The Shepherd's Love

4-22-18

1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18

The Shepherd’s Love

I learned some truly interesting things about sheep this week in my sermon preparations - and while it definitely shaped a little of how I understood the texts today, it also changed a lot of how I’ve understood the way that Scripture uses the imagery of sheep as a whole.  When you think about sheep - what are the images that come to mind for you?  Maybe the first one is the soft, cuddly lamb with the snow white wool - you know… the one that followed Mary to school and caused so much trouble.  Not a bad image, right?  But then there’s the other view of sheep - possibly the one we’ve been hearing tossed around a bit more recently in current climates and atmospheres of discussion: you know this one, too… that image of sheep being dumb creatures who blindly follow, who fearfully clump together and refuse to budge the more afraid they become…

Sheep are truly interesting creatures - and while they are a very communal animal, finding strength and protection in their flocks, they’re not necessarily as stupid as we might think them to be.  Sheep are very relational in their approach to life.  A scientific study, in fact, found that sheep are capable of remembering upwards of 50 individual faces - both of human beings and of other sheep - for over 2 years.  They form close-knit relationships, both within their flock and with their shepherd if they are livestock - a 1993 study found that rams, in particular, formed long-term relationships, intervened on behalf of weaker colleagues, and supported each other in fights.  Perhaps even more interesting, however, is the 2009 report from Animal Welfare that demonstrated that sheep are also very emotional creatures, capable of experiencing a wide range of emotions from fear to anger, boredom, despair and happiness.  It’s these particular emotions that I believe lead sheep to act in some of the ways we’ve otherwise labeled as stupidity - when sheep are afraid or feel threatened, they turn to each other for comfort and security.  When someone tries to lead them who they don’t recognize, or with whom they haven’t developed their own form of friendship, they are less likely to follow - and sheep have to be led from the front, or they’ll bunch up again in fear and go nowhere.  Another interesting note is that sheep lack depth perception - they’re not blind, as the stereotype tends to label them, but they have issues when it comes to things like shadows, dark surfaces, and water.

The more I read, the more I realized that sheep are much more complex than we give them credit for being - and that they’re not all that different from us.  And perhaps it’s for good reason, both in the positive aspects and some of the negative ones, that that imagery of sheep and shepherds is used so frequently in the scriptures.

As Jesus speaks of himself as “The Good Shepherd” in today’s reading from John, he sets up two very specific ideas: first, by calling himself the good shepherd, he sets himself in opposition to those whom he would call bad shepherds - the “hired hands” who run at the first sign of trouble, who do not truly care as much as the shepherd about their flocks.  Jesus says “the good shepherd lays his life down for his sheep.” Jesus speaks of a very special kind of relationship that exists between shepherds and their sheep - a deep and powerful knowledge of their flock that comes from significant periods of time spent together out in the fields, constantly counting, checking on their health, and watching carefully for predators over every hillside.  And when those predators show up, the shepherd stands between them and his flock, willing to fight even to the death to defend the sheep that are his very livelihood.

Jesus talks about this kind of relationship in a very particular context - and he does so for a very particular reason.  He’s just healed a man who was born blind and instead of the man’s healing being a time of pure joy and celebration, the religious officials nitpick every aspect of it because they can’t determine the source of Jesus’ power or how it was that a man they thought of as a sinner could have performed such a miracle in the first place.  Jesus even tells them that they are the ones who are blind, and they still fail to understand him.  And so Jesus’ depiction of shepherds, sheep, and hired hands is very intentional - just as hired hands run and scatter when the wolf comes and threatens them, these religious leaders cower and hide behind their own understandings of the law when faced with Jesus, the true Shepherd, whom they see as a threat - they actually cast out the formerly blind man, and in so doing, prove themselves to be more like the fearful sheep finding comfort in their own flock and fearing the unknown than they show themselves as capable shepherds in their own right.  And so this is the situation into which Jesus speaks as he uses these images of hired hands, shepherds, sheep, and flocks.

As Jesus shows himself as the Shepherd, it’s not only a pretty big claim to make, but it’s also a big threat to these scribes and Pharisees, not to mention something of a slap in the face.  Jesus claims that his flock is bigger than they think it is - he talks about laying down his life with the confidence that it will be given back to him - and he even accuses the scribes and Pharisees of not caring for the flock.  They’re hard words to swallow, let alone fully understand when you think that you are the chief religious authority in your culture and that you are the ones who can even determine who is in and out of a flock… The scribes and the Pharisees didn’t understand what Jesus was doing in his ministry or why he was doing it.  They couldn’t understand it - even though Jesus tried in several different ways to tell them in this larger passage from John.  But at the same time, they didn’t want to understand or accept what he was doing, either.  Jesus doesn’t just compare them to hired hands who run at threats - he also compares them to thieves and bandits.  Where Jesus, the Good Shepherd, knows and loves his sheep - even so much that he lays down his very life for them, the scribes and Pharisees were content to prosper and live off of the sheep without truly caring for them or knowing them.  After all, the sheep weren’t truly theirs - they were simply entrusted with their care from time to time.

This was the crux of Jesus’ criticism of the religious authorities of his time, and what lay at the heart of his own ministry - where they acted out of their own fear, out of their own needs for power and certainty, Jesus acts out of love.  Where the religious authorities of his time looked for reasons to exclude, to categorize, and to discriminate, Jesus’ ministry is one of inclusion, of taking his love beyond the traditional boundaries and reaching out to those who need it most - to those sheep who are not “of this fold,” but who are just as worthy of inclusion and love.  Where the scribes and Pharisees were concerned with enforcing the law and determining its finite details, Jesus set about fulfilling the law.

And it’s this very dichotomy that makes the passage from John’s letter so powerful, because it forces us to stop and to think, to re-evaluate our own positions, our own sense of ministry, our own actions and decisions today.  John makes it sound so simple: “We know God’s love for us by this, that he laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.  How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?”  And yet every one of us gathered here this morning knows how hard those words truly are to hear, let alone to live.  We know that we are called to love, not just in word and speech, but in truth and action… but how easy is it for us to do it in the way that Christ truly calls us to do?  How easy is it for us to take that principle, that idea of loving one another, of laying down our lives to that very purpose?  And how far are we willing to take that commandment in the process, especially when it comes to those we might think of as not being part of “our fold?”

It’s a tough question to ask ourselves - and it’s even tougher when we realize that we’re frequently good at taking care of our own.  One of the best things about this community that we see demonstrated time and time again is how quickly we gather together without a second thought of using our “worldly goods” to help a brother or sister in need.  But how well do we take that same principle and apply it to those who aren’t  “our own,” who come from other folds than ours?  How do we retrain ourselves to not make the snap judgments, to look beyond the other and to see another, loved child of God whom we are called to love, as well?  It’s hard to do - perhaps one of the hardest things that we are called to do as part of Jesus’ own flock.  Our hearts may not always want to go out and live into that love that we are called to embody - we may have every reason not to love someone or to help them.  Loving some people may go against everything we’ve ever been taught about the way the world is supposed to work.  But it’s in those moments that we need to turn once again to Christ, to remember his own example, and to find our encouragement there - to know that even as we journey through this fearful world, even as we’re tempted to find comfort in our own tight bunches and to push out the ones we don’t recognize or trust, it is Christ our Shepherd who walks ahead of us, leading us onward, patiently reminding us that he is with us, that he cares for us, that we are loved, and gently urging us onward. To God be the Glory.  Amen.