Easter 4 - Good Shepherd Sunday

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Easter 4 - Good Shepherd Sunday
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: April 25, 1999

TEXT: John 10:1-10 - "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever eters by me will be saved, and will come in ango out and find pasture."

ISSUE: John's Gospel clearly names Jesus as The Good Shepherd. He is the Gate and/or Gate Keeper. Often there was one gate keeper who was knowledgeable of all the local shepherds of a community who opened the pens to them all as they brought their flocks in for safety. John would have the Christian community to clearly appreciate Jesus as The Good Shepherd, in the world of bandits and thieves. In the world today there are also bandits and thieves who perpetrate violence on innocent people and many bad shepherds who are truly bad managers. We must keep focused on Jesus as Lord, and clearly see only Jesus Christ as the the true shepherd for the world.
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Throughout a significantly large part of the Christian Community around the world this Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter is named Good Shepherd Sunday. Each year in the three year lectionary cycle we read a part of John's Gospel account which refers to Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Surely this year on this Sunday after the terrible event of what happened at the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, it is an appropriate reading, if not a needed reading to be heard by the world. The Lord portrayed as The Good Shepherd has been an important image in Judaism and Christianity especially in time of calamity, death, and trouble. Probably the most requested and used piece of Scripture selected for funerals is the reading of the 23rd Psalm wherein God is depicted as The Shepherd who leads his flock through the valley of the shadow of death to life giving waters and to greener pastures. As we read the passage from John's Gospel today which refers to Jesus as shepherd and gate keeper, and the Gate to the sheep pen as weill, I would like to give you, or refresh for you, where the background of Jesus as Good Shepherd comes from.
From the reading of the passage, we do get the idea that Jesus referred to himself as The Good Shepherd. That Jesus called himself and referred to himself as The Good Shepherd is not likely. Jesus going around announcing himself as The Good Shepherd, would have been seen as a grasping for an honor that was inappropriate. He would have been thought to have been stepping out of his place in the society, and would have been seen as quite presumptuous. It is much more likely that the title of Good Shepherd was a post-Easter title given to Jesus by the early Christian church and writers. Certainly Jesus had collected a significant following of people. He was undoubtedly sensitive to human need, and became known as a healer. He was also especially concerned for and with the oppressed, the last, the least, and the lost - the widows, children, lepers, sick, and those poor who had lost their properties and possessions. He was the champion and leader of the poor.
One of the first of the leaders in the Old Hebrew Scriptures to be a champion of the poor, and the oppressed was Moses. Moses who was infact a keeper of sheep, and who was called to lead his people out of slavery and bondage was known to be a good shepherd. Eventually, the shepherd boy son of Jesse, named David, became the King of a united Israel, and was seen as a good shepherd and leader of his people. While the kings and leaders that followed were often pretty poor leaders, they were seen as bad shepherds. In Ezekiel's writings (Chap. 34), the prophet refers to just how bad the kingly shepherds of Israel had become. They often used their people collecting exhorbiant taxes, and did not provide for their people. Their stupidity and negligence allowed the nation to be conquered by foreigners and the poor suffered significantly. Finally, Ezekiel declares that only God can be the shepherd of his people. God will come to his people and resuce them, and not let them b e mistreated. God will give them a king like David to be their one shepherd and he will take care of them. (Paraphrase Ezek. 34:22f) Out of this prophecy the early church saw Jesus as The Good Shepherd who was like God coming to heal and to raise up his people in profound love. Thus, Jesus becomes named The Good Shepherd. Jesus is the one who lives and dies for his people to reveal the injustices of the world. Jesus is the one who was and is the healer, the one who gave his people a profound appreciation for life that was fulfilled by love and forgiveness.
Jesus became the one who fed, like Moses had done in the wilderness, the teachings of love and fed them on that green pasture like hillside. Jesus was himself the one who went through the terrible valley and the shadow of death on the cross, but who was now leading them to fear no evil. Jesus was the one who gave new respect for all those who turned to him and who sought reunion with the forgiving and loving God. They found in him a love of life and a way to God.
In Jesus' time shepherds were not held in particularly good standing. They were a motly group of men who trespassed on other people's properties, were bawdy, did not stay at home with their wives and children. They were not held in high esteem. Yet Jesus profound caring for the poor and outcast seems to revive the image of the good shepherds of Israel, and once again takes a fallen image and restores and raises it. Jesus is declared The Good Shepherd.
What's more is that Jesus calls his disciples to be shepherds of the flock. This restoration of the meaning of Good Shepherd is conveyed when Peter, a disciple that had fled and denied Jesus at the crucifixion meets with Jesus after his resurrection, and Jesus demands of Peter that he too become a Good Shepherd. Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?" on three separate occasions. Peter replies that indeed he does love Jesus. "Then feed my sheep; tend my sheep," Jesus commands. Jesus the Good Shepherd calls his people to be shepherds to one another and he leads them in the way of love and forgiveness and renewal of their being.
When John was writing his Gospel, the early fledgling church was confronted by people hostile to the Christian community. They were being tossed out of synagogues. There were people losing their faith. There were pagan influences from the Greek and Roman cultures. John insists on proclaiming that there of thieves and robbers scattering, challenging, frightening, the early Christian community. They must keep focused on the God of Love expressed in the leadership of the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd is the Gateway into the way of life that is precious and loving. He is the shepherd above all other shepherds. He is the gate keeper who lets in his flock of the least, the last, and the lost.
The world today surely in need of a good shepherd, The Good Shepherd. There are many shepherds, leaders in this world, but many of them like the thieves and bandits, like the poor leadership of Israel's kings in her history, need to be guarded against. Some of the renowned leaders in the world have left much to be desired. Surely Bill Clinton has been a disaster in giving to us, and the youth of this nation any good sense of moral leadership. Slobadan Milosvec has been a disaster for Yugoslovia in his perpetuation of hatred and ethnic cleansing. Look at the shepherd of Iraq, Sadham Hussein. Many sports figures and celebrities in recent years who could be such good role models for our youth have been disastrous examples of leadership when they resort to drugs and become involved in sexual scandals. Dr. Kevorkian's medical leadership is so very questionable. Even in the life of the church the leadership has often been so poor when we think of the leadership of such people as Jim Jones, Jim Baker, and Jimmy Swaggart, and the recent head of the Southern Baptist Church.
Isn't it amazing that even today there are people celebrating the birthday of Adolph Hitler! There are still people, young people, like those two young boys in Littleton, Colorado, whose image of a shepherd is Adolph Hitler. That leadership that has been a tragic leadership now for years. I've seen young people so enamored with Hitler and with racial prejudice, and it is so deadly, so sad, so evil.
We must be so careful as to who we think the Shepherds and leaders are in the world today. We have to be so careful as to whom we follow. If we are not really careful as to who we select as our good shepherd we may really get a bad one. We may really get a doozie!
We live in a world that is at war. We as a nation are drawn into the dreadful conflict in Yugoslavia, where we end up it seems even in this so called enlightened age dealing with issues of prejudice and hatred, ethnic cleansing. It is if we were still in the stone age, as we badger one another with deadly weapronry, as opposed to civilized mediation and negotiation.
Obviously there is a terrible war of hate and cruel violence going on in our own society. The events of this week dramatize it so terribly. And the under current of violence is not in some foreign town, and or distant American town. Here in Kingsville we've had recent shooting out of the the Post Office Windows, and bombing of a Postal box. We have people in our community flying the Confederate Flag. The violence surrounds us as a significant part of our culture. Many of our communities still have those subtle gatekeepers who want to keep others out for racial, economic, religious reasons. Many communities resist wanting the retarded, the dispossessed, the rehabilitation centers for people recovering from additions, or delinquency. We still have such a hard time seeing ourselves as brothers and sisters of one another, of being citizens in and of the family of God, and shepherds with Christ.
In all of the excitement and grief of this past week, we hear the demand for more security in our schools. We hear people calling for yet again stricter gun control laws. No doubt these things may well be needed. But we also need a Good Shepherd, a truly Good Shepherd for a flock gone badly astray. I think of the many things to which we often commit ourselves and our children. They are committed to good educations, gymnastics, horseback riding, baseball, soccer, and lacrosse. We adults commit ourselves to our work in a nation noted for its busyness and workaholism. Yet what of our devotion and regular commitment to our Good Shepherd, to the Gateway that leads to God, to love, to forgiveness, to compassion for and with one another. We neglect terribly the spiritual dimension that is needed in our own lives and in the lives of our children.
In last weeks Gospel reading from Luke, Luke made the point that God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ was alive and well and continuing to be with his people. And as Cleopas and the other disciples walked from Jerusalem to Emmaus, they eventually became enlightened to see the Shepherd of their Souls. It was as they studied Scripture, the story of the faith together, and as they broke bread together that their eyes were opened. The Good Shepherd, Jesus the Christ, was alive and with them. Is it not so with us. In the shear craziness, violence, and hostility of the world where is our salvation from it? Where is peace? Where is hope? Where is the love and the forgiveness we all so desperately need?
We have trouble getting, grasping it, holding on to it. Just as the disciples in John's gospel could not grasp the meaning of the parable. And Jesus tells it over again more explicitly. "I am the gate for the sheep . . . . I am the Gate." All the rest are thieves and bandits, who come only to steal and to kill and destroy. The violent ones are in our midst. But so is The Good Shepherd, the gateway to God's Kingdom. The Gate is Christ Jesus. He is the Good Shepherd. For God's sake, why do we resist it so, and what don't we understand?