Jesus dying to protect us.
Why? The sheep need protection from the wolves, and a hired hand will not stand in the wolf’s way.
And why would Jesus say this? Because he knew there were plenty of wolves in his day, and plenty of religious leaders who would only act as hired hands who did not care for the sheep.
Indeed, you only have to go back to John chapter 9 to find wolves or hired hands in the form of those Pharisees who objected to Jesus healing a blind man on the Sabbath. They would rather sling the healed man out of the synagogue than accept that they had created rules which went beyond God’s commandment to honour the Sabbath.
In fact, you could probably say that the expression ‘Good Shepherd’ was a polemical one. It had good Old Testament precedent in Ezekiel where God says that he himself will shepherd his people, because those who were supposed to do so were not. Jesus aligns the leaders of his day with those whom God condemned six centuries earlier.
Today, some wolves are easy to spot, like millionaire TV evangelists telling poor people that their way out of poverty is to give to them in order to be blessed financially by God.
But others are less easy to spot. Like those who alter our doctrines or undermine the Scriptures, while sounding plausible and intelligent, but falsely claiming that only their view is intellectually credible. At this point, true shepherds have to protect the flock, even if it is costly.
Jesus the Good Shepherd laying down his life for the flock specifically protects his people from the wolf-like claim that lusting after power and force are the ways to change things for good in the world.
What is this like? I turn to someone who, if you know little about him, might seem an unlikely source. Many of you will remember the 1960s folk singer Barry McGuire, most famous for his membership of the New Christy Minstrels, his song ‘Eve of Destruction’, and his association with the Mamas and the Papas – the line in their song ‘Creeque Alley’ that said ‘McGuinn and McGuire were just getting higher’ was about him and Roger McGuinn of the Byrds.
Well, a few years after that, Barry McGuire found his freedom not in drugs but in Jesus Christ. And in one concert, he talked about the death of Jesus as being like a shock absorber, absorbing human lawlessness. He then said that when Christians experience the shock of evil in this world, we have two choices: we can either get mad, or we too can absorb the shock to protect others.
Secondly, the Good Shepherd knows his sheep:
14 ‘I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep.
What makes for a true sheep-shepherd relationship? Mutual, personal, intimate, knowledge.
It is thus not enough for us to say we are religious. All sorts of people believe in God – even the devil, as the New Testament tells us. And we know that religion can be co-opted by politicians and others who use it to cultivate influence and power for themselves, rather than knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Similarly, it’s not enough to be a churchgoer. It’s possible to participate in religious practices and rituals without having a personal connection with Jesus the Good Shepherd. The outward form only has meaning if there is an inward reality.
To know the Good Shepherd means to recognise that he knows us just as deeply as he knows the Father (verse 15) – as one song puts it, ‘You know me better than I know myself.’
And in response, we engage with him, and we listen to him. As far as we know how, we put aside the existing filters we place on the world to hear him for who he is, rather than squeezing him into our preferred mould.
This becomes particularly important when we are considering the ethical implications of knowing the Good Shepherd. If we lean politically to the right, we may hear more Jesus’ call to personal morality. If we lean to the left, we may more easily hear his call to social justice. But Jesus gives us no such either/or options. It’s both/and.
Therefore if we want to draw closer to the Good Shepherd – and why wouldn’t we want to be nearer to the One who repeatedly said ‘Peace be with you’ after his Resurrection? – we need to invest in the spiritual disciplines. Prayer and Bible reflection in church, in small groups, and alone. Making sure we put into practice what we have heard. Reflecting on how we are progressing as disciples. The sacraments. And so on. All these help us to know more closely the Good Shepherd who knows us better than we know ourselves.
Thirdly and finally, the Good Shepherd has other sheep:
16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
Now before anything else let me knock on the head the idea I have often heard about this verse, namely that Jesus is opening up the possibility that there are many ways to God, in its most crude form the notion that all religions lead to God.
This is not what he is saying when he says he has other sheep not of this sheepfold. We can see that from the fact that he goes on to say that he wants to bring the other sheep into the one sheepfold under him, the one shepherd.
It would also be crazy to suggest that Jesus advocates a multi-faith route to God from a verse in John’s Gospel, where elsewhere he says he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no-one comes to the Father except through him.
Sure, the Gospel may present as many different facets of one diamond, but ultimately there is only the one Gospel: that there is a new king or Lord of the universe, his name is Jesus, and he reigns in love and mercy, not by brute force and power.
So no: by bringing the other sheep into the one sheepfold under the one shepherd here, Jesus is anticipating the Gentile mission. Gentiles will be ‘grafted in’ to the people of God, as the Apostle Paul put it in his Epistle to the Romans. The population of the sheepfold is going to increase, because Jesus has made that possible by laying down his life as the Good Shepherd.
But how was the Good Shepherd going to bring other sheep into the sheepfold? That was going to happen after Pentecost, when the Gospel would be preached in Jerusalem, in Samaria, and later to the ends of the earth. The responsibility is delegated, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to those who draw close to him.
A legend tells of Jesus returning to heaven at the Ascension and being quizzed by the angels.
“Master,” asked one of the angels, “what happens to your mission now that you have returned here to heaven?”
“I have left that in the hands of my followers,” replied Jesus.
“But won’t they mess it up, Lord? Won’t they fail you, won’t they lose courage, won’t they forget what they’re meant to do? What is your Plan B?”
Jesus replied, “I have no other plan.”
In conclusion, perhaps what sums this all up quite well is the thirteenth century prayer of St Richard, Bishop of Chichester. I’m sure you know it or will recognise it:
Thanks be to you, our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which you have given us, for all the pains and insults which you have borne for us. Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may we know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day. Amen.
Big Circumstance 