SERMON CNR1059

EASTER 4a Mosman 15 May 2011, 9.30am

Ps 23; John 10:1-10; Acts 2:42-47; 1 Peter 2:19-25

“GOOD SHEPHERDS”

John 10:1-18

Sheep Congestion

When I’ve been here, we’ve often talked about the traffic congestion along Military Road and how we’ve had to fight the good fight through the traffic. It may surprise you when I say that I’ve encountered congestion along rural roads across Australia. They weren’t other cars, but sheep, hundreds of sheep surrounding my little car as farmers and sheepdogs drove these woolly things along the road. I was tempted to bring one of these large flocks here this morning to add rural atmosphere and so they could hear about themselves. Baaaa!

The Good Shepherd Laying Down His Life

Adding the eight verses (Jn 10:11-18)

This morning, I’ve added 8 verses to the Gospel reading as it would be a shame to break off a good story before it gets to the punch line.

This whole story has become well engrained in our churches. There are stained glass windows of Jesus as the good shepherd, and this part of the story does not begin until v11 so really all the first 10 verses are leading up to this point.

Being a shepherd as the young David was before he became king of Israel is no easy job. You had to fend off wild beasts and sheep rustlers. Farmers used to tell me about foxes and wild dogs along with the occasional 2 footed predator. Our national song, “Waltzing Matilda” is all about a swagman shoving a jolly jumbuck into his tucker-bag.

Over my dead body

Sheep were guarded with one’s life. Jesus is described as the Door (v9) and the Good Shepherd (v11). To guard the sheep in their sheepfold, the shepherd would curl up in the doorway between his sheep and any predator. Literally, no one would take his sheep except over his dead body. Jesus is saying just that. “No one gets to my sheep except over my dead body.” Easter is all about what Jesus did to keep us secure in God.

Not a safe world

This is not a safe world. My alarm clock radio wakes me in the morning with the news, and it is mostly about bad news happening to people while I’ve been sleeping. People do such bad things to other people. It’s so tempting to bury my head under my warm doona and retreat into more sleep. But the good news is that our Good Shepherd has laid down his life for us sheep. We have not been fleeced, neither has the wool been pulled over our eyes. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

From Sheep To Shepherd

Breakfast on the beach

Another reason why I included the extra verses is that the story leads even further. One of the surprises about John’s Gospel is the way themes like this re-surface later on with a twist. You remember the story near the end of this Gospel in ch 21 where the risen Jesus meets his disciples for breakfast on the beach. He charges Peter to feed and tend his lambs and sheep. The disciples now become more than sheep. They become shepherds themselves, good shepherds.

“Other sheep that are not of this fold” (Jn 10:16a)

Back to this passage, from v16, Jesus talks about “other sheep that are not of this fold”.It was left to the first disciples to continue the good shepherding, and it is also left to us as his 21^st century disciples to be good shepherds.

“One flock, one shepherd” (Jn 10:16z)

The vision of Jesus remains, “one flock, one shepherd”. His sheepfold is too big for our imagination because he doesn’t want any of his flock to be left out. In ch 3, John writes of God loving the whole world, so that’s a big sheepfold. If we can look at this from God’s point of view, it does make sense. The strife we keep hearing and seeing on the news is caused because human beings want to define the sheepfold boundaries. Human beings want to keep defining who is in and who is out.

Defining black sheep

We have our own ways of defining who are the black sheep who must be kept out of our fold. Our church has spoken out, and quite rightly, too, about the way our successive governments have kept wanting to process asylum seekers offshore. All this excluding never works, of course. All that happens is pain and anguish, and we keep hearing from among them the voice of Jesus as he suffers with them yet again. We have to find ways of ensuring how this world can become an open sheepfold so that our first Good Shepherd can be recognised.

Ecumenical Convocation for Peace

Next week, three Uniting Church ministers, Terence Corkin, Tara Curlewis, and Chris Walker, will be travelling to Jamaica on our behalf to attend the International Ecumenical Convocation for Peace held between 17-25 May. The convocation calls for peace so that the world may know an open sheepfold where the sheep of this world may not be wolves to one another. For this to happen requires a lot of good shepherding. As the Father has sent the Son, so we are sent as good shepherds.