A Meditation on John 10:11-18
1.
The older I get, and
the more I encounter life’s strange contradictions, the more grateful I am for
“the good shepherd.” I guess this is my
“confessional” sermon: a personal musing around Jesus in my life. I’ve got to tell you, friends, that I need Jesus. The stranger I get, and the more I commit to
heaven on earth, the more grateful I am for “the good shepherd.”
I like to think my
theological horizons get broader and deeper all the time. And I like to think my politics drive me
headlong into paradox and uncertainty. You
all have done this to me, encouraged me on the way. But if all that’s so, it’s because Jesus is
my “good shepherd”—and I have confidence, maybe even faith, that he’ll be right
there when the wolves get close, and when they bear their goofy teeth. He’ll lay down his life for me, and for you,
and for us.
For most of these
past sixteen years, I’ve carried in my pocket or satchel a folded copy of a
poem by the 17th century Welsh priest George Herbert. It’s his rendering of the Twenty-Third Psalm,
and over time, I memorized it. It goes
like this:
The God of Love my
shepherd is
And he that doth me
feed.
While he is mine and
I am his
What can I want or
need.
He leads me to the
tender grass
Where I both feed and
rest,
Then to the streams
that gently pass;
In both I have the
best.
Or if I stray, he
doth convert
And bring my mind in
frame.
And all this not for
my d’sert,
But for his holy
name.
Yay, in death’s shady
black abode,
Well may I walk, not
fear,
For thou art with me
and thy rod
To guide, thy staff
to bear.
Nay, thou dost make
me sit and dine
E’en in mine enemy’s
sight.
My head with oil, my
cup with wine
Runs over day and
night.
Surely thy sweet and
wondrous love
Shall measure all my
days,
And as it never shall
remove,
So neither shall my
praise.
Not a day goes by
that I don’t recite this poem, often aloud, on a walk, in my car, before a
difficult meeting. The language is
dated, to be sure; but isn’t all language dated at some point? Dated or not, this is my faith:
The God of Love my
shepherd is
And he that doth me
feed.
While he is mine and
I am his
What can I want or
need.
He leads me to the
tender grass
Where I both feed and
rest,
Then to the streams
that gently pass;
In both I have the
best.
Or if I stray, he
doth convert
And bring my mind in
frame.
And all this not for
my d’sert,
But for his holy
name.
Yay, in death’s shady
black abode,
Well may I walk, not
fear,
For thou art with me
and thy rod
To guide, thy staff
to bear.
Nay, thou dost make
me sit and dine
E’en in mine enemy’s
sight.
My head with oil, my
cup with wine
Runs over day and
night.
Surely thy sweet and
wondrous love
Shall measure all my
days,
And as it never shall
remove,
So neither shall my
praise.
I think it’s that one
stanza, that one about “death’s shady black abode,” that comforts me most and
keeps me coming back. “The good
shepherd” is a companion in chaos, a steady loving presence in storms I create
for myself or walk into ill-prepared.
And I need him. Call me
meek. Call me weak. But I need him.
Yay, in death’s shady
black abode,
Well may I walk, not
fear,
For thou art with me
and thy rod
To guide, thy staff
to bear.
I remember rushing
across the country to my father’s bedside, six years ago, to keep vigil as he
died. “Well may I walk, not fear.” “Well may I walk, not fear.” I must have repeated Herbert’s poem dozens of
times on that flight and finally had to explain myself to the elderly man
sitting next to me. He thought I was
praying for his conversion. And it took
me a while to convince him otherwise.
But it comforted me, the poem, and reminded me of the shepherd’s
companionship, a companionship I desperately needed and keenly felt. Especially that week. Some storms we cannot navigate alone. Some anxieties are meant to be shared. “For thou art with me and thy rod to guide,
thy staff to bear.”
And I remember
stepping into a tense meeting at Temple Beth El some years later—in the
complicated days around our Justice for Palestine conference. I knew I’d be facing angry colleagues, and disappointed
friends: and Herbert’s verse empowered me: “Well may I walk, not fear.” “Well may I walk, not fear.” It’s a strange and tricky thing to count on
God’s guidance in a setting like that—where others may also invoke such
guidance. But the God of Love my
shepherd is; and his rod was with me to guide me, somehow, and his staff to
make me strong. I felt it in my
bones. My faith doesn’t require God to take
sides: I don’t think of God that way.
But it did reassure me, that under the big sky of God’s grace, we’d all
be OK. We’d survive the disappointment
and conflict. “My head with oil, my cup
with wine, runs over day and night.”
Like I say, Jesus is my
“good shepherd,” and I can’t imagine any of this—the work, the contradictions,
the living and dying; I can’t imagine any of it without him.
2.
Now I like to think
of myself as a theological liberal, or at least a progressive voice, a
progressive witness in the church. I
want to dismantle walls wherever I go and transgress boundaries and jam the
gears of the system that oppresses. I’m
always thinking of flipping tables in the temple square and gathering the lost
and forsaken in communion.
So here’s the funny
thing.
The more progressive
I get, the more radically inclusive my approach to ministry, the more agitated
and edgy my politics have become, the more central Jesus is in my life, and in
my faith; the more I lean on Jesus and look to Jesus for meaning and balance
and even comfort. Today’s text makes
more and more sense to me. He is, quite
simply, the “good shepherd.” And when
the wolves get close, when they bear their goofy teeth, I can count on
him. I can count on Jesus to see me
through.
Surely thy sweet and
wondrous love
Shall measure all my
days,
And as it never shall
remove,
So neither shall my
praise.
Now the thing is, I
know this is not always true, not for all of you. The truth is that we have all kinds of ways
of understanding Jesus’ story and relating to Jesus as a historical figure, and
all kinds of ways of connecting to him in spiritual practice. And to be honest, I love that about us. I love the diversity of metaphors we use
around here. I love the befuddling
questions we ask—the serious and important questions we ask—about old
traditions and tired dogma and biblical assumptions. We make space for all of this; and it makes
Christianity more curious and the church more interesting.
Interesting, isn’t
it, that Jesus distinguishes, in the text, between the good shepherd and the
hired man. The good shepherd has a
relationship with the sheep. The good
shepherd knows them by name. The hired
man is not at all as invested in his caring, in his watching, in his tending to
the flock. The hired man spends most of
his time, to be honest, on his cell phone.
The good shepherd sees the sheep as his own, looks after them as his own
kin, lays down his life for them: because their wellbeing is his joy, because
their grazing is his delight, because their being sheep is his life’s desire. It’s a metaphor, right? We know it’s a metaphor. The picture Jesus paints is a picture of
compassion and concern, a picture of affection and protection. “I am the good shepherd, and I know my own,
and my own know me.” And that’s why the
wolves don’t have a chance.
So here’s what
happens for me, for me at least, in worship.
Here’s what happens every Sunday.
I see all of you: your wonderfully diverse lifestyles, your nuanced
theological sensibilities, your varied commitments to peacemaking and the
common good. I love that Curtis Reliford
drives his peace truck to church and then to the southwest to share love and
resources with native peoples there. I
love that Michelle Miracle and Lori Rivera sing their hearts out and experience
music as holy communion. I love that
Ajschika Kan K’awiil sits silently when we pray to Jesus and remembers in his
heart the even older prayers of his First Nation ancestors. I love that Joanna Hildebrandt weeps when we
pass the peace, and I love that the Prophets of Hope pray for incarcerated
teens. All that, and I love that more
than a few of us identify as agnostics, deeply ambivalent about the whole
Christian project. I mean, seriously,
this is the church.
And in my own little
heart, with my own imperfect vision, I see Jesus stirring in the breadth and
depth of all this. The good
shepherd. I see Jesus gathering sheep
from all walks of life, sheep that like to wander and sheep that stay close to
home, sheep that question everything and sheep that choose not to. Right here at Peace United, I see Jesus
gathering so many of us into one family, one flock, one strange and beloved
community. And, friends, that’s a
beautiful thing.
And even more, even
more than that, I hear Jesus, I hear him calling my name and yours, I hear him
inviting us to deeper communion, to radical trust in an uncertain future. He’s invested in us, Jesus. That’s the thing. He’s passionate about our mission. He’s committed to our friendships and our
partnerships and our collaboration right here at Peace United Church. He’s a good shepherd, Jesus, and to my eye at
least, he’s stirring in our midst every Sunday.
He’s stirring in our hearts and in our hopes even now.
3.
What we cannot miss,
what I cannot ignore this morning, is Jesus’ insistence that he has other sheep
“which are not from this fold.” Did you
catch that in the text we read together?
I can claim Jesus as my “good shepherd” (and I do); and we can see Jesus
stirring among us, bringing us together, protecting us from so many
wolves. All that’s fair. And all that’s true and lovely and good. But Jesus does not belong to us. We do not own him or control him or employ
him to do our bidding. That’s not how
this works.
“I have other sheep
which are not from this fold,” he says, “and I must also bring them in.” Which is to say that the good shepherd dreams
bigger dreams than ours. Which is to say
that the good shepherd imagines a more generous circle, a more inclusive
communion than ours. We’re called to
keep watch. We’re called to pay
attention. We’re called to love Jesus
and follow Jesus, but never, never to assume that he’s ours alone. That our way is the only way, that our prayer
is the only prayer.
Because Jesus is the
good shepherd, not the miserly one.
Because Jesus is the good bread, not the bitter loaf. Because Jesus is light of the world, not the
certainty that blinds us.
The wildest thing
about Jesus, the craziest thing about him, is that he gives us to one
another. He’s not interested in a kind
of private, heroic, personal religion. He's not interested in disciples that see faith as a reality TV show--where one girl wins and all the rest go home defeated. Jesus resists a spirituality that promises
personal salvation at the expense of shared communion, or individual
achievement at the expense of the common good.
The wildest thing about Jesus is that he gives us to one another. We call it beloved community. He gives theological conservatives to
theological liberals. He gives
be-bopping dancers to cantata-singing sopranos.
He gives juveniles at the hall to seasoned veterans coming to visit.
And that’s the way of
the good shepherd. Always the way of the
good shepherd. Because this is what he
knows. And this is what he
believes. We need one another. Always have, and always will. We need one another to survive.
Amen.
