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“The “Good” Shepherd?
John 10: 1-10
May 7, 2017
There are lots of words that are part of Christianity. Redemption,
Salvation, Christology.
Some words defy definition. Have you ever run into that figure of
speech called an oxymoron? By definition an oxymoron is a
combination of contradictory words or thoughts used together. For
example—authentic reproduction. Jumbo shrimp. Postal service. United
Methodists.
When you read the words of Jesus in the bible, you soon discover that he
loved to experiment with words and images. In Today’s scripture
lesson, we have one of his most famous oxymorons.
Do you know what it is? The Good Shepherd. That may not seem such
a daring clash of images to us. As long as we can remember, the
shepherd image has projected to us positive and peaceful pastoral
pictures, a person who cares for the sheep. Someone who loves the
flock, calls them by name, searches for the lost, risks life and limb to
protect them from wolves, lions and bears. So when Jesus calls himself
the good shepherd, most of us will probably miss the point.
Jesus is using an oxymoron that is almost scandalous in the culture in
which it is spoken. In 1st Century Palestine, the shepherd was viewed
not only as a humble occupation, but also as one of the most despised
jobs. Far from being viewed as reliable and responsible, they were
habitually known to graze on other people’s lands, and to pilfer from the
herd. They could not hold office or be a witness in court. No position in
society was so despised, unless it was that of the tax collector, or the
Samaritan. Verse 19 in the 10th Chapter of John says, “There was a
division among the Jews because of these words.” You can see why.
By deliberately choosing to be identified with shepherds, Jesus was
standing with the acknowledged sinners and outcasts of his culture.
What outraged the religious leaders of his day was not his message of
God’s love, but his insistence on inclusiveness—no one was beyond the
pale of God’s grace. In his 1981 novel, “But your land is beautiful”,
South African writer, Alan Paton tells the story of a church where the
ritual of footwashing precedes Holy Communion. The black pastor
invited Judge Oliver to come to the church on Maundy Thursday to
wash the feet of Martha, a black woman who raised and cared for the
judge’s children. He accepted the invitation. As he looked into the
woman’s face, he remember how she had tenderly bathed the dressed his
children, holding them in her sturdy arms. He knelt and washed her feet,
and then he bent over and kissed them. Tears filled the eyes of many
worshippers in the church. Somehow the press learned of the event and
gave it wide publicity. Shortly afterward the white government of South
Africa denied the judge a promotion to the chief court. The pastor of the
church called on him to ask forgiveness for involving him in an act that
destroyed his professional future. The judge replied, “Taking part in
your service was more important to me than any promotion. It was the
proudest day of my life.” In honor of that moment, people renamed
their church, “The church of the washing of the feet”. For there a man
chose to be identified by his love for those his society called outsiders.
He became a Good Shepherd.
If you look at the images which Christ uses as personal descriptions,
throughout the New Testament, it should become obvious that he was
playing with many words and ideas in an attempt to change people’s
perceptions. “I am the door of the sheep. I am the vine. I am the light
of the world. I am the bread of life.” Simple things, everyday things, as
if to say, “Look around you, you are engulfed by God. God is
everywhere.” Not content to merely shake up our images of God, he
tried to redefine the way we looked at ourselves, “You are the branches.
You are the salt of the earth. You are a city set on a hill.”
It was as if Jesus was trying to unlock our minds, our imaginations, so
that we could truly begin to see what was around us and within us, but
the people of his day always seemed to misunderstand, and so do we.
Along with changing our idea of the shepherd, we need to rethink about
the sheep. Being thought of as sheep is probably not that complimentary
to us. After all, sheep are not the brightest of animals; they will follow
each other right over a cliff. They are easily led. One farmer had a barn
full of sheep, and there was one of them that usually led the flock. One
day the farmer noticed that the sheep would not come out of the barn.
He noticed that the lead sheep was staring at a small beam of sunlight
coming through the crack in the barn door. The sheep thought it was
some kind of obstacle like a chain or a rope preventing exit from the
barn. Finally the sheep got a little running start and jumped over the
beam of light. The farmer stared in amazement as each of the sheep that
followed also jumped over this imaginary barrier on their way out of the
barn.
We don't want to be thought of as that foolish or easily led. But we are
like sheep in many ways. Like sheep we get hungry, and hungry for
more than just food. We get thirsty for more than just drink. Our souls
have needs. There is nothing that the world has to give us, there is
nothing that we have to give to each other than can completely fill our
souls. That is part of what the saying means that Jesus is the good
Shepherd. Like the shepherd, he cares for the needs of the flock. He
feeds that part of us that is hungriest and most in need of refreshment.
But that image of the shepherd and the sheep has a different meaning
besides that we are the sheep and Christ is the shepherd. Each of us are
also called to be shepherds ourselves, to pick up part of the burden of
that thankless task.
People refer to ministers are shepherds. That is what the phrase, Pastor,
means after all-- pastor, comes from the term -- Pastoral, which means
out in the fields tending the sheep. And when a bishop is ordained in our
church, they are actually a staff that resembles a shepherd's crook. But
if the task of tending others is left only to pastors, a lot of people are
going to fall through the cracks. So, everybody has to see themselves as
a shepherd.
A parent is a shepherd to a child; a teacher to a student; an employer to
employees. A friend can be a shepherd to another friend. Being a
shepherd just means to care for someone else.
Thinking of the Jesus as the Good Shepherd also means being willing to
blow apart our old ideas of what the Messiah is. Several years ago, at
General Conference, a document was presented called the Houston
Declaration. Among its many point, some of which are thoughtprovoking, was a resolution that United Methodists adopt one theology.
That the tradition of pluralism, of think and let think, which came from
John Wesley, be done away with. The purpose of this, the writers said,
was so that what we believe may be clearly defined. I’m sure that would
make it much easier for many of us. But the critics of this document
pointed out that to do that would rob the church of the insights brought
by new theology; particularly Liberation theology, coming mostly from
the 3rd world, and Feminist theology. The Houston Declaration
presented a theology that was by and large; White, Male, Anglo-Saxon
and Protestant. Easier to understand, perhaps, but oh, the richness and
meaning we would miss if we adopted it.
It was this very type of narrow-focused imagery that Jesus was trying to
change. He ran into problems again and again, because his image of the
Messiah didn’t jive with the traditional, party-line view of the temple
leaders. What is truly surprising is that much of our own Messiah image
corresponds more with the Temple leaders than it does with Jesus’ own.
Think about it.
If you were to compare Jesus with a modern literary character, who
would it be? I suggest that the ordinary American view of Jesus is
Superman. “Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a
locomotive, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. It’s
Superman. Strange visitor from another planet, who came to earth with
powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, and who, disguised
as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet, fights a
never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way.”
If that isn’t popular Christology, I don’t know what is. Jesus; gentle,
meek and mild, but with secret, souped-up , more than human insides,
who bumbles around for 33 years, and then at the last minute struggles
into the phone booth of the empty tomb, changes into his Easter suit, and
with a single bound, leaps back up to the planet Heaven. Now that may
sound funny, or it may sound sacrilegious, but it’s true. The human
race is, was, and probably always will be, deeply unwilling to accept a
human messiah. We don’t want to be saved IN our humanity, we want
to be fished OUT of it. We crucified Jesus, not because he was God, but
because he blasphemed. He claimed to be God, and then failed to come
up to our standards for that claim. It’s not that we weren’t looking for
the Messiah; it’s just that he wasn’t carrying a folding phone booth in his
back pocket. He wouldn’t do stupid things like rising from the dead—He
would do a smart thing, like never dying.
If you don’t believe me, look at the whole tradition of Messiah figures in
popular fiction. Superman is a classic, but there are others just as good.
How about the sheriff in that old and famous TV western, Gunsmoke.
Matt Dillon can be wounded, but not killed—daunted but never
defeated. He looks like a man, but he’s really an avenging angel.
Doesn’t seem human at all. He’s supposed to be in love with Miss
Kitty. But he never so much as kisses her. Which is really surprising if
you remember what Miss Kitty did for a living. Matt Dillon might as
well be a Martian for all his response.
Ditto the Lone Ranger, heigh-hoing around with Tonto, a white horse, a
beltful of silver bullets, and no women in sight.
Don’t you see? Everybody else is human. Doc, Festus, Kitty, the
cowboys, the sodbusters, the townspeople, the bad guys. But the
Messiah who saves them is unbendingly, unflinchingly divine.
Not convinced yet. Well, let me give you the clincher. After all, these
characters at least have the appearance of humanity. But we are so
desperate to get rid of all human traces, that we will even accept a nonhuman Messiah. Now, maybe you think I’m going to give a standard,
liberal, example, like an essay on technology, or the evils of science, or
even the popularity of the computer. But no.
Let’s talk instead about Lassie. A Dog. Literally! Little Timmie goes
schlepping all over the countryside getting lost, stranded or stolen, but
he was practically the only human character in the show. Mother and
Father were two sweet, loving clowns who couldn’t keep track of the
movements of Mt. Rushmore. But Lassie! She will be beaten by bad
men, bitten by alligators, clawed by mountain lions, and left for dead in
the desert. But 3 days later, home she comes with an ailing puppy in a
litter, mother’s wedding ring in her mouth, father’s wallet, and a note to
pick up Timmy at the supermarket.
We do this with our Messiah images, and then along comes someone
who is so human that he cries when someone he loves dies. He gets
angry and kicks over tables, he bleeds and groans and dies up on a cross.
And what is even worse than all that, all those human emotions, he is
completely unable to tell the good guys from the bad.
And whatever we human beings want from a Messiah, above all else we
want a judge. Not a judge for ourselves, but a judge for other people.
Someone who can clearly tell us what religion is right, what lifestyle is
right, what cause is right, and most of all, that we are right and those
who disagree with us are wrong.
In John Drinkwater’s play, “Abraham Lincoln”, a dialogue occurs
between Lincoln and a woman who is a zealot for the Northern cause.
She is against everything about the south. When she asks the President
for news of the war he says, “Yes, there is news of victory. They lost
2700 men and we lost 800!” The woman is in ecstasy, and cries, “How
splendid!” Lincoln, with tears in his eyes, murmurs, “3500 lives lost.”
The woman interrupts, “Oh, you must not talk that way, Mr. President.
After all, there were only 800 that mattered.” With drooping shoulders,
Lincoln says, with measured emphasis, “Madam, fortunately God’s heart
is larger than yours.”
John Calvin wrote that just as a people with poor eyesight need
spectacles so they can read distinctly, so we need the scriptures as
eyeglasses in order to dispel the darkness and give us a clear view of the
true God.
Jesus gives us this clear view of God when he shocks us with oxymorons
like the Good Samaritan, and the Good Shepherd. Our eyes are opened.
We are forced to overcome our myopia and to catch a vision of God’s
inclusive love and global grace.
The first Good Shepherd, who was not Superman, but as human as he
was divine, calls us to be Good Shepherds, one with the outcast and the
despised, washing each other’s feet, crying for each other’s deaths—
even the deaths of our enemies, and welcoming each other into the
Kingdom of God.”
There is plenty of work to be done down here, God knows. To struggle
each day to walk the paths of righteousness is no easy task, and struggle
we must because just as we are fed like sheep in green pastures, we must
also feed his sheep, which are each other. Jesus, our shepherd, tells us
that. We must help bear each other's burdens. We must pray for each
other. We must nourish each other, weep with each other, rejoice with
each other. In short, we must love each other.
Then, we too, can hopefully deserve the title of Shepherd.