Fourth Sunday of Easter
John 10:22-30
April 29, 2007

Good Shepherd

        Week before last, Sharon Kant-Rauch, the editor of the Religion Page at the Tallahassee Democrat, phoned me up and said, "I’ve been thinking about that TV documentary which aired on the Discovery Channel early in March – the one that claimed that the bones of Jesus and his family were found back in 1980 in ancient ossuaries (or bone boxes). Suppose that this claim is true. How would that affect your faith?"

        I told her as best I could over the phone. (I haven’t seen the program. I was in Israel when the it aired. But that doesn’t really matter. Her question is not a new one. A similar question appears in Presbyterian ordination exams every now and then.)

        "Well," she said, "I called up the minister at Unity of Tallahassee, and he said it wouldn’t make any difference to him."

        "You must mean Bill Williams," I said.

        Bill and I have been colleagues for years. I hold him in very high regard, and I’m sure it wouldn’t make any difference to Bill if Jesus’ bones were in that ossuary. For folks in the Unity movement, Jesus is the great teacher of eternal truths about eternal life. He’s a bit like John Brown, whose body lies a-moldering in the grave, but whose truth keeps marching on. I’m grateful to be marching with Bill at meetings of TEAM and in other social justice projects, but the plain fact is, the two of us don’t share the same faith.

        Anyway, Sharon asked me to write a response, and I did. She gave me a limit of 600 words. (Don’t get any ideas!) She must have done the same for Bill, because his response took up the same number of column inches as mine. After I hit the "send" button on the e-mail, I felt a bit like Pontius Pilate. "I have written what I have written."

        All of that is history. Those words are now good for wrapping mullet and lining bird cages. This reminds me of a time, years ago, when I was visiting Ruth English in her home. Ruth was in her late eighties by then, and unable to attend worship. Over iced tea she told me how much she enjoyed receiving my printed sermons.

        "I’m so glad you find them helpful."

        "Oh, I do," said Ruth. "I take a nap every afternoon, and those sermons are folded in just the right shape for me to put over my eyes when I’m sleeping."

        You shall know the truth and the truth shall keep you humble.

        In the light of today’s Gospel reading, I could have saved a lot of newsprint by writing one short sentence to print in the Democrat. It probably would have made just as great an impact and changed just as many minds as that 600-word essay. Instead of waxing eloquent about empty tombs and resurrection narratives, I could have simply written. "Count me in the flock of the Good Shepherd, who is alive and calls my name."

        That’s not a very philosophical response, I admit. It uses language from another century and an image outside our daily experience. When’s the last time you saw a sheep, much less a shepherd? I saw both on the hills outside Jericho early in March, right about the same time that TV documentary was airing in the United States. The sheep looked scrawny and underfed. The shepherd, a Bedouin boy of about fourteen, was wearing blue jeans and knock-off Foster Grants. He looked bored, to tell the truth, but sure enough, when he called out in Arabic, those sheep followed him.

        I am a follower of Jesus. Not Jesus, the dead philosopher. Not Jesus, the timeless teacher of truth. Not Jesus, the frustrated social reformer. But Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who calls my name and yours. Jesus, the paschal Lamb who was slain, and is now the risen Shepherd of the Sheep.

        Our passage from the Gospel of John recounts a confrontation between Jesus and his distracters. Be straight with us they demand. Lay it all out in black and white. Quit talking in metaphors and riddles. Every time we ask you, you say something like, "I am the vine, you are the branches." Or "I am bread, I am life, I am the way, I am the door." What’s that supposed to mean? Are you really the Messiah? Their frustration is obvious.

        So is Jesus’ frustration with them. He’s been with them all this time, teaching and giving them signs. They still don’t get it. Still they demand concrete evidence for the wind that blows where it will. Jesus went to the cross and rose from the dead, and still the world demands proof that he is who he says he is and does what he promises to do. Like the credentials committee in The Music Man, his distracters demand to see his bona fides, but unlike them, can’t seem to hear the music.

        "You’ve got to be born from above to get from where you are to where God wants you to be," Jesus tells Nicodemus. And to these frustrated inquisitors he says, "You do not belong to my sheep." In other word’s, it’s painfully clear that you just aren’t listening. Must not have your sheep’s ears on. "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me."

        I strongly suspect – at least I strongly hope – that many of you know exactly what Jesus is talking about. Why else would you be here this morning? You didn’t come for the ten-dollar bill taped under one of the pews. (Don’t look. I’m just joking.) You didn’t come because the culture thinks so highly of people like us, who get up on Sunday morning and wave at our neighbors in their dressing gowns.

        No, I think you’re here because you’ve heard his voice, too. As another preacher told his congregation:

        When you’ve seen and heard Jesus, you’ve seen and heard as much of God as you’re likely to see and hear this side of heaven. That’s what Jesus means when he goes on to say to his critics, "I and the Father are one." But you probably know that already. That’s why you’re here.

        "My sheep know me." Those who put their credence in TV shows about dusty old bones don’t know him. His critics and distracters don’t know him. Those who would recast him as a Gnostic philosopher don’t know him. But by the grace of God, you know him. There isn’t an explanation for that. It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle that happened to you.

        You might think that your way into the fold was rather humdrum and ordinary. How many testimonies begin "I was born in a Christian home and baptized as an infant, and there’s never been a time when I didn’t feel as though I belonged"? Don’t kid yourself, beloved one. That’s a miracle.

        Of course, the miracle happens in other ways, too.

        Albert Race Sample tells his own story, the story of a man whose prison name was "Racehoss." Racehoss grew up in a violent home and was a repeat offender in the Texas prison system. He was terribly damaged growing up, but learned survival skills in an environment of brutality almost beyond comprehension. Then came the day when, in the darkness of solitary confinement, he heard a voice. Here's what he says:

        "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me."

        There is another name for the Good Shepherd’s flock. It’s "the body of Christ." You and I are what Leslie Newbigin calls "the primary reality" of the gospel. The world looks to us to see the Good Shepherd. "Jesus didn’t write a book," says Newbigin. "He formed a community." He writes,

        In other words, as we follow the Good Shepherd, others will hear his voice, and the Good Shepherd will add them to the flock. That’s really the essence of evangelism, and it takes a congregation, a flock like this one, to do it with integrity.

                    Savior, like a shepherd lead us.
                    Much we need thy tender care.

        It’s not up to us to save the world, or even to expand the flock. The Good Shepherd will do both. Our calling is to listen and to follow.

Brant S. Copeland, Pastor

First Presbyterian Church

Tallahassee, Florida