Speaker: Pastor Stephen “Tig” Intagliata
Bible Passage: John 10:1-16
Summary: Shepherd is a common metaphor used to describe God in the Old Testament. Similarly, Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd, which reminds us of his identity as a provider, protector, and prophet. As shepherds and their sheep have an intimate relationship, Jesus invites us into close communion with him where we listen for his voice to guide us, which is first and foremost the voice of love.
“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. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7 So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me[a] are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 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.”
My sister Anita has a birdcage in her kitchen with two parakeets. The official name she told me for a parakeet is a budgie. Now we had budgies growing up, but the way my sister treats her birds is a night and day difference than how we treated, or shall I say neglected, our pet birds.
Not only does Anita make sure they have water and food, and keep her budgies’ cage clean, she also takes them to the vet when they’re sick. And she knows them so well she can tell by the slightest thing if something is wrong with one of them.
She also spends quality time with her budgies. And they have this really close relationship. She has trained them to respond to her voice and obey her commands to do some pretty cool tricks.
Today’s story isn’t about birds, but sheep, and it’s about Jesus being a Good Shepherd to his sheep, and knowing his sheep so well, just like my sister Anita does with her budgies and Cory does with his sheep.
We’re continuing theme on the “I Am” statements of Jesus—we’ve looked at “I am the light of the world”, “I am the true vine”, and last week “I am the resurrection and the life”. Now today we’re looking at “I am the Good Shepherd”.
Shepherd is a common metaphor in the Bible. In the well-known Psalm 23, God is described as a Shepherd to God’s people.
Human leaders like David were also referred to as Shepherds of the people of Israel. David was a literal shepherd of sheep when he was younger, and when he was anointed as king in front of representatives of the 12 tribes of Israel, they said
the Lord told you, You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will be Israel’s leader. (2 Samuel 5:21)
Unfortunately, most of the time that human shepherds are referred to in the scriptures, it’s in a negative light. They haven’t been good shepherds, but bad ones, false shepherds instead of true shepherds:
We see this in passages like Ezekiel 34, where the prophet says:
The Lord God proclaims to the shepherds: Doom to Israel’s shepherds who tended themselves! Shouldn’t shepherds tend the flock? You don’t strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, bring back the strays, or seek out the lost; but instead you use force to rule them with injustice…
And then God intervenes to take the place of those worthless shepherds. God proclaims: I myself will search for my flock and lead them.
Now let’s look at our passage today in the New Testament where Jesus says “I am the Good Shepherd”. It’s very likely that Jesus used this metaphor here because of the context of the situation, which had to do with some bad shepherds in the previous chapter.
In the ninth chapter of John, there’s the story of Jesus healing a blind man. It’s a dramatic story in a number of ways.
First, the healing itself is pretty dramatic, how Jesus made mud with his saliva, rubbed it on the man’s eyes, and then told him to go and wash it out. And then the man could see again.
And then what compounds the drama is this long scene where some Pharisees, religious leaders, interrogated the guy trying to coerce him into saying that the healing was fake and that Jesus was an imposter because he healed him on the Sabbath.
But the guy said “I believe Jesus is a prophet”. And he stood by his word, and the Pharisees finally got so fed up that they sent him away.
When Jesus got wind of this interrogation, he has some strong words for the Pharisees who harassed the man who was healed. Basically he says that they are now the ones who are blind and can’t see. They are the imposters.
So Jesus saying that he is the Good Shepherd in the next chapter is clarifying his identity as the true shepherd and prophet. And in contrast, the religious leaders are like the thieves and the robbers in the story; they are like false shepherds who are trying to lead people astray.
Or they’re like the hired hands who don’t really care about the sheep or their well-being, and who run away when the sheep are in danger.
So let’s look more closely at what exactly makes a good shepherd, according to Jesus. How about a little alliteration? Jesus was a good shepherd in that he is a provider, a protector, and a prophet.
We’ve already seen through Cory’s children’s time about his sheep and my sister’s video of the budgies what it means to be a good provider of what the animals need to survive and be healthy.
In Psalm 23, we see the Shepherd leading his flock to green pastures to eat and still waters to drink. Speaking of providing for the sheep’s needs…
On Wednesday of this past week I took a tour of The Lamb Center, a daytime drop-in center for people experiencing homelessness. It’s only about a mile from here. My tour guide was the new director of development, Marisa Alonso.
When I walked through the door there were all these people sitting around tables in a big room, and a bunch of them were involved in a Bible study. Behind them was the kitchen, where volunteers were getting lunch ready.
To the right, there was a big laundry room, where other volunteers were busy washing clothes the guests had brought in, so they could have clean clothes.
I also saw some offices for counseling and other support services. And then we went upstairs and there was a big pantry, a clothes closet, a nurses’ station and a dental office, mostly all provided by donations and volunteers.
What an amazing ministry the Lamb Center is, providing for the many needs that people without a roof over their heads have, people who are vulnerable in so many ways like lambs. They are truly the hands and feet of Jesus.
I encourage you to check out The Lamb Center’s website to see if there’s a way that you can get involved. And I want to explore ways that our congregation can be more involved in supporting our unhoused neighbors through the Lamb Center.
Remember when I invited us last Sunday to look for signs of the resurrection around us? Well, being at the Lamb Center was my sign. I just felt so much love and joy and hope there, in the faces of the guests and the staff and volunteers.
And I love the center’s vision: It says “a community where every individual is known, cherished, and has a place to call home”. It’s like a big shepherd providing for the needs of any sheep who show up at the door.
What a contrast to the attitudes that we have been hearing about from some politicians this past week about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. The dehumanizing, the demonizing, the hatred toward them—there’s nothing Christian or Christlike about this behavior, and it makes me so angry and sad.
I was glad to hear that a group of pastors in the area have come together to defend these immigrants and denounce the hatred and the threats against them.
The phrase in the Lamb Center’s vision that says “where every individual is known” is something that we see in Jesus’ description of the Good Shepherd in John 15. In verse 14, Jesus says,
14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father.
You see, Jesus and the Lamb Center are getting at one of the greatest needs that we all have as human beings, and that’s to be known. To be seen and not ignored. To be affirmed and loved for the uniqueness of who we are, and not just lumped in with everyone else, or worse yet, discriminated against.
Jesus knew his sheep by name, and as he once said, he knew if one was missing, and he would leave the other 99 and go to great lengths to find it and bring it back into the fold.
You want to know something cool about sheep and shepherds? Sheep can also recognize their real shepherd by their voice. Jesus mentioned this several times in this passage, that my sheep know my voice.
Shepherds talked to their sheep, they sang to them, maybe they even counted sheep in their sleep! And some shepherds have little flutes that they played a familiar tune to their sheep so their sheep could recognize them.
Maybe they played something like this: (Play Mary had a Little Lamb on recorder).
There’s an intimate relationship between sheep and their shepherd, and that helps the shepherd provide exactly what the sheep need.
And that close relationship not only helps them provide for but also protect their sheep. Isn’t it true that the more we know someone, and the more we care about them, the more we will do and sacrifice to protect them?
Think of what a mama bear does if someone gets too close to her cubs, or what a parent does when they sense their child is being treated unfairly or is in danger. Those protective genes kick in fast, right?
Just like parenting is not for the faint of heart, neither is shepherding. In Gary Burge’s commentary on this passage, he says:
“The good shepherd is not a portrait of a kindly man holding cuddly lambs. “Good” can just as well be translated as “noble”. The shepherd’s job was severe, tiring, and hazardous.”
Jesus knows his sheep so well and he loves them so much that he says “I lay down my life for my sheep.” He’s willing to put his life on the line to protect his sheep from danger.
Knowing this about the Jesus we serve can give us courage and comfort in the face of hardship and opposition.
We see this in David’s words in Psalm 23: even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, what? I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
And then he goes on to say, “you prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies”. God provides for us and protects us even in the most challenging and dangerous situations.
It’s not surprising that to our Anabaptist forebearers, the metaphor of God and Jesus as the Good Shepherd was one that they clung to closely as they were persecuted and even died for their faith.
In the Martyr’s Mirror book recounting their stories, it says that: “they gained assurance of being safely in their shepherd’s protecting arms, out of which they cannot be snatched.”
And this leads us to our third and final “P” word to describe Jesus as the Good Shepherd. And that’s prophet. Jesus as the true Shepherd has much to do with him being the true prophet of God.
Just as a Shepherd’s role is to guide and lead his sheep down the right paths, a prophet’s role is to lead people on the path of living right with God, and corral them back in when they stray off the path.
When we follow where Jesus leads, we will live right with God and we will experience the abundant life that Jesus talks about in this passage, or as some other versions put it, live life to the fullest. The Hebrew word for it is shalom.
I think one of the challenges we face as people of faith today is hearing and recognizing Jesus’ voice above all the other voices around us telling us their versions of how to view the world and what will make us happy in life.
Even among Christians there are so many different voices, and unfortunately, there are a lot of false prophets and false shepherds out there, among people known as biblical scholars, “Christian” politicians, pastors, talk radio hosts, and on social media.
I don’t claim to have all the answers, and I want to be open to being corrected if I’m in some way leading people astray from the way of Jesus. And I want to show grace to people who don’t see things exactly how I do.
So how do we discern between good shepherds from bad shepherds? I think that the best litmus test we can use is to ask the question: How does the person’s words and values match up with the words and witness of Jesus? Do they echo the voice of Jesus we know from the gospels?
The same John who wrote that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, also wrote three letters to churches that are near the end of the Bible, right before the book of Revelation, which he also wrote.
John wrote to churches that had false shepherds, like we have today. He sometimes referred to them as antichrists. And John’s letters are focused on calling people back to the foundation of their faith with Jesus as the center.
And John’s message throughout these letters is that the foundation of faith in Jesus is love. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God…Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. And on and on he goes about love.
The voice of Jesus the good shepherd is first and foremost a voice of love. A love that provides for and protects his sheep, to the point of laying down his life for them. A love that seeks out and welcomes those sheep who are lost,
those who are vulnerable, wounded, those who are looked down upon by society, those who suffer injustice. If the voice we hear is a voice of hatred, and prejudice, it’s probably not the voice of the Good Shepherd. But if there is love in the voice, it’s most likely the voice of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Amen.
