by The Rev. Dr. Max Lynn
SCRIPTURE READINGS Revelation 7:9-17, John 10:22-30
Transcribed from the sermon preached on MAY 8, 2022
Today we receive the vision of the risen Christ as Shepherd. I don’t have a lot of experience with sheep, but we have a Shepherd. Most of you know that when it comes to bath time, dogs seem to have a sense of doom and run to hide. Then when you get them they want to squirm and wiggle out of getting a bath. So I was pleasantly surprised one day when I went out in the back yard and I heard my wife speaking in this sweet mother’s voice and Paco the German Shepherd getting a loving bath. He hears his mom’s voice, and it calms him. Both my boys were the same way. They were game if I would get in the bath with them. But when it came to washing, they much preferred their mother, who would talk sweet and scrub them in a soft and loving way. The Lord is my mother, I shall not want. The idea is the same. The good shepherd like the good mother is the one whose voice we know, the one we trust, the one who comforts and makes us feel loved and safe.
Switching roles a bit, when we go out with Paco, Paco becomes the shepherd, especially when Feliciana goes with us. If I go alone, he wants to bolt out and get to the park as fast as possible. But if we step out and Feliciana is behind us, he will stop and wait. When she shows, he will spring toward her and bounce around, as if to say “Ok, you are here, let’s go.” Then he will go ahead until we get to a street or a corner, where he stops and turns around to make sure she is coming.
I have been surprised over the last several years at how easy people are led astray. It seems there is something in the human condition that leads us to follow others, especially those who speak and act like they know where they are going. They don’t even have to know where they are going, they don’t have to be going in the right direction, they just need to act like know where they are going.
We have seen people will follow someone with a big personality, just because they have a big personality. People will believe lies just because they are repeated over and over. People will not get vaccines just because a leader says the virus is a political plot against him. A few individual people will become violent and soon it turns into a mob riot. A popular person wears a certain type of clothing, and soon everyone else must have it. The irony of our individualistic culture is how the latest method of showing how different and individualistic you are becomes a fad. If I want to show how unique an individual I am, I have to follow all these other people to demonstrate it.
Years ago, in Eastern Turkey a shepherd was away from his sheep and the lead sheep fell off a cliff. All the rest of the sheep went off after them. You might have thought one of the other sheep would have said, hey, they keep going on and not coming back. Maybe we should reassess this situation, rethink it. But no. Sheep need guidance. So, the Prophet Isaiah said, “All we are like sheep who have gone astray.”
We follow the cultural trends, we follow the leader, whether it makes sense or not. If everyone lives stressed and hurried lives, we live stressed and hurried lives. If others a panicking and afraid, we get panicky and afraid. If people decide quickly someone is guilty, we denounce without due process. If someone says we should take ivermectin rather than a vaccine, we do so. If others say Ivermectin is only horse medicine, we act like anyone who would consider taking it for any reason is an idiot, even though it is a cheap medicine widely available all over the world as a parasitic. If someone says the election was fixed, we act as if the election was fixed.
If everyone decides it is cool to wear our pants down at our knees, we wear our pants down by our knees. Of course, that is to show we are not conforming to the other sheep who think that khaki slacks, shoes and a belt means the world is alright. If everyone is on their phone all the time, we are on our phone all the time. The phone has become our shepherd, and a pretty good one some of the time. How often do we see a group of kids together and each one of them is on their phone? If one has something interesting to attend to, we must show we have something to attend to too. Sheep.
Everyone needs a shepherd. Bob Dylan says "everybody has to serve somebody." Our shepherd is whoever or whatever we allow to direct our lives. Our shepherd is that person or thing we trust to lead us, to make our life worthwhile. Our job or our money can be our shepherd. Maybe it is alcohol or drugs, a relationship, a certain person, or leader of a cultural movement. But there are good shepherds and there are bad shepherds and false shepherds.
And when we find ourselves in the valley of the shadow of death, those false shepherds might lead us astray. Your job, your money, your popularity, the fact that you are following the latest trend or fad will not offer much support or shepherding there.
Now our scripture says Jesus is the good shepherd. You have probably heard of hospitals with that name. No doubt the hospital was started by the church, following the lead of our good shepherd in caring for the sick.
This morning, Jesus says, my sheep know my voice. We might ask ourselves, how does someone know a voice is from the good shepherd. Galatians 5:22 says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control.
When Jesus is our shepherd, we don’t need to frantically follow others off a cliff, don’t need to be driven by fear, don’t need to let frustration tempt us to lash out, don’t need to rely on propaganda and lies.
Now what we get with the resurrection of Jesus our shepherd is the knowledge that the love and life of God is more powerful that those forces of the bad shepherd, even when others start flocking to them and following them off a cliff.
We can stay steady, calm, kind, truthful, sensible knowing Jesus is our shepherd. It is tempting to think of death as a cliff. But from a cosmic perspective, meaninglessness and falsehood and evil are the cliff, while living with the purpose of God, staying focused on goodness and kindness and peace is the Way of the Good Shepherd, even if and when death Is part of the process. As Christians who know the Grace of the Good Shepherd, we know we don’t get out of life alive. We don’t get out without suffering. It is inevitable, so we might as well hold strong in our integrity, in our faith, in our loving work for the good. There is joy in that, there is good night’s sleep in that. When we act for the good of something greater than ourselves, we feel good about ourselves. Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
As Christians we can expect to suffer and die. Still, death is not the end of the story.
Our passage from Revelation speaks to the resurrection of all those who recognize the voice of the lamb who becomes the shepherd. There is an odd twist of paradoxical language. The robes of the martyrs are white because they have been washed in the blood of the lamb. It is Christ’s death that breaks open the vision and possibility for the resurrection of the martyrs. It is his power, and his power as we hear in John, is God’s power. “The Father and I are one.” The lamb who sacrifices his life for others is also the Shepherd who now rules from the throne. The shepherd whose voice we recognize is King.
The one who the empire makes an example of, the one who loses, rises victorious. The lamb becomes the shepherd. We are invited to take on this cosmic vision of the universe and a power that is greater, way greater than the supposed powers of this world. It changes our perspective. With this cosmic perspective we have a higher purpose, a higher calling than just surviving, a higher calling than following those other shepherds, the violent drug cartels, the narcissistic wealthy wolves who drive wars and markets, the petty or angry stars, memes, and fads of social media, or even those who expect the government to solve all our problems. We know better, they are not the voice of our shepherd.
Can you hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, welcoming you, comforting you, cleansing you, calling us lambs to become shepherds ourselves? Trust the voice of Jesus and he will lead us home.