Sheep

A sermon for May 3rd, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God our shepherd, thank you for gathering us together. Make your presence known among us. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Before I dig into the sermon, I’m happy to announce that I’ve been reappointed here at Whittier for another year. It means another year of being in community together, learning all that we can from one another, and doing all the good we can together. It also means for y’all another year of my sermons. They say that preachers only really have one, maybe two, types of sermons, and so, in that spirit, I want to offer you a standard “Historical Context Surprise” sermon. Here goes.

I had always been confused by this passage when I read it, and most of the time I wrote that confusion off as a lack of knowledge about how shepherding works. I guessed that there was a sheep pen that the sheep were herded into at night and then let out again in the morning, like a barn for cows, so it’d make sense that the shepherd would come in through the gate. But then, if the sheep are shut up all night, why wouldn’t the thieves just use the gate? They have hands. And how is the good shepherd any different from the bandits, in the end? I mean, isn’t the shepherd eventually going to kill the sheep too?

But I learned something this week that changed the whole passage for me. Sheep were primarily used for sacrifice in the Temple. Jesus is talking about the Temple sheepfold. Sheep were herded into the sheepfold through the gate and the only way out was death on an altar.

Knowing this changes the whole story for me. It reorients the metaphor. If these are sacrificial sheep, in the current Temple system, they were never going to be led out by their shepherd. They were only ever going to be taken into the Temple by the priests to be slaughtered or stolen by “bandits,” which is a code word in Jesus’ time for insurrectionists or rebels, like Jesus Barabbas, people who wanted to undermine the religious leaders because they were too close to Rome. This system doesn’t work out too well for the sheep. Their lives are either stolen by the Temple in order to maintain the status quo and keep the powerful in charge or they’re stolen by rebels who use their lives as a bargaining tool to get what they want. No one in this system cares about the sheep.

Except for the shepherd, the shepherd who comes in by the gate, like one of the sacrificial sheep. The shepherd doesn’t want to steal their lives. This shepherd, the good shepherd, wants to lead the sheep to life abundant, out to green pastures where they can have all they need. The good shepherd rejects sacrifice. The good shepherd would rather lay down his life than see one more sheep sacrificed. And it’s not only the sheep being sacrificed here. It’s sheep in other folds too.

See, most people understand Jesus’ death on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. But what we see here is that even before his death, Jesus was rejecting sacrifices altogether, as had the prophets before him. Jesus understood that God asks for mercy rather than sacrifice, to loose the chains of injustice and set the oppressed free, to seek justice and love kindness, to give ourselves as holy and living sacrifices. Jesus doesn’t make the final sacrifice on the cross—we do. We sacrifice the Lord of All Creation on Good Friday and on Easter Sunday, he rises and shows us that sacrifice was never what was needed.

And so the Good Shepherd leads the sheep out, away from the sacrifice, away from the world that asks for everything from them and gives them nothing in return and out into the pastures of abundant life. No more sacrifices. No more death.

Best of all, Jesus tells us that we know this voice. We know the voice that leads us from death to life, the voice that says that everyone matters and that no one is forgotten or left behind or left alone. The shepherd knows his sheep and his sheep know him. We always know Jesus’ voice, the voice that calls us to abundant life.

Friends, we have a long year ahead of us. I don’t say this in despair. It’s a matter of fact. It feels like we’re in the sheepfold and not in the pasture. But we know that we are being led by the Good Shepherd who is calling us to life and life abundant for all. As long as we’re listening to his voice, we can get through anything. Amen.

Let me leave you with this benediction, written by Steve Garnaas-Holmes:

“Come in and rest.
Go out and serve.
Find pasture.

Hear the voice from within.
Hear the voice from beyond.
Answer.

The voice unlike, challenging.
The voice familiar, calming.
Follow.

In green pastures,
in death-shadowed valleys,
want nothing.

Both centered
and engaged,
whole.”

Go out and be whole, friends.