April 25, 2021 – John 10:11-18
John 10:11-18
One
Fourth Sunday of Easter – April 25, 2021
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The good shepherd says:
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.
In his own context, Jesus is apparently speaking of Gentiles here: Romans, Greeks, etc.
Any of the known non-Jewish peoples.
Who would be the “other sheep” today?
In our context?
Jesus was about gathering people together.
What maybe often gets missed on Good Shepherd Sunday is this element of gathering.
Sometimes we think of the shepherd going after that one sheep,
And that can lead to thinking of Jesus as my own personal shepherd.
Well, you are of inestimable value to the shepherd.
But, as Jesus says today, his concern extends as far as imaginable.
He has other sheep he loves.
And not only that, he has other sheep he wishes to gather.
Gathering the sheep together – all the different sheep, mind – is at the front and centre
Of the shepherd’s task in today’s reading.
He would like all us different sheep to be one flock.
The point of the church is to be a place where all the different sheep gather in love.
This could come across as somewhat autocratic, but I don’t think it necessarily is.
The shepherd knows the sheep – knows that they are all different.
And more, the shepherd delights in the sheeps’ difference.
He knows and loves you just as you are.
Just as he knows and loves the sheep next to you just as she is.
The shepherd desires nothing more than to gather you together in one flock.
This seems like such an outlandish notion at the current time.
We live at a time when we assume “division” is our natural state of being.
Woman and man.
Democrat and Republican.
Rich and poor.
White and BIPOC.
Cis gender and transgender.
This has led more and more to defining ourselves in terms of who we’re against,
Rather than what we’re for.
Each group looks to its own interests against the interests of the other sheep.
But the other sheeps’ interests are of equal importance to the shepherd.
The shepherd is not interested in division.
The shepherd is not interested in antagonism.
The good shepherd is interested in gathering.
I certainly don’t get the sense that
the good shepherd is interested in making all the sheep the same.
I think the good shepherd is interested in helping us delight in one another’s difference,
In one another’s experiences – and in learning and growing as human beings from that.
I would go so far as to say that we cannot become all that God has created us to be if
We do not come to an understanding of and appreciation for how we are all different.
We need the sheep who are different.
Jesus knows we need the other sheep who are different.
We need immigrants and 4th generation Canadians.
We need the monetarily poor as well as the monetarily wealthy.
We need the cis gendered as well as the transgendered.
It is not our sameness that makes us one – it is the Shepherd who makes us one:
The Shepherd who is willing to lay down his life for all the sheep.
The shepherd is inviting us to grow in love for one another by
leaning into one another’s differences.
By really trying to understand what makes another person tick.
By really listening to another person in order to come to an appreciation of his or her heart.
We tend to think, “If it’s not important to me, then it’s really not that important,”
But that is so far from the truth.
It is important for someone – and that makes it important for me.
We for sure are talking about the church here, and how our relationships ought to be ordered.
But what about our workplaces? Our schools? Our relationships?
Marriages are a wonderful laboratory for such experiments.
And so is child-rearing.
I have mentioned before that the last year has afforded me the opportunity to spend
a LOT of time with my son.
We have watched a lot of television together.
It has given me the opportunity to do something I would never otherwise have done:
Watch innumerable shows and films about superheros!
I did it because I love him, and I want to know about his passion for these shows.
What I have learned is that notions of honour, friendship, and sacrifice are important to him –
And likely countless others who love these shows.
I have learned that justice and compassion are important to him –
As well as, I suppose, well-told stories and good characterization.
This has enriched our relationship – and enriched my life as well.
I’m not the same person I was a year ago – and while we were always close, we are closer yet.
But I had to, you know, put my money where my mouth is and walk my own talk:
I had to suspend my own prejudices and enter into his world.
I may not agree with this or that superhero’s methods, or even with
the black and white worldview of so many comic book worlds.
But that’s not why I entered into the experiment:
I entered into it to more fully understand my son’s heart,
so I could love him better and so we could have a better relationship.
When God raised Jesus from the day, God gave Jesus room to continue to go about his ministry.
His ministry was primarily about giving others room to be themselves and create a
Roomy community of diverse sheep who were dedicated to inclusion and healing.
As one commentator notes this week,
The divisiveness that plagues both society and the church is contrary to the divine call.
The Good Shepherd loves the other sheep – that is reason enough to love them and
To want to be one flock with them.
The Good Shepherd is inviting us not just to accept others – although he is –
But to really gain an understanding of another’s experience, another’s journey,
another’s heart.
This is how we grow as human beings, and this is how we grow as a community.
We are doing a good job at First Lutheran Church of being a diverse, loving community.
Let us continue to heed the Shepherd’s call and put the lessons we have learned here to good use out in the world we are sent to.
May we all be One.
Amen
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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