May 3, 2020 – John 10:1-10
John 10:1-10
The Shepherd Gives Life
4th Sunday of Easter – May 3, 2020
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The 4th Sunday of Easter is often called Good Shepherd Sunday.
This chapter in John’s Gospel develops this image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.
In all three years of the lectionary cycle we hear, in fact, from this chapter.
But in each year we get a different part of the chapter.
Next year we will hear Jesus famously say, “I am the Good Shepherd.”
But this year’s selection – while heavy on sheep and sheepfolds – actually speaks more
specifically of a different image.
Here – as I elaborated on in my Devotion Moment last Thursday on this passage –
Jesus says of himself, “I am the Gate,” or in a more literal translation,
“I am the Door.”
The Door, that is, to the sheepfold.
The Door that lets the sheep in at night, keeps them safe,
and opens in the morning so the sheep can go find food and water.
For whatever reason, this Sunday is not called, “Good Door Sunday.”
Just doesn’t have the same ring to it, I guess.
But Jesus as door is a rich image, which I tried to suggest in my devotion.
Nevertheless, Jesus does speak of how shepherds care for sheep in contrast to thieves.
Shepherds ensure the safety and well-being of their sheep so that their sheep can flourish.
Thieves only come to steal and disrupt the life of the flock and destroy and
either sell or kill the sheep for their own well-being.
Shepherds have the well-being of the sheep as their priority.
Thieves have only their own – they care nothing for the sheep.
This aside on shepherds and thieves is part of a longer story John tells about Jesus.
John is telling the story about the Man Born Blind, which begins in chapter 9.
A man, a blind beggar, by the side of the road is healed by Jesus of his physical blindness.
The Pharisees and Religious Authorities (“Jews” in our [lacking] translation) –
who are supposed to be the shepherds of Israel – expelled the healed blind man
from their community.
Refusing to believe that Jesus and his healing work come from God,
they are more interested in protecting their position and their authority than
in recognizing other ways in which God might be at work.
As a result they place their own prestige ahead of their people’s well-being.
Not only does he save the man from stigma, social isolation, poverty, and hunger by
restoring his physical sight, he leaves the man free to join the fold of his community Immediately after this Jesus begins to speak of the sheepfold,
and how a shepherd gathers the sheep into safety and community to care for them while
the thief seeks to steal the sheep away from community and destroy their lives.
Jesus worked in opposition to the religious authorities of his day who were not working for
the well-being of their people but only for their own.
He also worked in opposition to Roman Imperial authority, which was also supposed to be
caring for the people’s well-being but which again had only its own interest at heart.
Both religious and political authorities often referred to themselves as good shepherds,
whose job it was to ensure the life of the people flourished.
But Jesus exposed this lie.
He lived in a society in which – as we now know –
70-80 percent of the population was food insecure.
The so-called Good Shepherds were anything but – in fact, they were thieves.
It is for opposing the thieves and for exposing their lies that Jesus was executed.
It was, after all, the religious and political authorities working together who put him to death.
Which showed, ultimately, that Jesus had the sheep’s well-being in mind all along:
he didn’t put his well-being before theirs.
Jesus had had the people’s well-being at heart all along.
As rooted in its own context as it is, John’s long story about Jesus remains relevant.
Just as in the first century we too are prone to ask daily, “Where is life to be found?”
Do political and religious authorities always have the people’s well-being at heart?
And if, for a moment, we expand our notion of the things that drain us of life beyond the
political and religious, we are well-equipped these days to name many!
Over the course of the Devotion Moments we have explored many ways in which our
social isolation from one another has drained us of life, good quality life.
Like a thief, social isolation is robbing us of physical and mental health.
For many it has stolen savings and livelihoods and jobs.
For those in essential services it has been even harder and has taken a deadly toll.
But just as clearly the Devotion Moments have reminded us of all the ways in which
Jesus continues to bring life behind closed doors.
The first Devotion Moment on Psalm 23 reminded us that, above all, at the centre of life,
Jesus is with us.
We are loved with a love that is no respecter of doors or walls or barriers of any kind.
And that love, it turns out, binds us together in a sheepfold that transcends all barriers.
Even though we are not able to physically gather together, we are still a church.
And we are still acting like a church.
The Good Shepherd has been with us, caring for us in love,
and in turn we have been caring for each other, both staying in for the sake of love and
reaching out to one another in love in many and various ways.
Jesus has continued to bring life.
This should strengthen our faith and our hope.
We should be encouraged that there is something powerful at work among us.
You have enabled God’s caring to continue among us through food banks and
refugee and immigrant support.
As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans:
We are more than conquerors in all these things through him who loves us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Shepherd continues to care for us.
And we continue to care for one another.
Life can still flourish – for the life that really is life is life lived in love.
There is nothing that can keep God from loving –
and there is nothing that can keep us from loving one another –
even in this time.
As I have recently reminded you,
Love is as strong as death, passion as fierce as the grave. (Song of Solomon 8:6)
So against all that would seek to steal or destroy or isolate,
let us remember the one whose love gathers and gives life.
Let us remember the shepherd who continues to care.
And let us remember the love that never ends.
The love that ever seeks us out and that ever seeks to bind us closer together.
So together, let us say a virtual, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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