John 10-:11-18
April 25, 2021
One odd thing about being a pastor
is that you end up knowing a
lot about sheep.
Even a city-dwelling pastor
like me.
I think I’ve met just a
handful of sheep
in person in my life, but I feel
like
I know a lot more about them
than I do other livestock.
That’s because there is a lot of of talk about
sheep and shepherds in the
bible.
Moses was a shepherd before
he
Talked to a burning bush and
told the Pharaoh
to “Let my people go.”
David was a shepherd before he
was found by Samuel and
killed Goliath
and was made the greatest
king of Israel.
You would think that Jesus would have been
a shepherd by profession
instead of a carpenter.
But Jesus is known as THE shepherd. The good shepherd.
Not because he cares for sheep,
because he cares for people.
We are the sheep.
Now most of the time people
would be insulted
if you call them sheep, but
the bible does it all the time.
One thing I have learned about sheep is that they
are not great by themselves.
They need someone to help
them,
someone to guide them to food
and water.
They need someone to lead them to these places.
They are kind of helpless in
some ways.
They often get lost and they
are libel to drown
if they accidentally go into
moving water.
And they have no real defense against predators.
They can’t bite or scratch,
they don’t have a shell that
they can curl up into,
they can’t change colors,
they can’t squirt a terrible
smell, They can’t roar
they just go BAA which is not
a threatening sound at all.
They are just fluffy and
delicious animals.
The only defense they have is to run
And when one runs in fear the
others tend to run too.
Most of the time, when a sheep moves it is
because it is running from
something.
It is trying to get away from
a real or perceived threat.
I think that might be something
we can say about people.
As a species, our movements
are often dictated by fear.
We lock ourselves up in our homes and
don’t talk to strangers
we arm ourselves to the
teeth,
we look on anyone different
with fear and contempt
And we might not always literally run,
but we run metaphorically.
We run because we’re afraid
of being poor or unsuccessful.
We run because we are afraid
of loneliness
we run because we are afraid
of failure,
or because we are afraid of
pain or rejection.
There are lots of churches whose whole
ministries are based on fear
fear of the other, fear of
the unknown,
fear of change, fear of the
future,
fear of the end of the world,
fear of the world in general.
And when we live in fear we make decisions based on
fear,
we become irrational and so,
like sheep, we run.
But running never works.
Because once we’ve run from
one thing,
we find that there’s always
something else
to run from again.
And like those sheep end up getting in the greatest trouble
when we’re running away from
some perceived danger.
So sheep really do need someone to lead them
they really do need a
shepherd that cares for their
well being, someone who can
see the big picture
someone who has the sheep’s
best interest at heart.
The sheep really need the
shepherd.
Like we really need Jesus to
guide us to help us
to show us the way.
One other thing I found out is that sheep
really do respond to the
voice of their shepherd.
The shepherds of Jesus time
would have a hundred or so sheep.
And there were always other flocks of sheep around
with their shepherds, and they tend to all look a lot alike.
Sometimes
the shepherds and flocks would meet to go to sleep
and they would all get mixed up at night.
But in the morning, the shepherds could call
their flock and their sheep would follow them.
So Jesus is saying that the sheep
do just know his voice and we
respond.
But how do we know which
voice is really Jesus voice?
There are even so many voices that say they
belong to Jesus.
People use Jesus name to
justify so many stupid things,
that it’s hard to know what
Jesus voice sounds like.
People take snippets of
scripture out of context
to support whatever fears and
prejudices they have.
We’ve got some pastors who
say that Jesus told them
that the sheep need to buy
him a 65 million dollar private jet.
Other people is saying that
Jesus wants them
to keep everything for
themselves and forget about any one else.
Other people say that Jesus is
telling them to
condemn, to judge, to
suspect, to hate, and even to kill.
But we know that Jesus isn’t
like that.
How do we recognize Jesus
voice?
The one thing that Jesus says
the most in the scriptures
are these four words, “Do not
be afraid”.
We know the voice of Jesus
because it will never lead us
to run away,
Never leads us to suspect or
hate others.
It never leads us to hoard
all our things and money
and keep them all for
ourselves.
It never leads us to
stockpile weapons
in our attics waiting for the
apocalypse.
We know the voice of Jesus
because it never leads us to be afraid.
Jesus never leads his sheep
to run erratically in fear.
Jesus voice leads us beside the still waters.
It leads us by the green
pastures.
Even when we’re in the presence of our enemies.
Jesus voice tells us to pray
for them.
Even though we may be in
hostile territory.
Jesus says “do not be afraid,
I am with you.”
Even though we might not
actually be safe.
Jesus says that death will
not have the last word in our life.
Even though the world may be
falling down around us.
Jesus tells us to seek God’s
kingdom first.
There is much that we could be afraid of in this
world.
And without a guide in our lives,
we are libel to run and find
ourselves lost,
drowning in the moving water.
But the good shepherd tells us
“Do not be afraid.”
The good shepherd has laid
down his life for us.
We are Christ’s sheep. We are Easter sheep.
We are formed by Jesus life
and death and resurrection.
We are guided by our Shepherd’s
voice,
the good Shepherd’s voice.
It is the one that says “do not be afraid.”
It’s the one that leads us
beyond our own fears.
The one that leads us from death to life.