A Sermon preached on Easter IV April 30, 2023 at St. Augustine’s, WI
Acts 2:42-47, 1 Peter 2:19-25, John 10:1-10
Both this week's Epistle and Gospel make use of two main metaphors: shepherds and sheep! In fact, we often refer to this Sunday as Good Shepherd Sunday, the term Jesus applies to himself in verse 11 of chapter 10 from John's Gospel. Using the term shepherds for leaders, both good and bad ones, is a common metaphor throughout the Bible. Israel’s greatest king, David, had been a shepherd and people knew what shepherds did. In chapter 34 of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, he is told by God to prophesy against the shepherds, the political and religious leaders of Israel, because they had scattered their sheep, and been more concerned with feeding and caring for themselves than for those entrusted to their care. And so, God promises to be the shepherd for his sheep: “I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak…. I will shepherd the flock with justice.” (34:16) When, as in today's gospel, Jesus describes himself as the shepherd, as one who is both known and loved by, and loves his sheep, and one who as a human gate guards and keeps his flock safe from harm, we are supposed to think both of God’s self-description in Ezekiel, and also to see in Jesus the true heir to David, the messianic king.
One of the words used for clergy is pastor, which means shepherd, coming from the Latin verb pascere "to lead to pasture, set to grazing, cause to eat.” Now, while eating and drinking is an important part off the life of this congregation, feeding you physically is not my primary function! You do that very well yourselves at our coffee hours and other fellowship events. In a wider sense, I, and the many other qualified teachers and preachers we have in this congregation do have the important function of nourishing you all spiritually. AJ Levine, whose book “The Difficult Words of Jesus” we studied during Lent writes that a pastor needs “to be sure that they have lost none of their sheep, which means both counting every one and making sure that everyone feels counted, feels acknowledged, feels loved.” That also sounds like a task too big for one person and is again thankfully something we can and do share in this congregation. I know we tried hard, but I suspect that we have failed at one time or other. At the end of the day there is really only one true, good, and unfailing shepherd and that is Jesus himself.
What about the other metaphor? Sheep! Do you all feel like sheep? AJ Levine is not happy with the metaphor of the congregation as sheep. “Congregations should not be sheep: docile, silent, unimaginative, unthinking, even if cute in pictures. Congregations should be disciples: questioning, asking for clarification, challenging, advancing.” I could not agree more. And recently, during the pandemic, the word sheep or sheeple has become an insult, standing for those who fail to think critically and who mindlessly follow the crowd. It was used particularly against those who willingly followed government and science’s advice and mandates to mask, to distance, to isolate and to vaccinate. Which is a bit ironic as many of those who instead followed the more strident, populist voices against these common-sense measures could also be accused of sheeplike qualities!
But I am not sure than sheep is such a bad metaphor. And there can be no shepherd without sheep! As the author of 1 Peter writes, like sheep, humans can be led astray. We do follow false leaders, we do follow those who offer supposedly easy solutions, we follow those who tell us we are much better sheep than the flock in the neighbouring field, we do follow false leaders who tell us that we should take that neighbouring field. One reason that many find the label of sheep so offensive in today’s world is because of how high we currently value self-realisation, independence, individualism, and autonomy. But these are not Bible values. 1 Peter praises Jesus’ example as one who suffered for others: “He entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.” (1 Peter 2:23-24) And look at the ideal community that Luke describes in Acts: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. …. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:44, 47) The focus is on community and commonality, on service and dependence, rather than on individuals.
To be human is to be a social creature, we thrive in relationship, we cannot survive alone, and a society built entirely on the ideal of competition would not be a healthy or sustainable one. We not only like to follow others, but we need leaders. We cannot know everything, and we need to trust others. And that is where the two metaphors come together in today’s readings. Sheep exist in relationship to the shepherd. The relationship between shepherd and sheep is based on intimate contact and trust. Sheep learn to recognise the voice of their shepherd, “the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” (John 10:4) Thanks to my colleague Steve from Frankfurt, who showed us a wonderful little video clip about this our weekly Bible study, I saw how sheep ignored the voice of a stranger, but willingly responded to the voice of their shepherd – or shepherdess. The sheep had learned to trust her voice as the source of food, green pasture, and safety, just as we must trust that Jesus is our good shepherd, the source of spiritual nourishment, the guardian of our souls, and one who came that we may have life, and have it abundantly.
So, let’s be good sheep. That means looking out for one another and being just as concerned with losing one of the flock as the shepherd is. We are good sheep when we act like that early Christian community in our first reading: helping those in need, spending time together in worship and fellowship, rejoicing in and praising God. (Acts 2:45-47)
We are good sheep when we trust in and follow Jesus’ example and teaching: “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:21)
And we are good sheep when we listen for Jesus’ voice. We can hear his voice when Scripture is read, we can hear his voice in prayer, we can hear his voice in our hearts and thoughts, and we can hear his voice – just as we can see his face – in other people. We know that it is his voice when it is in line with what the Bible teaches about Jesus and God, we know when it is his voice as it calls us to a life of love and joy and abundance.
Amen.
