"I Just Wanna Be A Sheep"

Joshua J Sander
4/29/12
Fourth Sunday of Easter
“I Just Wanna Be A Sheep”

Acts 4:5-12
John 10:11-18

In case you hadn’t noticed, Emmi and I are animal lovers. We were both happy to introduce Samantha the Guinea Pig to you last week. Emmi grew up with a Golden Retriever. My family had a Great Dane. We hope to someday have a dog of our own. And as we’ve been finding our way around Biglerville we enjoy seeing the animals of the area: cows, horses, and yes, sheep. And so as I read today’s scripture lesson I realized that all of you are either responsible for the welfare of an animal or know someone who is. I’m not an Israeli shepherd, but when the smoke detector goes off in the middle of the night, rescuing our pet is one of our first thoughts. We may not all keep livestock, but on a very real level we can understand the metaphor that Jesus is using when he speaks of shepherds and sheep.

Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

The way I see it there are two important things to pull out of this metaphor. The first of these is that we are sheep. And honestly, with a good shepherd, being a sheep is a pretty good deal. The shepherd knows the sheep individually, and they know the shepherd. The shepherd calls the sheep by name and they follow the shepherd. And the shepherd protects the sheep from all kinds of danger: from thieves and bandits who come to steal and kill and destroy—from wolves who snatch and scatter.

We know that God knows what it like to be stolen and killed and destroyed—we know that God knows what it’s like to be snatched up by a wolf—because God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ and lived a human life and was tortured to death. This God is the Good Shepherd and he is the one who protects us… I don’t know about you, but I find that to be a very comforting thing.

But asserting that we are the Good Shepherd’s sheep begs a couple of questions. First, how well do we hear the voice of the Shepherd? It’s actually pretty easy to make an idol of the cross as the instrument of our salvation, to shout from the rooftops that Jesus died for our sins, to ask our neighbors if they’re born again and therefore saved—and forget all about the things that Jesus taught and lived. It is important to wonder What Would Jesus Do, but perhaps is would be more to the point to ask What Would Jesus Say?

I still say that it’s pretty comforting to be under the Shepherd’s protection. But it’s challenging, too. For one thing, there’s something kind of screwy about human nature. We all want to belong, but we have a tendency to get jealous as well. Put more simply, generally speaking, we all want to be members of the flock but we have difficulty playing well with others. Perhaps this is why Jesus takes the time to build a little warning into his sheep metaphor, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

The truth is that human psychology strongly resists change. We want our communities to grow and be healthy, but we want everything to stay just the way it’s always been—do you see the problem here? “I have other sheep… I must bring them also.” Have you ever wondered who the other sheep are? I mean, what if they’re really, really ‘other.’ I mean, what if they’re really, really different from what you’re used to? I’m not talking about unhealthy, disruptive, antagonistic influences—those really can scatter a flock. I’m talking about those other sheep that hear the voice of the Shepherd. We each need to look deep into our hearts and wrestle with the idea of bringing in those sheep. Every church has a sign that says, “All Are Welcome.” This congregation has the vision to be a spiritually strong multi-generational congregation that reaches out to all. So look into your hearts. Are you prepared to live out that vision? What does that vision mean to you? How do you hear the voice of the Shepherd? Don’t answer me now. Pray on it. Sleep on it. And when the Spirit moves you, come tell me about, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The second part of the metaphor we should pull out, is the idea of being the shepherd ourselves. As challenging as it is to be one of Christ’s sheep, I think that attempting to live Christ-like lives is an even greater challenge. Take the example of Peter in the New Testament reading this morning.

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

So Peter spoke to the people. He told them that their God, God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of their ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus. He told them that he was talking about the same Jesus that was handed over to Pilate, the same Jesus for whom the very same crowd had cried out “Crucify him!” He told them that he was talking about the very same Jesus who had died and was now resurrected. And then he told them that the man who had been lame from birth had been healed by faith in the name of Jesus. At which point the priests—who were responsible for handing Jesus over—and the Sadducees—who didn’t believe in any afterlife, including the resurrection of the dead—promptly arrested Peter and John.

The next day, the leaders, scribes, and elders—including Caiaphas, the very same Caiaphas who handed Jesus over to Pilate to be crucified—questioned them, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” And Peter had the audacity—I mean he had the sheer nerve—to tell them exactly in whose name and with what power they had healed that man. And Caiaphas and all the other big-wigs couldn’t do anything about it in the end because nobody could deny that healing the guy had been a powerful and good sign. I think that if I’d been standing before Caiaphas I would have been afraid that tossing that in his face would be the same thing as laying my life down, wouldn’t you? But Peter strove to be Christ-like. He stood up to Caiaphas and won.

I know it’s difficult to put yourself in Peter’s place, so I thought maybe I should share a more modern example of good Christian folk following Jesus’ example as the Good Shepherd. And to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have run across it if it weren’t for Yom HaShoah. Yom HaShoah was one of the most powerful and most important interfaith services I had the opportunity to participate in when I was serving in Stratford, Connecticut. You see, Yom HaShoah is the official Jewish holy day for the remembrance of the Holocaust.

So, what I ran across is the story of the ten Boom family, which is told in the book The Hiding Place which was later made into a film by the same name. Corrie, Betsie, and their father Casper lived in the Netherlands, in the town of Haarlem, where they owned and lived in a shop that sold and repaired watches. Then, in 1940, the Nazis invaded Holland.

Due to their strong Christian beliefs, they felt obligated to help their Jewish friends in every way possible. The shop soon became the center for a major anti-Nazi operation. Corrie, who thought of herself as a middle-aged spinster, was suddenly involved in black market operations, stealing ration cards, and eventually, hiding Jews in her own home. In fact, The Dutch underground arranged for a secret room to be built in the shop, so the Jews would have a place to hide in the event of a raid.

It was a constant struggle for the family to keep the Jews safe, they sacrificed their own safety and part of their own personal space to give constant safety to the Jews. One day a man asked Corrie to help his wife, who had been arrested and Corrie cautiously agreed. As it turned out, the man was a spy, and the watch shop was raided. The entire ten Boom family was arrested, along with the shop employees, but the Jews managed to hide themselves in the secret room.

Casper was well into his eighties by this time, and a Nazi official offered to let him go, provided he made no more trouble. Casper does not agree to this, and was shipped to prison where he died ten days later. Corrie and Betsie were sent to Scheveningen, a Dutch prison which was used by the Nazis for political prisoners. Everyone else was released and the Jews who had hidden in the secret room were safe.

After four months, Corrie and Betsie were transferred to Vught, a Dutch concentration camp for political prisoners. The work was not hard, and the prisoner-foreman was kind. Betsie, whose health was starting to fail, was sent to work sewing prison uniforms.

When a counter-offensive against the Nazis seemed imminent, the prisoners were shipped by train to Germany, where they were imprisoned at Ravensbrück, a notorious women's concentration camp. The conditions there were hellish and it was there that Betsie's health failed and she died. Corrie was later released due to a clerical error, which is how their story survived to be told.

Hear the words of Jesus: I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

As for me, I love being a sheep. And I strive to be a good shepherd. And I hope and pray that you do too. Because that’s what being a Christian is.

Please be with me in the spirit of prayer. Oh Loving Shepherd, we pray that you protect us from the bandits and thieves and wolves of the world. We pray that you continue to speak to us so that we may recognize your voice. And we pray that you help us to be better shepherds to our brothers and sisters as we do your work here on earth. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.