Easter 4

John 10: 11-18: Good Shepherd

Whaley Bridge

15.04.21

John 10: 14 to 16: 

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

Our reading today is full of sheep and some of the images are probably very familiar to most of us here today. Jesus as the Good Shepherd. It’s a familiar, reassuring image. And of course, we have shepherds and farmers in our congregation, or their families. People who really do know about sheep farming.

I suspect that they at least might raise their eyebrows at the image of the shepherd as being seen as a cosy comfort blanket. I’ve learned from watching TV programmes about Amanda Owens, the Yorkshire Shepherdess from Swaledale, that sheep farming is tough, hard work. It’s certainly not cosy when there’s a gale blowing and the snow is coming down hard on the moors. The TV series has been an eye opener for me.

Now, most of Jesus’ listeners would have probably known much more about sheep farming and shepherding than I do, so they would have recognised that there were sharp edges to the images Jesus was using. They would also have recognised some of the historic allusions in the way that Jesus uses the term as well.

The image of God as shepherd of the sheep was familiar to His listeners who knew their Jewish scriptures. Israel was often described as being like a sheep without its shepherd and good leaders of the nation were a little like a shepherd leading the flock. That image of the shepherd leading is different to the way that shepherds farm today here in England. In Palestine, shepherds lead their flock from the front and the sheep literally know and respond to the shepherds voice. Palestinian shepherds still farm this way today, leading their flock from the front, not, for example, rounding them up with dogs.

There’s an ironic example of this from when the British controlled Palestine in the first half of the 20th Century. Sometimes the British would try to punish local people by confiscating their flocks and fining them for their return. To add insult to injury, the British would pen the sheep in mixed up flocks thinking this would make it difficult for farmers to recover their own sheep. However, the Palestinians would simply call out and their own sheep would hear and recognise their voices and come trotting after them. They were sheep that knew the voice of their shepherd.

So Jesus’ listeners would have recognised the allusion to the idea of the good and noble leaders of Israel as being like a Palestinian shepherd, leading his sheep by the sound of his voice. And this good shepherd is loyal to his sheep, so brave he would lay his life down for them if necessary. Now there’s a bit of a contradiction here because a dead shepherd isn’t much use, but the readers of John’s Gospel would recognise the reference to Jesus own death on behalf of all his flock, that is them. They would know just what Jesus had done for them.

Wrapped up in this meditation on the nature of the good shepherd’s sacrifice is something that I want to pick up on in verse 16. It says: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”.

That’s interesting, isn't it? Who are these ‘others’, these outsiders that Jesus is talking about? Now the people that Jesus is addressing this parable to are the Pharisees, that is the religious leaders, who, at the end of chapter 9, are in conversation with him. They would have recognised the references to shepherds and, as learned people, they would have been familiar with the allusions Jesus was making, so we have to wonder what they would make of this reference to other sheep who must be brought into the flock. That might have sounded rather odd to them. After all, they knew they were the chosen people, that God was the shepherd of the Jewish flock. That's what the Old Testament scriptures told them and that was their understanding.

Suddenly though, it seems like Jesus is telling them a new thing. Yes, you're the chosen people and I am here for your salvation, but not just you. 

Who are the others? Well, most scholars say that Jesus meant Gentiles. That is non-Jews. Buried here, in John Chapter 10, is Jesus reaching out to include the whole world outside and beyond the idea of the people of Israel being God’s only chosen people.

And this must have been shocking, even radical, as an idea. And on top of that, Jesus is saying that new thing will, perhaps, be sacrificial. Perhaps it will cost Him his very life. He will be the shepherd who lays down his life and it won’t just be for Jewish people.

So this would have been a shocking thing for a Jewish audience to hear back in Jesus’ time and I wonder what it might mean for us today? 

Well, Jesus is our model and our template for how we live our lives. As we walked through Holy Week together, we learned that following Jesus means to take up our cross. There is cost and sacrifice involved. And here, less than halfway through John’s telling of the story of Jesus, we see him challenging his listeners preconceptions about who is in and who is out and that sacrifices might be made as part of that new inclusion.

I wonder whether we can hear that message afresh today? Can we hear Jesus saying to us here and now ‘I have other sheep and I’m going to gather them in?’.

I think that could stand as a challenge to us. Are we looking outward, beyond that which we know in our church and faith? Are we trying to gather in those who don't yet know Jesus?

I think that this verse certainly is a challenge to us to look outwards, to look to reach out for new people to hear the message of Jesus, to come to know him. 

I want to suggest though that this is about more than evangelisation as we might traditionally think of it. Remember, Jesus precedes his statement, about coming to call new people into the sheepfold, by telling us that He will lay down His life for His sheep. That’s all His sheep. There is something sacrificial and costly in this calling.

So, when we think about the meaning of this call, to bring others into the sheepfold, into an encounter with the living Jesus, do we recognise that there might be cost and sacrifice in that? What might we be called to give up? Perhaps not our lives but perhaps other things which are very precious to us in our practice as Christians here in Whaley Bridge. Or perhaps something about our identities as Christians in this place. What might we being called to change, to lose, to reimagine?

Well, I’m not sure I can say what, if anything that might be this morning in late April but I am sure that, as we emerge as a church from lockdown, we will have difficult and challenging questions to face about who we are as a post covid church in this place and how we can call other sheep into our little sheepfold, even if that is costly. 

They may be costly questions, but Jesus didn’t offer us an easy ride or safety. He didn’t offer a comfortable picture book image of a shepherd but a real life one. I expect there will be new challenges and change coming over the horizon as we open up but we should, I think, be brave about them. Jesus, our risen Lord, is with us and walks alongside us, even in the most difficult and challenging choices. We are in the season of resurrection and that should give us a profound hope and confidence, no matter what the challenge. Those changes may be about how we do church post lockdown or about how we look to draw people into our community of faith or indeed about how we live our live in the world. What new questions will we face? Will we be called to be more environmentally aware, for example? Maybe counting the cost of the CO2 pollution we will cause when we make a new decision.

We shall have to see but I pray that the risen Jesus will walk alongside us as we emerge from the lockdown and give us vision and courage to take risks and be brave as we look outwards in mission towards our town in the coming months. Amen

Steve Eccleston, April 21