Last Sunday I preached the following sermon at St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo NY.
It was for Good Shepherd Sunday (I threatened the Dean that I'd preach on German Shepherds instead), and was on the following propers:
Acts 2:42-47
1Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10


In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Recently I attended a lecture at Hobart College by Bishop Gene Robinson, bishop of New Hampshire. He had a few things to say about scriptural reference points and how by imposing modern framework onto scriptural societies, we can create a square hole/round peg phenomenon. He likened it to a novel written in our own time that uses a phrase like “out in left field” requires complex understanding of baseball and its importance in American culture,. Without understanding about baseball being important to our society, understanding that it’s played on a field, understanding that Babe Ruth consistently hit in the right field and tickets for that part of Yankee Stadium sold first, leaving left field tickets undesirable, without that understanding, a person reading a novel containing the phrase “out in left field” in a culture without baseball is going to be heartily confused.
And that’s what many of us are facing when we hear about sheep. We probably think of them as fluffy docile little clouds with legs, baaing through their simple little lives. Apparently, however, sheep smell. Apparently, they can be nasty and tempermental, obstinate and difficult.
Today, from the Gospel of St John, we hear an interesting record of the interaction between Christ and the disciples using sheep as a metaphor. At first in the Gospel, Christ introduces the concept of a shepherd, alluding to himself as the shepherd, though not explicitly stating it. He introduces a shepherd who uses the gate to enter the sheepfold, rather than climbing in over the fence. So far, it sounds pretty good. He then mentions that this shepherd is a shepherd who’s known by the gatekeeper, and known to the sheep inside the pen. Sounds like everything is in order. The sheep know this shepherd, and the shepherd know these sheep. The sheep follow this shepherd and do not run away from him. Even though we urban dwelling-20th century folk have a rudimentary understanding of animal husbandry, all of this sounds like it’s on the up and up and pretty easy to follow. Jesus is a shepherd, he knows the sheep and the sheep know him. Got it.
But the disciples don’t get it. Something went over their heads, or they weren’t paying attention, or they were distracted , or they were texting and driving or something.
So, Christ tries a different angle. Strangely, he goes from the pretty straightforward shepherd metaphor to something out in left field. He calls himself a gate, which doesn’t seem like it’s going to be helpful, but let’s stick with it and see where he takes it. Christ then states that he’s not a thief…a bit weird. So far, Christ is a gate, but not a thief, in case the disciples who were easy confused by the shepherd-sheep relationship might have thought that Christ was comparing himself next to a thief gate, but he clears that up. Next, he says that the sheep listen to him. So, he’s a non-thieving gate that the sheep can hear. But it’s clear that the disciples must still be lost, because Christ scraps all of it and concludes eloquently by declaring: I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
So, for us, this is like reading that somebody’s out in left field, and having no baseball reference point.
We are likely all far from sheep experts, and pretty clueless about the role of sheep and shepherds in first-century Palestine. It helps to understand the practice in Christ’s time: sheep were communally penned outside the village, and a young child was assigned to gather all of the sheep each morning to take them from the pen out to a pasture to graze. Because the collected flock represented a significant amount of wealth for the village, it was guarded and fenced and gated. Each morning, the young boy would approach and enter the gate; this boy was known to the watchmen, and the boy usually employed a whistle or call that the sheep would recognize and follow. Since this was all done in the dark, an hour or so before the dawn, the importance of knowing someone through dim light as he approached the gate, the importance of knowing his sounds and his whistle were paramount. Intimacy was required, as the senses of those participating were limited. Someone who jumped the fence, someone who used the wrong call, someone unknown to the gatekeeper was not the shepherd, but was a thief.
Shepherd boys in Christ’s time were much like our own paperboys: get up early while everyone is sleeping, fulfill a relatively thankless responsibility for the community, collect a pittance, but be trusted to do your job and to do it well and to do it every day, no matter the weather or how you felt or whether you wanted to.
But we should also explore his sheep and shepherd metaphor a bit more, to see some of the strengths and weaknesses of understanding Christ as a shepherd and consequently, us as his sheep.
First a weakness to the metaphor. Like the paper boy, the shepherd did not do his job for fun. A shepherd did not shepherd out of a love of sheep and a desire to understand the fascinating species better. People kept sheep in order to shear them for their wool and also to slaughter them for food. The sheep/shepherd relationship was transactional for the shepherd: make sacrifices by getting up each morning, but share in the investment during shearing season. The shepherd got something out of the sheep. At times, we may think of our relationship to Christ as our shepherd this way, as transactional. If I do good things, good things will happen to me. If I do bad things…well, best not to think about that. We think of church like a bonus program on our credit card, where we save up points to redeem when we want to get out of a speeding ticket or when we want a parking spot at Wegmans close to the door when it’s raining. Remember, God, I went to church last week? I even held the door open for that person I never talk to? So…help me out here and get me a spot. Or when we hear Christ talk about storing up treasure in heaven, we think that all of the time we spend in church or helping others or not breaking commandments is like a spiritual 401K that we deposit into, hoping there will be enough to see us through eternity once we enter into the final retirement.
But that’s not what Christ is pointing us to in this shepherd metaphor. It becomes clear that a transactional understanding of the sheep/shepherd relationship, and by extension, our relationship to Christ cannot be based on give and take. Both relationships involve a shepherd who is far stronger who gives of himself to protect and to defend, of a shepherd who shockingly knows the sheep individually, calls to them to reassure them that all is well and that he can be trusted. A shepherd who disproportionately gives of himself, who sacrifices beyond the merit and understanding of his flock, and who also guides, directs, helps, and encourages. A shepherd who goes looking for strays, even to his own peril. A shepherd who seeks out the lost and wandering. A shepherd who does not give up. This is not a relationship built on a return on investment, but on affection, trust, and love.
In the epistle we also heard today, the First Epistle of St Peter, we heard that we were going astray like sheep. We were: you and me, sheep away from where we were supposed to be, ovine AWOL. We had left the shepherd and decided to forge our own path, wander off after that yummy looking flower (probably poisonous) or see where that pretty butterfly was off to (likely over a cliff), or what that strange gray streak in the wood could have been (clearly a wolf). We were going astray like sheep.
I know it’s no longer Lent and that I clearly have no business talking about sin in a sermon, but that’s what we mean here. We use the euphemism “going astray like sheep” but we’re talking about leaving Christ behind, Christ who woke us up and led us out of the gate to a verdant pasture. But we went astray, we followed something else, we turned elsewhere instead of following. We sinned.
Christ comes back to us, finds us where we’ve wandered off, and brings us back to the fold. In many churches there are touching Victorian stained glass windows of Christ carrying an abashed lamb on his shoulders back to the flock, or stretching out a hand to rescue a sheep caught in brambles. How touching! How moving! But those windows are euphemisms, too. We need to see ourselves as those sheep fallen into brambles because of our carelessness; we need to see ourselves exhausted and scared and carried back home on Christ’s loving shoulders. But as moving as the imagery of Christ the Good Shepherd might be, it is powerless unless we admit that there are things about ourselves that have gone astray, things about ourselves that need shepherding. Sometimes we do not see that we are lost, and only when God’s grace returns us to the pasture do we recognize how far gone we were. But at other times we know we’ve strayed, but stubbornly refuse to accept that we put ourselves in this situation, we refuse to accept that we might need help, that we might not be strong enough to pick ourselves up this time. We ignore the blinking light on our spiritual dashboard, and assume that it will all work itself out, and that the engine will get along just fine..
But remember, the good shepherd knows his sheep, and the sheep know his voice. God is closer to your need than you are to acknowledging it. As Good Shepherd, Christ is always seeking to shepherd you through rough spots, through arid lands, through floods, through darkness. Christ is always whistling to you, waiting for you to hear his voice and follow. Christ is always seeking, always inviting, always encouraging. In the epistle to the Hebrews, the author urges you that if today you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart. If, in your darkness, your pain, your grief, or even your success and joy, you hear the voice of the Good Shepherd bidding you to follow him, then obey him and go. Go and know that he will never leave you, no matter how lost you are, no matter how much in you needs to be shepherded.
In Eucharistic Prayer B in our Book of Common Prayer is the beautiful prayer to the Father: In the fullness of time, put all things into subjection under your Christ. There are things about each of us that need to be placed into subjection under the Christ, there are things about us that need to be shepherded. This Eastertide is a time of renewal, of accepting that we have died with Christ, and that we are risen to a new life with Him. We remember in Eastertide that Christ came that we might have life, and have it abundantly. So, whether we are in times in our lives that we are dying with Him or if we are in times when we are Rising in Him, he remains always our Good Shepherd, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Amen.