Acts 2: 42-47 Psalm 23
1 Peter 2: 19-25 John 10: 1-10
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
I thought we’d begin our morning with a little quiz about sheep.
What do you get if you cross a boa constrictor and a sheep? A wrap around sweater!
Why did the sheep call the police? He’d been fleeced.
What did one sheep say to the other sheep? After ewe.
This fourth Sunday of Easter is the Sunday often referred to as Good Shepherd Sunday. Our texts involve pastoral scenes and stories of sheep and shepherds. Preachers look for all of the stories and metaphors, and yes, even jokes that they can find around this theme.
We think of all of the ways we are like sheep, who, as the author of 1 Peter wrote, tend to go astray. The truth is, that sheep can, and do, and always will stray if left up to their own devices. It’s just what sheep do. And in this Easter metaphor, in this shepherd’s story, what we know clearly, if we try to place ourselves within the story, is that we are the sheep. Baa.
The Gospel reading for today, though, throws a bit of a monkey wrench into our sheep/shepherd metaphorical musings. Jesus is talking to the religious leaders of the day – the Pharisees – and he explains that to enter the sheepfold, the sheep must go in through the gate. The shepherd leads the way and the sheep follow because they know his voice. The gatekeeper opens the gate for the shepherd. And the text says that “Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.” So, verse 7 begins “Again Jesus said to them – ‘very truly I tell you- I am the gate for the sheep.” And again in verse 9 “I am the gate”. In today’s portion of this Gospel reading from John, Jesus doesn’t say he’s the shepherd; Jesus says he is the gate. (Although in the following verses he does go on and mix his metaphors, calling himself the good shepherd). I suppose it is a more tender expression to speak of Jesus our good Shepherd rather than Jesus our gate.
But here’s the reason that Jesus is the gate. In the days when shepherding was more common than it is, say, now, there were fenced in corral-like areas, belonging to no one and everyone, built as a safe place for the shepherd to herd the sheep and stay for the night. Most of these corrals did not have a gate, though, so once the sheep were safely herded into the fenced enclosure, the shepherd laid down in the vacant space, and quite literally became the gate for the flock. Predatory animals could not get in and the sheep could not easily wander off with the shepherd serving as gate.
It might seem that once the sheep were safely in the corral, and every wooly head was accounted for, that this was the safest place for the sheep to be and the place the shepherd would want them to stay. But the text says that shepherd leads the sheep back out. They don’t get to stay in this place of safety and security. Instead the shepherd leads them back out and into new experiences and into places where they encounter unfamiliar animals and caretakers. The shepherd doesn’t even ask for the advice of the sheep, because they would either never leave the corral or they’d just all decide to wander off on their own way, going astray simultaneously. And the shepherd will very likely lead the sheep into unfamiliar territory, on roads they have never traveled, but that are precisely where the shepherd needs them to go and exactly in the best ways for the sheep.
On Friday and Saturday Kris Johannson, Sherianne Caldwell, and I joined with other pastors and lay delegates for the synod assembly of the NW Washington synod. Jorge was also at the assembly as a lay delegate for his congregation, the Church of Steadfast Love. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this, it’s where the congregations of our geographical area, called a synod, sent their pastors and elected lay delegates to meet together to do the business of the synod, to hear reports, and to learn about the work of the larger church. We heard a great deal about many local ministries right here in our area. But the focus of the assembly was on the work this church is doing in the area of HIV/AIDS awareness, treatment, and prevention as well as Malaria awareness/treatment/and prevention. It was astonishing to hear the stories of the difference the work of this church body makes in these areas. It made me proud to be a part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We also had the chance to hear about ways congregations in our synod, our area, are connecting with their communities. We heard stories of after school programs, of Tent City hosts, of permanent homeless shelters located in places that had been originally intended for Sunday School classrooms. We heard these fellow sheep talk about how even though they thought that being a part of the flock meant one thing, they had to trust the shepherd when they were led to new and unexpected places.
And remember what our text said about the shepherd leading the flock out? It is the intent of Jesus the good shepherd and the sturdy gate that we go out. Ministry is not intended to be kept to ourselves. Ministry is about taking the good news of Jesus Christ…the good news of the grace of God…the good news of the wideness of God’s mercy….out. Out beyond our doors and out beyond this building. The good shepherd and the gate calls us to connect to the people in our community and to meet the needs that we find there.
This congregation has done this well. We have met the needs of our neighbors who have no homes and live on the streets in this area of the city. We meet needs for lunch, for bus tickets, and for other essentials. We have met the needs of our neighbors who live in apartments and long to plant and grow food. Or who need to plant and grow food in order to eat. We have, until this academic year met the needs of students at Broadview Thomson who need extra help with their homework. Good shepherd willing, we will meet those needs again.
Imagine what it would be like to be a mama sheep, a ewe, and have no flock for you and your lambs? Or, since we are people and not sheep, imagine with me what it is like to be a mother with no home and no place to live with your children. It is something I cannot imagine. I don’t even like to try because as a mother I like to think I’d do whatever it took to provide a home for my children. But here in Seattle there is a desperate shortage of emergency shelter for homeless woman and their minor children. This congregation has been asked to provide that shelter for one week each quarter through Mary’s Place, which is a day shelter. This is a well run, well vetted program. But it will mean risk for everyone involved. It will mean that we risk walking on unfamiliar paths and roads we’ve not traveled before. It will mean that some of us who have very comfortable lives and who have obligations will be asked to give up a little of ourselves, our comfort, to help make this workable for these mothers and children. The specific information is in your bulletin. The needs from this place, in addition to the space, would be a person to coordinate the program, dinner and light breakfast each day, and volunteers to stay overnight each night. And we start to think about all of the ways that will inconvenience us and how hard it might be. But I would contend that it’s easy compared to keeping your children safe and in school and giving them hope when you can’t even find a corral to stay in, even when you would lay your body down in the space where the gate should be.
The Gospel news for this Good Shepherd Sunday is that we are God’s sheep, each one of us, but we are not the only sheep. The flock is larger than we can grasp. And when we come to understand that the other person…the cranky neighbor, the bully, the person with HIV or AIDS, the child with malaria, the hungry man asking for a lunch and do we have any bus tickets, and the homeless woman with her small children…are also a part of the flock, that’s when real ministry begins. Jesus says that the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep and we know that he did. Jesus says the sheep know the shepherd by the sound of his voice, a voice that calls us, not into safe familiarity but into bold and risky mission….out there….out of the gate. And we go and we serve and we take risks, knowing that we are God’s beloved sheep, each one of us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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