Sermon
5/14/17
John
10:1-10
Of Sheep and Shepherds
Theologian C.S. Lewis’ The
Chronicles of Narnia are some of my very favorite books. You might be most
familiar with The Lion, The Witch, and
The Wardrobe, the first book in the series, but the whole series of seven
stories is really wonderful. In the sixth book in the series, The Magician’s Nephew, you learn about
the creation of the land of Narnia by Aslan, the lion, the Christ-figure in the
books. As a result of a complicated series of events, Aslan sends a little boy
named Diggory on a mission to retrieve a fruit from a special tree in a gated
garden. The fruit will become a tree which will protect Narnia. But an evil
witch is also in the new land of Narnia. When Diggory arrives at the garden,
which is surrounded by a wall, he sees the witch climbing over the walls to
steal and eat the fruit of the tree Aslan has sent him to find. Only, the gate
to the garden isn’t locked – Diggory can walk right in. The witch could have
too, but she chose to enter instead in the way of a thief. When Diggory enters
the garden himself, he sees a sign at the entrance that reads, “Come in by the
gold gates or not at all, Take of my fruit for others or forebear, for those
who steal or those who climb my wall shall find their heart’s desire and find
despair.”
Diggory can take fruit because he came in through the gate,
and because the fruit is not for himself, but to bring back to Aslan. The witch
doesn’t drop dead or become physically ill, or anything like that. In fact, the
fruit she eats gives her unnaturally long life. But her greed and longing for
power corrupts her life until she destroys it entirely. If her motives had been
selfless instead of self-serving, if she had just gone in through the gate…
Our gospel lesson today brings us
another story about gates and who enters by the gate, and who chooses to climb
over walls. Our text from John takes place after Jesus had healed the man born
blind. We talked about this passage very briefly during Lent. Jesus healed a
man who was blind from birth. But rather than being happy about this turn of
events, the religious leaders call the man in for questioning, and want to find
someone to blame, rather than someone to celebrate. The passage ends with Jesus
saying that it is the religious leaders, not the man who was healed, who are
truly blind.
We move straight from those words
from Jesus to this passage, John 10, where Jesus describes a sheepfold in some
detail. At focus in this long metaphor is who is in charge of the sheep, who
really has the best interest of the flock at heart. Jesus says, “Anyone who
does not enter the sheepfold by the gate, but climbs in by another way is a
thief and a bandit.” In contrast, the shepherd is known to the sheep, known to
the gatekeeper. The shepherd knows the sheep, calls them by name, and the sheep
recognize the voice of the shepherd, and follow where the shepherd leads. Jesus
says that the sheep won’t follow the voice of a stranger.
We read that Jesus’s audience
doesn’t get what he’s saying, and so he continues, describing himself as the
gate for the sheep. Again, Jesus says, others who try to call to the sheep are
thieves and bandits, but through Jesus, through his voice, there is salvation,
pasture. Jesus lays out a clear contrast: The thief comes to steal and kill and
destroy. “I came,” Jesus says, “that they might have life, and have it
abundantly.” That’s my favorite verse in the Bible: “I came that they might
have life, and have it abundantly.” The text continues on after the close of
our passage, with Jesus mixing his metaphors a bit, describing himself as the
Good Shepherd, one willing to lay down his life for the sheep in the flock, one
who knows his sheep, and is known by the sheep, but the themes are similar.
When he’s done speaking, we read that his audience was “divided” because of his
words, and eventually, some try to stone Jesus before he makes an escape.
One helpful book in my ministry has
been a book by Tom Berling and Lovett Weems called Bearing Fruit: Ministry with Real Results. Your purpose, they
argue, should answer the “so that” question. Anything you do in the life of the
church or in your own individual life should have a corresponding so that purpose to it. Here’s what they
mean: think of something you spend your time doing, and then think about why you do it. You might say, “I go
running regularly so that I keep my
heart healthy and strong.” Everything after the words so that is your purpose. Although other things might happen when
you run, the so that is the fruit you
are seeking after. And if your running isn’t
helping to keep your heart healthy and strong, and that’s the main purpose of why you were running, you
need to come up with another plan of action. Berlin and Weems want churches to
be clear about their so that statements.
They want us to know why we’re doing what we’re doing, and how what we’re doing
helps to support our true purpose. In The United Methodist Church, for example,
our official mission statement states that our purpose is “to make disciples of
Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” So we might be doing a lot
of great things as a congregation, but if those things aren’t helping us to
grow as disciples, and they aren’t helping others to become disciples, we might start to ask questions about why we’re doing what we’re doing.
Our gospel lesson today contains an
implied so that statement. Jesus is
pretty clear throughout the scriptures about what his purpose is, and we have a
great example here: I came so that people
might have life, and have it abundantly. Jesus’s desire for us is to be full up
of life, overflowing with life, experience wholeness, salvation, abundance.
Jesus wants for us to experience deep joy, deep love, abundant life. Are we? I wonder, if a primary
purpose and mission of Jesus is for us to experience abundant life, how is it
that so many people, and in fact so many of us, seem empty, rather than full?
I think back to the story of
Diggory, the witch, and the garden. I wonder: why does anyone climb in over the
walls, instead of coming in through the gate? And how is it that the sheep, who
know the voice of the shepherd, end
up in the arms of the thief, the bandit, instead of following the Good
Shepherd? How do we end up consumed by things that are taking our lives, rather
than giving us life?
David Lose writes, “I
think that as stark as that contrast seems [between the thief who comes to kill
and Jesus who comes to give life], it gets really blurry really fast. Do you
know what I mean? Take email as a rather small example: I still remember when
email was hailed as a time-saver – “we won’t have to play phone-tag anymore!”
And, indeed, email is incredibly convenient and helpful. But it also sucks more
of my week than I want to admit even to myself. So is it giving life or taking
it?
“Or consider work. I’ve
been blessed to have been given several jobs over the course of my life that I
absolutely love. Yet from time to time, I lose myself in my work and suddenly
find myself so tired and haggard that it’s hard to remember what I was working
at or why…and notice the toll it’s taken on those around me. So, life giving or
life taking?
“Or our kids. There is
absolutely nothing in the world I love more than my children and have for that
reason happily sacrificed time, energy, and money to give them many things I
did not have. But as they approach adulthood I sometimes wonder if they’ve
always been as well-served as I would like to think by these good intentions
and so wonder whether I’ve spent too much time worshiping at the altar of
“giving our children as much as we can.” … Life giving or life taking?
“Money. So many great
things money can do…for us, our families, congregations, neighbors, all those
in need. But goodness how easy it is for money to shift from a means to an end,
from a gift to be used to a god to be worshiped. Life giving or life taking?
“Church ... So many
wonderful, incredibly wonderful things about our congregations and our life
together in the church, and yet I’ve also seen congregations do awful things to
each other and fall far short of being the body of Christ in the world …
So…life giving or life taking?” (1) I ask again, how do we end up consumed
by things that are taking our lives, rather than giving us life? And how do we
fix it?
Repeatedly in the text, Jesus talks
about how the sheep listen to his voice. Are we listening to Jesus’ voice? Amid
the cacophony of other voices clamoring for our attention, how do we hear Jesus
calling to us? “And the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” As I was
reading over our text, my mind kept flashing back to a favorite movie from my
childhood, Annie. In the movie,
orphan Annie rescues a stray dog from a group of bullying boys, and gets ready
to sneak it back to the orphanage with her. A dogcatcher from the pound wants
to take Sandy in, but gives Annie a
chance to convince him that the dog should belong to her. He’ll let Annie take
the dog if Annie can get Sandy to come when she calls. Annie and another
passerby both try to call to the dog, but Sandy is smart enough to know the
voice of the one who has protected him already, and he goes with Annie.
How will we know Jesus’ voice?
Thankfully, we already belong to Jesus, and Jesus knows our name. In the midst
of many voices, listen for the voice of the one who really knows you. We can
follow some of the advice I gave to the children today: we can study, learn
about Jesus, learn about what he teaches us, so that it is even easier to hear
what he has to say, because we know his teachings so well. We can be as smart
as Sandy was with Annie: Sandy only knew Annie for a few minutes, but already
Sandy knew to go with the one who was protecting him. The good shepherd is
willing to lay down his life for the sheep. A thief won’t do that. Notice who
is willing to lay down their life for you,
contrasted with all the voices who are looking, instead, to take life from you. Ask yourself: which voice is
drawing me closer to God, and which voice is leading me farther away? Which
voice is setting my heart on fire, and which voices are leaving me burned up
and burned out? And whose voice is calling us to live our lives with purpose, rather than leaving us
wondering why we’re bothering to do what we do?
Friends, Jesus wants us – all of us
– to experience abundant life. And thankfully, we just have to follow the voice
of this good shepherd who knows us by name, who calls out for us, whose voice
we know. “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. I came that you might
have life, and have it abundantly.” Let’s follow that voice. Amen.
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