Sermon by Rev. Craig N. Goodrich
April 13, 2008
HEARING VOICES
Scripture:
Psalm 23; John 10:1-18
In the next few weeks you will be hearing a lot about our upcoming renovation
project which will affect many areas of our church beginning with Fifield Hall and the kitchen next month. We are about to embark on a year of wonderful and exciting disruption!
One of the few areas that will not be affected is Winship Chapel, which is one of the treasures of this Church. Dedicated in 1931 it is where we have our weekly Communion service and where new members and elders worship together on the night that new members join the Church. If you have not been there for awhile I encourage you to attend the communion service and to take a few moments to look at the beautiful stain glass window. Added in 1965, it is a window about Jesus Christ. It has five lancets or panels, one each for each of the gospels. Matthew and Mark are the two on the left. Luke and John are on the right. In each of the lancets there are depicted the parables of Jesus from that gospel. In the fifth lancet, the central one, is Jesus himself, holding the open gospel superimposed is a lamp indicating that he is the light of the world. And also in the center lancet at the bottom is the figure of Jesus, on bended knee on a rocky cliff leaning over with his staff, his crook to rescue one lost sheep. Jesus the Good Shepherd.
The image of God as the good shepherd and the people of
The central figures, the patriarchs of the faith, all were shepherds: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and David. Indeed, the messianic expectation was that God would provide a shepherd king in the lineage of David.
Therefore, when Jesus then refers to himself as the Good Shepherd he is calling on all of this imagery and background and to those present, he is unmistakably laying claim to being the one for whom the people have been waiting.
Such a claim confounds and angers the religious leaders, causing consternation and debate, a tension which may have persisted even into the late first century at which time John wrote his gospel. While a study of the claims of Jesus and various reactions to his claims including speculation as to whom he may have been referring when he describes some as the thieves, bandits or hired hands may be interesting, the question for us, for we who worship and who call Jesus Christ “Lord” is not who does Jesus claim that he is, but rather how is it that Jesus is our good shepherd?
Which of course, brings us to the sheep. There is no way around it. We are the sheep. He is the shepherd. I have tried to come up with some present day analogy. If Jesus were with us today, what would he say of himself so that we would understand our relationship to him? I considered maybe Jesus as coach, or as wilderness guide, but all the images I could come up with were human relationships and seemed to miss the point. In this text we are sheep, he is the shepherd. It is not a relationship of equals or even mentor to student.
We are the sheep. It is not a glamorous or flattering picture at all and I suspect that if we are honest it is an image we would like to change. We would prefer to be the shepherds, or at least the under shepherds. We would rather see ourselves looking after the sheep and rescuing the lost, of course with the help of Jesus. But if we have to be sheep we would like to tell the shepherd where to take us, kind of like when we ask God to bless the plans that we have already made, rather than waiting for his guidance and direction.
But in this passage, we are the sheep. Sheep who are dependent and vulnerable and who need the tender care and vigilant protection of a shepherd.
What are sheep like, what are their characteristics? I don’t
know about you but I haven’t seen many sheep or shepherds going up and down
Well, I have also done a little independent research. Here’s what I found.
Sheep are sometimes called “prey animals.” One writer says “sheep are timid, nervous and easily frightened animals and are almost defenseless against predators.” They have no fight instinct. Rather their protection is the herd or the flock, and, of course, the shepherd. Although they have pretty good eyesight their depth perception is not good and they cannot see directly in front of their nose. They have an acute sense of hearing and can direct their ears towards a sound. (www.veaganpeace.com)
Studies have shown that they can learn and recognize the sound of their names.
When they become isolated from the herd, they suffer acute distress.
Do you recognize yourself yet?
Somewhere there developed a common notion that sheep are dumb animals, but I wonder if that is true. Look at the sheep in our text today?
These sheep do two very simple but very good things. First they hear and recognize the voice of their shepherd and, second, they follow him. And then significantly what they don’t do may be just as important. They don’t follow other voices, the voice of the stranger or the hired hand.
If only the same could be said of us?
When you think of the noise in your life and the many voices calling for your attention, which voices do you find yourself listening to most frequently? And which voices do you follow? When I asked these questions of an adult Sunday school class last week, here’s what they said with some distress:
The voice of advertising – “you must have this, buy it now!”
The voice of money – “more, always more, there is not enough”
The voice of work – “harder, longer, faster”
The voice of children with all their demands – “When will we get there?”
The voice of perfection – “You must get it just right!” “You are not good enough!”
One person said “the voice of self.” Now there’s an interesting one, it suggests that perhaps what we view as our natural desires are not always best for us….and it’s true isn’t it all of many of the voices we hear hook something that is very deep within us.
A recent New Yorker daily calendar cartoon showed a young man and woman having coffee together, likely on a date. It is the man who is speaking with a smile on his face; the woman has a baffled look. The caption reads “I’ve tried a lot of life strategies, and being completely self serving works best for me.” But it doesn’t really work does it?
I was christened and confirmed in the Episcopal Church and in my high school years served as an acolyte in the Washington National Cathedral for early morning weekday communion. Over the course of years, I came to memorize much of the Book of Common Prayer, probably just as many of you memorized the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
One prayer in particular came back to me this week, funny how things you memorize never quite leave you. It is the prayer of “General Confession” which begins:
“Almighty and merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.”
It’s true isn’t it, that there really are such things as the devices and desires of our own hearts, and often they can lead us astray.
If left to ourselves to follow our own desires we don’t always do what is good for us.
It was Saturday before last, not yesterday, I had done some
work in the morning, taken Andie’s car in for servicing and the Final Four NCAA
basketball tournament was on that afternoon, a doubleheader and my Tar Heels
were playing. Andie was out of town visiting our daughter Lara who is in
college in
Ah, the devices and desires of our own hearts. They don’t always lead to the best places, do they?
In fact, sometimes it can be a lot more serious than a
little gluttony. Sometimes we lose our way completely and find ourselves like Dante
who begins his “Divine Comedy” with these words,“Midway along our journey of
our life I awoke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the
straight path.” (The Divine Comedy: Volume I, page 67 (
Have you ever found yourself in such a place? Lost in a dark wood, having wandered off the path, not sure where you are. Afraid and lost. As vulnerable as a lost sheep? Most of us at some time or another have done some wandering. We are human after all, and life is not easy.
But here is the good news! We have a shepherd and as the gospel of Luke tells us this shepherd, if one of us sheep loses our way, comes after us, searching and calling, and when he finds us he lays us on his shoulders and carries us home. (Luke 15: 3-7)
One writer puts it this way, “So long as we imagine it is we who have to look for God, then we must lose heart. But it is the other way about: he is looking for us… He has followed us into our darkness; there where we thought finally to escape him, we run straight into his arms.” (Simon Tugwell, Prayer, quoted in A Guide to Prayer at page 161, Job and Shawchuck, The Upper Room, Nashville, Tennessee, 1983).
The Lord is my shepherd.
There is in John 10 an intimacy and affection of relationship between the sheep and the shepherd for they know his voice and he calls them by name. Jesus compares it to his own relationship to his loving Father. So you see, God knows us by name and calls us to follow. It is a personal invitation requiring a personal response.
Each year one of the highlights of our worship together is
the Confirmation service. Usually on a Sunday evening in March, those ninth
graders gather with families in Fifield Hall for supper and introductions by
their peers to the elders who vote to receive them into the active membership
of this Church. Afterwards, we go to the
Sanctuary and after words of inspiration from
“John, Mary….you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. He has called you by name. Live in his love and serve him. And whatever you do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father.”
This is what it means to be his sheep. This is what it means to hear his voice and to follow him.
He is the good Shepherd upon whom our lives depend. He goes ahead of us leading the way, guiding us, encouraging us.
We can trust in his care.
But there’s one more thing.
Three times in this passage from John, Jesus describes the Good shepherd as one who lays down his life for the sheep. Not only does he care for us and is willing to go searching for us, but the good shepherd is willing to give his own life for the sheep...
And of course, that is precisely what Jesus did. He gave his life for us for the forgiveness of our sins, to reconcile us to the Father by his death and resurrection. That is why this church exists and that is why we are all here this morning.
We don’t really understand this and as George said last week there are different theories of what we call the atonement, but at the heart of it is the love of God and the good Shepherd who can be trusted and who loves us so much he gave his own life for us, helpless sheep. Through him we have received salvation and abundant life.
The Heidelberg Catechism, one of the Reformation Creeds,
produced in
“What is your only comfort in life and in death?” Think for a moment about how you would answer that question.
And now listen to our faith’s response.
“That I belong – body and soul, in life and in death – not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil…”
The good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep.
The writer of the letter of 1st Peter puts it this way. “He himself bore our sins in his body at the cross, so that, free from sin we might live for righteousness, by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.” (1st Peter 2:24-25).
He is the good Shepherd. We are his sheep.
He is calling each of us by name.
Can you hear his voice?
Let us pray:
Lord, you are the Good Shepherd, and we are the people of your pasture, the sheep of your hand. Help us to hear your voice and to follow where you lead. For we trust in you.
In name of Jesus.
Amen.