Acts 2.42-47                                                                                                          Carol A. Solovitz

Psalm 23                                                                                                                 Easter 4A

1 Peter 2.19-25                                                                                                       April 17, 2005

John 10.1-10, [17]

 

 

The Door of Life

 

 

          Dear Fellow Members of the Flock of Christ, may the grace and peace of our Good Shepherd, Lord, and Savior be with you today.  Amen

A number of years ago, the church we attended in Minneapolis decided to have a live nativity scene at the Sunday school Christmas program.  In the chancel, there were a couple dressed as Mary and Joseph, and their baby was Jesus lying in a manger.  There were the wise men and shepherds.  But there was more.  There were animals, too – a cage of rabbits, two trained doves, and one great big sheep.  We had borrowed the sheep, whose name was Willie, from the Como Zoo.  Some of the young people had picked him up on Saturday afternoon and brought him to the church, where he spent the night in a furnace room until it was time for his theatrical debut.  Willie was very gentle – very tame – but he weighted about 300 pounds, so he did just about whatever he wanted.  He also was pretty scared, and everyone did their best to comfort him.  Willie had taken a liking to Jeff, a young man who had fetched him from the zoo and helped settle him at the church.  Jeff fed Willie and stayed overnight in the furnace room with him.  When other people tried to coax Willie and comfort him, he would ignore them or push them away.  But if Jeff spoke to him, Willie would do anything. 

During the Christmas program, Willie was tied to a bale of hay near the altar, and he made it through most of the service with Jeff sitting nearby.  When worship was almost over and the pastor came up to pray, Jeff went to sit in a pew.  Apparently, Willie didn’t like the pastor’s voice, because when Pastor started to pray, Willie began to bleat.  Pastor stopped, and Willie stopped.  Pastor prayed, and Willie baa-ed.  It was pretty tough on Pastor to compete with a sheep and to keep the congregation – and himself – from laughing out loud during the prayers.  Finally, Jeff had to come back up, put his arms around Willie and talk to him during the prayers.  Willie knew his voice and trusted him alone.

Parents experience this often when their children – even tiny babies – cry in someone else’s arms but calm down as soon as Mommy or Daddy takes them back and speaks to them.  It does not matter how softly or lovingly the other person speaks; Baby needs to hear only the voice of Mama or Dada.  There is an innate knowledge that this voice means safety, comfort, and nourishment.

“Very truly,” said Jesus, “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 hears 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.  They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

Now we live in a pretty advanced, industrialized society; even farming has become corporate.  So isn’t it odd that the Church spends so much time talking about sheep?  The Bible mentions the subject about 300 times, so it is important to believers to know about sheep and shepherds.  Even if we do know a few things about sheepherding, we should understand that raising sheep in our day has changed from biblical times.  For one thing, in biblical times sheep were an important sign of wealth.  If you owned many, many sheep, you had plenty of food, milk, clothing and sacrificial offerings.  Sheep came to be a form of monetary exchange; they were on the “lamb standard” instead of the gold standard that we use.

By nature, sheep are affectionate, unaggressive, defenseless, and in constant need of care and supervision.  Of course, they need to be well-protected.  And considering their value in those days, protecting the sheep was necessary to human life.  The flocks were easy prey to both thieves and wild animals such as wolves.  So sheep owners kept the flock safely enclosed in a fold, surrounded by a high wall if possible, with a gatekeeper at the opening.  After the sheep were gathered in, the gatekeeper would lie down in front of the opening and keep out the enemies.   Robbers and animals had to climb the wall or get past the gatekeeper to get in.  The shepherd came in by the door because he was known to the gatekeeper as well as to the sheep.  His voice was so familiar to them that he could gain entry even when it was dark.  Then he could lead them to green pastures.  There was no need for sheepdogs or horses or even sheepherding pigs like Babe.  It was all done by voice – the shepherd’s voice which they knew and trusted.  Just like Willie, they knew whom it was safe to trust.

Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.  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 reminded of another story.  Perhaps you have heard me tell this one before, but it is so appropriate here that I will risk repeating it.  There were two little girls, the daughters of my husband’s cousin, who were fighting incessantly one rainy day because the younger one kept trying to go into her older sister’s room.  The fighting became so loud and boisterous that their mother finally sentenced both of them to their rooms with poster board and markers.  They were each told to make a sign for the doors of their rooms.  It wasn’t long before the girls emerged with their signs, asking for tape to hang them.  This is what the older sister had written: “KEEP OUT – GO AWAY – PRIVATE.”  Just to be sure the message got across, she drew a skull and crossbones at the bottom.  But here is what the younger sister wrote on her sign in the middle of a brightly colored, flowered border: “WELCOME.”

I think of this little story when I read John 10 and the 23^rd Psalm.  Jesus says, “I am the gate for the sheep.”  Here we have an image of Jesus the Shepherd at the same time that he is Jesus the Sheepgate who says, “Keep out; go away,” at the same time that he says, “Welcome.”  When the shepherd actually was the gate of the sheepfold, it meant that he would stand at the opening and call the sheep to shelter, then put his own body between the sheep and their enemies.

There is a similar image of keeping out and welcoming in the 23^rd Psalm, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”  Dr. Alvin Rogness reflects on this verse, saying, “Can it be true that in this world of danger God keeps throwing a party for me?  For me to close my eyes to the grim issues that face the world and forget the war that rages and celebrate in my little corner – that I can understand.  But that God would do it for me is another matter.”  The Lord is protecting us sheep and throwing a party of welcome, while simultaneously keeping out the wolves at the door.

Jesus said, “I am the gate.”  By entering the gate, a sheep becomes part of the flock.  If it refuses to in, it remains apart from the other sheep.  It spends the night in the open, in danger, exposed to wild beasts, thieves, frightening storms, starvation and loneliness.  The gate of the sheep is the means of safety from such hazards.  Jesus is the gate; he is the door of life.  He says, “Enter by me, be safe, and find good pasture.”  Later in John 10, Jesus adds, “I am the good shepherd; I know my own, and my own know me.”  He is both the sheep gate and the good shepherd.  What is a good shepherd?  It is someone who searches for the lost sheep – even one lost sheep – knowing that they cannot find their way back alone.  He stays awake when watching over the flock.  The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.  This is not a hired hand who does a good job until faced with danger.  A hireling flees in the face of danger.  No one has more concern for the sheep than their owner, for that is the one who has the most to lose.  The Good Shepherd serves, sustains and saves the sheep.  If they are threatened, he risks his life for them, dying so that they might live.  Our faith is based on the trust that Jesus did exactly that for us.

If we agree to think of ourselves as sheep, we see that the success of the flock depends more on the shepherd than on the sheep.  Jesus is our shepherd – the One who calls us, misses us, searches for us when we have wandered, waits for us, feeds us, protects us, and lays down his life for us… All the while remembering that even with all of our negative, wayward, provoking, demanding, ungrateful qualities, we still belong to the Good Shepherd.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  The Church, as his body, is to be the good shepherd in the world, watching over and caring for all of the Lord’s sheep.  Together we are to shepherd each other and the Lord’s children everywhere.  That is the life – safe, abundant, joyful – of those who hear and heed the voice of Jesus.

Let us pray: Lord, speak to us.  Call us, keep us safe, guide us gently, and teach us your ways.  In Jesus’ name we pray,  Amen.