Shepherds? In the City?

Sermon by James W. Crawford

April 28, 1996

John 10: 1-11

This fourth Sunday of Easter is recognized in the world's churches as "Good Shepherd Sunday." Each year on this Sunday the passages to be read in churches include the 23rd Psalm and the passage from John's Gospel we read a few moments ago. Surely in the lexicon, as well as in the hearts of Christians, the understanding of our God and our savior as shepherd finds itself rooted deeply in our souls and spirits.

As we think about this passage from John, I wonder: where did this declarative sentence, "I am the good shepherd" come from? Did Jesus say it? Does John put it on Jesus' lips? Many people within the Christian church say, "Jesus said it." They say it because there it is in the Bible: Jesus says it. If the Bible says Jesus said it, he said it.

He is the Good shepherd because what we call the record says he said it. Many people base much of their faith on the basis of what the Gospels say Jesus said about himself. In other words, if one of the Gospels tells us Jesus referred to himself as "son of God," they believe Jesus is "son of God" because the Gospels say he said he was.

 I really do not want to argue with that, but I do want to say that others, including myself, believe this illuminating statement, "I am the good shepherd" and all that follows in chapter 10 are what St. John says about Jesus. In this approach, John is not a lot different from the other Gospels. After all, they were written some thirty to seventy years after Jesus died. Their authors composed them amid violent circumstances threatening their churches, each Gospel selecting out of the church's memory bank different memories about Jesus and setting them down to deal with the crisis tearing the church apart at that moment. We cannot be really sure, in other words, that the parable of the Good Samaritan was told by Jesus in direct response to the question of a religious leader who asked the question, "who is my neighbor." We cannot be really sure of that. We can be fairly sure, however, that there existed in the early church a virulent and furious struggle to include gentiles and other outsiders among the Jewish-Jesus messiah movement in the early church. And Luke brings us the remembered narrative of the Good Samaritan, the good outsider, as a parable told by Jesus himself, to lend authority to the imperative of including outsiders and enemies in the fledgling community of Christ.

Just so, with St. John. Even more so. This Gospel, I believe, is the result of the reflection on the reflection on the reflection on the reflection ad infinitum of the meaning of Jesus as the Christ. It emerges from a Christian community--indeed, almost a tight little commune of Jews persuaded that the crucified criminal raised by the power of God, vindicates love and life as ultimate-a community now fighting for its very life amid terrible religious and political persecution. It sees the crucifixion of Jesus for God's sake, for love's sake, the inevitable vocation of every Christian in this world and indeed, every church.

 Now, when we read the Gospel of John we recognize vast differences in the narratives of John, and Matthew, and Mark, and Luke. In John, for instance, on Maundy Thursday, there is no narrative of the last supper. You will find the ritual of the foot washing. Look for Jesus' baptism. You will not find it. The temptation appears in the other three Gospels. It is not here. The transfiguration--a central feature of Matthew, Mark and Luke--not mentioned. The prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, "If it be your will, take this cup from me, but, O god, not my will but yours be done." Not in John. And you will not find a single parable--not a one--and in addition, the matter of the Dominion, the Realm, the Kingdom of God dominating the other Gospels finds reference in John only once--and that in a conversation with Nicodemus.

So what do we make of this? How do we understand this Gospel? I think we might say, over the generations the Spirit of the living Christ brooded in the Christian community over the facts, the events, the crises in the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. The Spirit in concert with dedicated and faithful men and women reflects the faith-founded certainty of an empty tomb; the Spirit mediates the radical empowering and redeeming presence of One who remains alive and at work in the community's life and the life of the world, affirming against everything shouting "No" to life and love in Creation, an ultimate, affirmative, never-say-die, "Yes."

What kind narrative can affirm this kind of meaning to life? How shall we write this conviction? And thus, we receive from the hand of John a powerful, revelatory reflection whose facts do not necessarily coincide with the detailed facts as might be recorded in a modern history text, but whose assertions are, nonetheless, true. Whether Jesus said, "I am the Good Shepherd," or whether John said it, the reality is in either case, "true." Indeed, whether Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life," or whether John says it, it is in our experience, it is as illumination of a special kind of life, a depth of love, a radiance of character and surrender to God's will. Whether Jesus says it or John, Jesus Christ as Way, Truth, and Life is nonetheless true. What we get from John may not be the straight story. Indeed, the straight story is not even his intention. But what we get in spades, brilliantly, incomparably, with a depth and poignancy, an earth-shaking accuracy and power, is the meaning -- the meaning -- of the story.

But we need move on. If John, speaking for Jesus, says, "I am the good shepherd," to whom is John saying it? Who are targets of this remarkable passage? Well, take a deep breath. We need prepare ourselves for a little surprise. This passage, though consistently used on Good Shepherd Sunday, is not quite so assuring as the 23rd Psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. . . " How we love that testimony to the trust and security we find in the One who bears us through the darkest of valleys, and who welcomes us home whenever we turn to go there. No, this declaration by Jesus in the Gospel of John is harsh, vitriolic, forceful, blistering polemic. And it is aimed at religious leaders. It contends with those who claim religious position and who fail to serve as good shepherds. This passage follows immediately the story in the Gospel of a blind man who comes to faith and hope, and is kicked out of the synagogue because he will not reveal the name of the one who healed him on the Sabbath. The blind man sees, says John, even as religious leaders, called to see, become increasingly blind to the presence of the One sent by God to save the world.

 In other words, John aims this text at shepherds called to lead people in paths of righteous, justice and peace--and instead direct them 180 degrees the wrong way. John says to these religious leaders, you are the ones who are blind; you are the ones--as he describes them later in this same polemic--you are the ones who are wolves; the ones who break in over the wall seeking to devour the sheep; the ones who have been given responsibility as shepherds, but instead abandon the sheep. John fires a fusillade of invective at religious leaders who claim to know the ways of God, and when the very presence of God walks among then in the person of Jesus and his fierce love willing to suffer for the sake of others and the religious leaders do not discern this presence, John calls those leaders blind to the truth: wolves, frauds, fakes, blasphemers. They reject the very one they hope for. They poison the sheep. They lead the sheep over the cliff. They claim to see, but they are blind. They claim to lead, and protect, and feed, and care for the sheep, but they instead cannibalize, dissipate, eviscerate the flock. This is not your friendly, delightfully, warm fuzzy passage. John is calling religious folk to account, and he is using the life and death of Jesus as the benchmark..

So, I have to tell you this passage makes me nervous. It makes me nervous because, in the first place, it is aimed at me: Shepherd of this flock. In the bylaws of this church I am called, "Senior Minister." Our bylaws say, "The Senior Minister shall be the spiritual leader and chief executive officer of the church." "Spiritual leader." Uh-Oh! I am sometimes called pastor. Pastor is the Latin word for shepherd. These words of John, these words of Jesus are aimed at me! And I can hear them ask, "Hey Jim, how do you operate as shepherd of your flock? Are you faithful to them? Or are you faithful to yourself? Are you eager to lead them to follow Jesus as faithful and loving disciples? Or are you worried about your own status, your own position, you own comfort, your own security? Are you looking after them, supporting encouraging, loving, leading, stopping to feed them, comfort them, bear them through the tough times? Or are you clamming up, closing down, carving out a big niche for yourself? Do you have the courage of your rhetoric when it comes time to stand for what you say, or do you back down, shilly-shally, walk away? Can you help people into a new future, or are you just a stick-in-the-mud, hanging on for dear life to things as they are, blind to things as they might be?" John is relentless. "And, Jim, what are you doing about the tough, the recalcitrant, the wandering, the lost sheep in your flock? Are you letting them go, leaving them at the wayside while you consort with the lovable ones? Oh, John, O Jesus! God grant I be more faithful to your wondrous, challenging, and fiercely loving calling!

And, you know, although John certainly speaks to me, he speaks to you too. Oh, you are not named in the bylaws as I am, nor did you choose to be "shepherd", so to speak. But you are shepherds, you know. Are you part of a family? Do you head a firm or supervise others? Are you teaching a class, sharing a committee, working on a team? Are you volunteering in a hospital, at the library, with a little league team, in a professional association, in a political party? Shepherds, in Christ's name, you are. Pledged to listen, to care, to open, to bear heavy loads dutifully and compassionately, to open new opportunities, to succor the loser, to grant at least another chance to the failure. Shepherds! All of us.

And our church! A shepherd to the city. Yes, this body, this people, this membership together, corporate shepherd. That is what John Stainton was talking about a few minutes ago. John is the chair of our Outreach Committee. He chairs a committee charged, if you will, with helping us to be shepherds to the city. What a charge this is! What an opportunity! What a challenge! But we are joined in a body in this church the New Testament calls the first fruits of the kingdom, the anticipation of the kind of world we see breaking in among us in the life of Christ Jesus. What kind of world is that? A world where the divisions of class and race dissolve. A world where vast gaps in income and living standards diminish and everyone gets a fair shake. A world where shelter is not a privilege but a right, where medical care is not the prerogative of some, and denied to others, but available to all. A world where the educational quality and the inevitable social and vocational and economic advantages commensurate with it are at the beck and call of all. We know such commitment takes influence, money, organization community participation. It is a matter of politics, and politics is about the distributions and redistribution of power in society. To back away from such participation, to assert churches should resist such urgencies, to fail as shepherds in the city, to abandon the flock, is simply to allow churches to bless the current status quo and all of its injustices. This is not a matter of church and state. This is a matter of equalizing discrepancies of power and privilege. This is a matter of equalizing discrepancies of power and privilege. It is a matter of turning our convictions about the kind of world God wants for all of his children into a fair and just community, what Matthew, Mark and Luke call the Dominion of God, what John calls, "eternal life." Shepherds for the city! That is the high calling of the Old South Church in Boston.

I am told that in the old world shepherds provide a function and image you and I rarely see. Instead of driving the sheep, pushing them along, what John and Jesus see is a shepherd leading the flock, out ahead of them, exploring, testing, searching for water, looking for fresh grazing grounds, prepared to ward off assailants.

I love that image. And as we gather on this Good Shepherd Sunday, 1996, I pray that as shepherd I may become more sensitive to the needs, aspirations and common life of this wonderful flock; that you perceive yourselves, wherever you are and in whatever you do, called to be shepherd as well; and that here, this great congregation, this people on this corner, in this outpost of God's universal pastures, faithful to the mission of Jesus, the claim of John, the vocation of the church, we may with integrity and hope live and serve each other and God's world, reflecting faithfully, compassionately, courageously, and convincing others of its rock-ribbed truth, this declaration of John about Jesus the Christ incorporating each and all of us, "I am the good shepherd."