Fourth Sunday of Easter

Sunday, May 3, 2009

St. David’s Episcopal Church, DeWitt NY

The Rev. James C. Bresnahan, Interim Rector

“The Good Shepherd”

 

John 10:11-18

11“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15. just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16. 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. 17. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away. I am the good shepherd, Christ says. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

If you hear this text read aloud, as you just have, and don’t think how absurd it sounds, then you need to listen to it again: “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

What shepherd, what sheep-herder, would lay down his life for sheep? What shepherd, seeing a ravenous pack of wolves hungry to kill, would throw himself in the way to be torn apart and not instead sacrifice his sheep.  Better some animals die than that the shepherd be killed or even injured.  A good shepherd who dies for his sheep – now that is an upsurd notion or sounds so.

Now Jesus is talking metaphor, of course, but what kind of metaphor.

Well, a very ancient metaphor, going back a thousand years before Jesus to Kind David who had actually been a shepherd boy.  He had tended to the sheep in his care.  Now as King, he understood God to be his shepherd, as in the 23^rd Psalm.  And he understood too that now as ruler ther people of his nation was a flock and he was their shepherd. He was there to riule over them and to protect them.

Now we are getting close to comprehending the rub of Jesus’ saying, I am the good shepherd. I lay down my life for the sheep. For that is plainly not how most people in authority act who have responsibility over others lives, which is why our world is so woeful.

How many people have suffered or suffer now because they have had a bad shepherd!

Workers left jobless because their executives ran their company into the ground while themselves walking away with millions; children who grew up with abusive parents or were abandoned by one; seniors who lost their life’s saving through fraudulent brokers; a mother and child struggling to make ends meet after a husband/father left them and stopped paying support; low level soldiers accused and prosecuted for war crimes ordered by those in the highest level of government who go scot-free; dictators who rob their country of its wealth and then find asylum elsewhere with a stash in Swiss bank accounts.

The examples go on and on about people hurt, betrayed, and left in the lurch by shepherds who sacrificed nothing of their own but everything of others.

Today’s Gospel reading is about a different kind of shepherd  – who humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on the cross, who for our sake became materially poor that he might make us spiritually rich, who counted those God gave him to lead more important than himself, who bent down to wash others feet, who led not by command but by example, who was, as Bonhoeffer said, the man for others.

Now most people do understand that with regard to parenthood.  What mother or father has not stayed up all night with a sick child?  What parent would not take on a second job if need be for their child to have surgery?  What parent would not drive a thousand miles if they got word their child had been in an accident elsewhere.  What parents would not sacrifice their own needs for those of their children?

We do understand that parenthood involves sacrifices both small and great – sacrifices of time, of money, of energy. Children, we do believe, do not come into this world to fulfill our needs but for us to fulfill theirs.

That we understand with regard to parenthood.

But the good shepherd, who is Christ, invites us to take that beyond the bounds of the home into all the world – to see our entire life as lived before God as Christ lived his.  To see ourselves in all situations as servants of God in the ways we serve others.

There is a dearth of that leadership in our world, especially so in recent decades, as leaders in government and business have more and more have treated position as privilege, and understood oversight as opportunity for self-aggrandizement. 

Not so Christ, who as the good shepherd laid down his life for the sheep. who believed that leadership meant service not privilege; whose passion was to give not take, who sacrificed himself, not others; who was not enslaved by power or driven by greed, or lust, or vanity but willed only what was good for others; and whose entire life was an offering to God on behalf of those committed to his care.

That is our good shepherd, and we have been called not just to believe in him but to live like him.

Now I want to take this one step further by noting that today’s reading falls within the Easter cycle.  As such, the reading is promise to us that Christ who lived his life for us and died his death for us will be there for us on the other side of death as well – that we don’t have to go through life fearing and clutching, or dominating as if our life consisted in what we can hold on to rather than in how we can love.

In the end there is nothing to hold on to that preserves our life.  There is only the one who holds on to us and who beckons us live with greater trust, deeper love, and hopes bigger than ourselves.