Year B
 Acts 4:5-12
 Psalm 23
 1 John 3:16-24
 John 10:11-18

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

The Sadducees are concerned… not only have another 5,000 people come to trust Jesus… but they’re responsible for making sure large crowds don’t form… they know the Romans don’t ignore such crowds… and Peter and John have just healed a man in Jesus’ name… and the Roman Peace… from which the Sadducees benefit… is in jeopardy… so they’ve had Peter and John arrested…

But Peter’s defense is that he and John have done a mitzvah… an act of kindness… what’s the big deal… especially since they haven’t done it by themselves…  but with the help of the Holy Spirit… ]  but leadership’s concern… like it usually is… is about losing control… about losing power… ]  but one does not control the Holy Spirit… ]  and the love of God… through the functioning of the Holy Spirit… is to restore wholeness and health…

Now much of scripture is rich with pastoral imagery… and rightly so… the Israelites who lived hundreds of years before Jesus…  and those during his lifetime… were far more connected with the land…  the seasons…  the cycles of growth and decay… of birth and death… much like Indigenous Peoples in this country and around the world were… 

And the image of the good shepherd… the one with the lamb around his shoulders… originated hundreds of years before…  in the Greek mythology of the kri-o-pho-ri… the lamb bearer… there was even a Greek story that the god Hermes saved the city of Ta-na-gra from pestilence by carrying a ram around its walls… ]  and even in Roman culture…  this image had already become a symbol of the civic virtue of philanthropy and the love of humanity…  and so it was well-established by the time Jesus used it… 

Aileen Guilding…  Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield (in England)…  said that of all the readings in the Jewish lectionary cycle…  Ezekiel 34…  concerned with themes of sheep and shepherds… was the most important Old Testament passage that could be read at The Feast of the Dedication…  at Hanukah…  and which celebrated the completion of the second Temple…  verses 1-6 say…  The word of the Lord came to me…  Son of man…  prophesy against the shepherds of Israel…  prophesy…  and say to them…  this is what the sovereign Lord says…  Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves…  should not shepherds feed the flock…  you eat the fat…  you clothe yourselves with the wool…  you slaughter the choice animals…  but you do not feed the sheep…  you have not strengthened the weak…  healed the sick…  bandaged the injured…  brought back the strays…  or sought the lost…  but with force and harshness you have ruled over them…  they were scattered because they had no shepherd…  and they became food for every wild beast…  my sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill…  my sheep were scattered over the entire face of the earth with no one looking or searching for them… 

What words from today’s culture do you think we could substitute here…  who could the shepherds be…  or the sheep…  and what might today’s concerns be… 

But Jesus is more than the good shepherd for whom Israel waits… ]  for a real shepherd with a real flock…  the death of the shepherd would mean death for the flock…  but Jesus is both the shepherd and the sheep… he is both the offerer and the offering… he is the way to life…  because he is the gate through which we pass to eternal life…  and because he is life itself…  and when Jesus talks about knowing the sheep and being known by them… he’s talking about recognition and relationship… about reconciliation and intimacy…  and about love…

Today’s Gospel and this section of John recount the closing of Jesus’ public ministry…  and the beginning of his problems with the establishment…  after all…  Jesus identifies himself as the light of the world… he condemns the Pharisees and makes messianic claims which compare the relationship and mutuality he shares with the sheep…  to the intimate knowledge he shares with his heavenly Father…  and when Jesus says…  I lay down my life… in the Greek… the word that’s translated as life… comes from the word psyche… and means… soul… self… inner life…  perhaps even ego…  Jesus was murdered because those in power were certain they were right…  but Jesus’ certainty came from the relationship he had with his Father… and it could withstand other kinds of life-giving diversity…  and every time we put another person first… we share in that same self-giving death…

We don’t live in the world that Jesus lived in… though there are still dictators who act with blatant self-interest…  ] outright Roman oppression has given way to a democracy… of sorts… but there are still shepherds like those referred to in Ezekiel… there are all kinds of leaders who tend to themselves and not the flock… who give themselves pay raises… who pass laws which provide benefits to a select few or keep them from the many… and who don’t bring back… or seem to care about the strays… some of whom fall prey to different forms of radicalism or violence…

We live in a country that gives many of us the right to vote… in many ways that itself is like being given free will… the opportunity as we mature spiritually…  to collectively shape the government which governs us… but some of these shepherds have made voting more of a challenge than it ought to be… and it will be interesting to see what kinds of issues arise during this election year…  but some of the shepherds… and some of the wolves…  still want us to remain scattered… want to incite divisiveness to keep us distracted from the real issues…  and about ten years ago… a politician actually proposed a law… that would require anyone who wanted to become an American citizen… to have to first convert to Christianity… [shake head]…

And the community that gathers around Jesus is the one which shares in the mutual knowledge of God and Jesus… whose relationship to Jesus is based on Jesus’ relationship to God… so that listening to Jesus’ voice becomes the source of its unity…. that may be why he also says…  I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold…  but they will listen to my voice…  so there will be one flock, one shepherd…  Jesus lays down his life for his sheep… for us…  ]  but there is a kind of troubling idea from this morning’s epistle… that we ought to lay down our own lives for one another…  now there are martyrs like Martin Luther King, Jr…  Dietrich Bonhoeffer…  and Archbishop Oskar Romero… but none of us really want to suffer what they did…  but as we live out our lives of faith…  we never really know who will be called to make that kind of sacrifice… 

And as your priest…  I struggle with that…  how do I lay down my own life…  does it mean that I purposely seek out dangerous situations so I can proclaim the Gospel…  some clergy who work with gang members may be doing just that…  and what does it mean for all of us…  it might mean that we give up the comfortable rhythms of our routines to be available to a loved one or friend during a crisis… it might mean that we volunteer in a school reading program… it might mean that we listen to someone whose perspectives might be different than ours…  it might mean that we do what needs to be done when it needs to be done in spite of how we feel…  the list goes on and on… but I believe that as we develop the mind of Christ…  we also die to the unhealthy judgments and limited perspectives onto which we grasp…  so that collectively…  we don’t have to change…  but Christ does not abandon us… never abandons us…  and we are loved through the sheepfold…  as we follow his voice to ever increasing and new life…