Sermon 5th June 2011
Today, Ben Hughes preaches, based on the reading from John 10 - verses 1-10.
Today’s passage is about sheep and Jesus being the door to the sheep pen. A sheep pen being where sheep are kept over night, usually covered over, nearly always a compound or fenced in area safe from thieves and wild animals.
Now I don’t want to be ‘woolly’ about my theology in this one , or ‘sheepish’ regarding our approach to the subject…hopefully you can ‘baaah’ some of the things that I might say…even though it might appear simply as mutton dressed as lamb, or dressed as a wolf in a sheep’s clothing, but the ‘shear’ weight of this parable and the way it ‘rams’ truth home never leaves us with a sense of being ‘fleeced’ and I am in ‘ewe’ of the story – this parable of Jesus the attendant of the sheep fold door and good shepherds John tells us is the ‘horn of plenty’ and carries ‘grazing truth’ of God’s love for us…
Ok enough of that…
It is probably very offensive to call people sheep!
Offensive to sheep as well!!
And it is an insult that’s been around some time. It is an ancient and historical insult.
There are ancient hieroglyphics alluding to the enemies of the pharaohs doing unmentionable things with sheep…but that is not our story…because this passage is not really about sheep. The passage is about Jesus’ authority as the son of God.
However before we look at that it might be useful to put this parable in the context of the general Biblical sheep metaphor because to do so helps us better understand the very important issues that we can learn from this passage today…
Sheep are very significant in the Bible, but most people think that they are simply used to illustrate our human collective cowardice, naive stupidity and neediness… but that is not the true and full picture. Sheep are used to describe our need for total dependence on God in everything and all we do, think and say. The simple sheep analogy puts God back to where He belongs in all our lives…as the number one commandment tells us: Honour your God with all your heart, soul and mind. Like a sheep without a shepherd is us without God.
So sheep are used throughout the Bible to illustrate human dependence on the Almighty. And there are many references to this within the Old Testament - which are very useful for a better understanding of who and what and why Jesus came. Isaiah, when he is calling back Israel to repentance, describes God’s people ‘as like sheep that have gone astray’…. Job pleads with the almighty for a once and for all sacrificial lamb that can permanently remove the suffering and groans of all creation…Psalm 23, the true shepherd’s psalm reflects …the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want he lays me down in pastures green and by still waters he leadeth me for thou art with me thy rod and thy staff…etc. and who is the Lord in the Psalm that David is referring to? It is the shepherd… I believe that it is the very same Lord that we know and love today…
But is it still fair then to describe us as sheep? We could easily say that being called sheep is not only an insult but irrelevant image for us today … most of us have very little to do with the dirt and muck of farming and industrial food production. Sheep are the cute like little white fluffy clouds.
You see, I like to think of myself as independent and a free thinking educated individual…I am no sheep, I need no sheep pen, do I really need a shepherd? I am an individual….I am the modern man, concrete is my earth, food comes in a plastic package…I wear sports acrylics!!! And, you might further say…fair enough, Jesus was relating this story to those in his day…an agrarian society not like ours. It is simply not relevant to me…sheep. Not today…
But that is not right…this story has enormous relevance for us in many ways, believer and non believer alike…and more so now than ever before perhaps… because of these same modern ideas of independence, and the modern acceptance of everyone’s view being of equal value…this story is really important as it is saying that there is only one way….Jesus!!
Jesus is very clear in this story…I am the attendant, I am the door, all those that do not and have not come through me…are thieves and bandits. And how do you know that? …you know because my sheep – you the Christian believer with faith - Jesus says, recognise my voice.
So what does it mean to be then a ‘Jesus sheep’?
Most importantly, as mentioned already….being a ‘Jesus sheep’ means being totally dependent on God. We as humans need looking after… like sheep we can be pretty mindless and certainly at times fearful and afraid. I know that I am…We do follow one another down ruts and paths and can do so, even to our own destruction. I know that I do…plenty of ruts and habits in my life…
Like sheep without a good shepherd, we can and do pollute our own fresh water supply if left without proper guidance. As habitual sinners, who can say that they are not full of tics and disease? So we need a good periodic washing and de-lousing. That is what happens when we repent….God is removing the impurities and containments that if left as in sheep, get worse and become fatal.
Like sheep we get distracted by our desire to feed…we cannot help ourselves and we get lost following our basic desires, forgetting where we are, following the devices and desires of our hearts the prayer book tells us, then suddenly we look up and its ‘where am I’…’what am I doing here’ ‘….help me God!!’. And then like all the wealth and possessions that we cling to and think that we need so much, a sheep’s fleece gets heavy and it weighs it down and if by unfortunate accident, a sheep in a heavy fleece falls into water, it will drown. Also a heavy fleece gets caught on fences and briars….ensnaring a sheep making it easy prey for bandits and wild beasts. Heavy fleece needs stripping back regularly.
And these thieves, bandits and wild beasts…what do they represent in the illustration?… I like to understand them as the three ‘T’ s temptation, trial and the terror of evil if you like. Like sheep, we have all gone astray as to each one his and her own way…then we are left vulnerable and alone… prey to forces more powerful than ourselves.
That is why we are like sheep and that is why we need the good shepherd.
But is there even more to this story than doors and shepherds?
Jesus is being quite funny with this story….he is being very cryptic and having a bit of a laugh at the expense of the poor old Pharisees. He is, in telling this story, doing a Samson and bringing down the whole crumbling edifice of pharisaic religious law crashing down…and whilst doing so, Jesus is packing this metaphor of him being the door and good shepherd with enormous and significant theology about His own claims and his divine purpose.
This passage is a direct move on everything that the Pharisees taught and stood for….That is why it is very useful for us….especially if we are involved in evangelism and wanting to set a good Christian example to others.
Jesus is saying to the sanctimonious and elitist Pharisee …‘no more of this!’ No more complex rules and complex laws…no more temple, temple sacrifice, temple taxes, infinite debate of tiny aspects and ruminations regarding the rights and wrongs of levitical law. No more showing off and demonstrating holiness in front of others…no more long faced fasting…po – faced prayers…no more pious giving, be like the widow, or the forgiven whore, the broken innkeeper, the repentant tax payer, the failed fishermen, be real to me and real to yourself…enough of the farce, the fake faces…’stop it do you hear stop it now!’ …’your game is up’ Jesus shouts!…and his message is that simple to them and to us…….I am the good shepherd, I am the door, I now manage the transaction between God and mankind…I know who should come in and who should not, I am the keeper, the watcher, the counter, the lover, the judge, the protector, I am the good shepherd, I am the way the truth and the light, I am your temple itself, I am the door into eternal life…I am your sacrifice, your king, Lord, ruler and friend next door, I am your true neighbour, the bread of life. I am the one and only, I am the shepherd…
Your job…you scribe, Priest and Pharisee is over. From now onwards it all goes through and by me and if it doesn’t come through me…it is – like lies and deceit. Nobody enters unless it is through me…all else is like a thief. I walk on water…I command the wind and the waves…I have evil and chaos under my feet.
And woe betide anyone or anything that attempts to go around me…so be careful how you conduct yourselves…if you know my voice, you are one with me…if not you are a thief and bandit.
And as with all Jesus parables, all the sayings and ‘I ams’ …they are multi layered, deeply systematic and so they keep going on and on - delving deep into the Old Testament and into the very beginnings of creation. Before Abraham I am, in my opinion the most seminal ‘I am’ of them all…. John’s Gospel chapter 8 verse 57. And the ‘I ams’ also work the other way- through forward time as well, on into our modern world and into the lives and hearts of all men and women, they challenge us and are so relevant today. That is why the words of Jesus will never go away…because they are the very words of God sown at the very beginning of time. And Jesus tells us that he is the good shepherd at the door of the sheep fold he is saying to those like you and me that have become his disciples and followers…that you can be in no better hands and no better care… and that is so reassuring.
Jesus the door to the sheep fold works for me on a very personal level as well because I am independent! …it helps me in my own walk with God…Jesus the good shepherd reassures me that I am alright…and God loves me for who and what I am…. the idea of Jesus heading up a search for the one lost sheep. That describes mine and many others calling and conversion. I also like the idea… that the outcast, the sheep that is different to all the others…the one that stands out, the black sheep of the family is the one that Jesus acknowledges and accepts…it helps me when I feel rejected by people and the world that Jesus does not reject any of us…and it reminds to do the same with others…never to reject anyone, especially those so different to us…. ….it also tells me to be reassured that nothing, no sin or terrible thing that anyone has done or will do is ever so bad. Jesus will forgive seven times seventy seven and we are expected to do the same …I also love the idea that Jesus knows his sheep by name…I know its hard to believe in a world of 6.92 billion people, but everyone is known intimately by God, no favourites, everyone equal all loved for who they are. And I love the fact that sheep is both plural and singular…we are one with one another…part of a world wide flock!
And Jesus knows his flock intimately, he knows us by name, each one being counted in and counted out. There is Ben, there is Mark, ok there goes Cameron, Dave, Claire, Esther, Rachel, Gary, Bernadette, Richard and so on he knows us by name and knew us in our mother’s womb. (Psalm 139), and I think its great that Jesus will defend us when we are attacked…we pray to be delivered from evil as in the Lord’s prayer….we often think nothing of it …but behind the scenes is a real battle going on, around and over us…Jesus is doing the business here and now….as his angels do all the time on our behalf…Jesus the door and the good shepherd works for me on every level.
Finally, I have this book called a shepherd looks at Psalm 23…a brilliant book. The refrain that he returns to throughout the book is very simple: when the shepherd is good, then so is the flock is good…the fences and fields are secure and the boundaries safe, the sheep are healthy and clean, the sheep feel safe and they know him and he them. When it is necessary, and the time is right, the good shepherd… leads his sheep along new paths to fresh still waters, to new pastures, the sheep know his voice and only trust that voice and so they follow him. The good shepherd prepares a path for us and will lead us to fresh pastures, even if it means going through the tough times, Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil for thou art with me they rod and thy staff they comfort me….and the good shepherd will lead us home safely…you can be assured despite all those terrible and frightening things that assail us on the way. Sheep, this shepherd concluded, when happy and safe, are carefree, fun loving, very amusing and very trusting…they are animals that are deeply loyal to one another and to their shepherd, and will follow their shepherd wherever he leads them.
I am very happy to be a ‘Jesus sheep’ - are you…
Dear Lord help us to live and know you more. Thank you for calling us, thank you that we have answered that call and know your voice…thank you for who you are. Bless us all…Amen.
Today’s passage is about sheep and Jesus being the door to the sheep pen. A sheep pen being where sheep are kept over night, usually covered over, nearly always a compound or fenced in area safe from thieves and wild animals.
Now I don’t want to be ‘woolly’ about my theology in this one , or ‘sheepish’ regarding our approach to the subject…hopefully you can ‘baaah’ some of the things that I might say…even though it might appear simply as mutton dressed as lamb, or dressed as a wolf in a sheep’s clothing, but the ‘shear’ weight of this parable and the way it ‘rams’ truth home never leaves us with a sense of being ‘fleeced’ and I am in ‘ewe’ of the story – this parable of Jesus the attendant of the sheep fold door and good shepherds John tells us is the ‘horn of plenty’ and carries ‘grazing truth’ of God’s love for us…
Ok enough of that…
It is probably very offensive to call people sheep!
Offensive to sheep as well!!
And it is an insult that’s been around some time. It is an ancient and historical insult.
There are ancient hieroglyphics alluding to the enemies of the pharaohs doing unmentionable things with sheep…but that is not our story…because this passage is not really about sheep. The passage is about Jesus’ authority as the son of God.
However before we look at that it might be useful to put this parable in the context of the general Biblical sheep metaphor because to do so helps us better understand the very important issues that we can learn from this passage today…
Sheep are very significant in the Bible, but most people think that they are simply used to illustrate our human collective cowardice, naive stupidity and neediness… but that is not the true and full picture. Sheep are used to describe our need for total dependence on God in everything and all we do, think and say. The simple sheep analogy puts God back to where He belongs in all our lives…as the number one commandment tells us: Honour your God with all your heart, soul and mind. Like a sheep without a shepherd is us without God.
So sheep are used throughout the Bible to illustrate human dependence on the Almighty. And there are many references to this within the Old Testament - which are very useful for a better understanding of who and what and why Jesus came. Isaiah, when he is calling back Israel to repentance, describes God’s people ‘as like sheep that have gone astray’…. Job pleads with the almighty for a once and for all sacrificial lamb that can permanently remove the suffering and groans of all creation…Psalm 23, the true shepherd’s psalm reflects …the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want he lays me down in pastures green and by still waters he leadeth me for thou art with me thy rod and thy staff…etc. and who is the Lord in the Psalm that David is referring to? It is the shepherd… I believe that it is the very same Lord that we know and love today…
But is it still fair then to describe us as sheep? We could easily say that being called sheep is not only an insult but irrelevant image for us today … most of us have very little to do with the dirt and muck of farming and industrial food production. Sheep are the cute like little white fluffy clouds.
You see, I like to think of myself as independent and a free thinking educated individual…I am no sheep, I need no sheep pen, do I really need a shepherd? I am an individual….I am the modern man, concrete is my earth, food comes in a plastic package…I wear sports acrylics!!! And, you might further say…fair enough, Jesus was relating this story to those in his day…an agrarian society not like ours. It is simply not relevant to me…sheep. Not today…
But that is not right…this story has enormous relevance for us in many ways, believer and non believer alike…and more so now than ever before perhaps… because of these same modern ideas of independence, and the modern acceptance of everyone’s view being of equal value…this story is really important as it is saying that there is only one way….Jesus!!
Jesus is very clear in this story…I am the attendant, I am the door, all those that do not and have not come through me…are thieves and bandits. And how do you know that? …you know because my sheep – you the Christian believer with faith - Jesus says, recognise my voice.
So what does it mean to be then a ‘Jesus sheep’?
Most importantly, as mentioned already….being a ‘Jesus sheep’ means being totally dependent on God. We as humans need looking after… like sheep we can be pretty mindless and certainly at times fearful and afraid. I know that I am…We do follow one another down ruts and paths and can do so, even to our own destruction. I know that I do…plenty of ruts and habits in my life…
Like sheep without a good shepherd, we can and do pollute our own fresh water supply if left without proper guidance. As habitual sinners, who can say that they are not full of tics and disease? So we need a good periodic washing and de-lousing. That is what happens when we repent….God is removing the impurities and containments that if left as in sheep, get worse and become fatal.
Like sheep we get distracted by our desire to feed…we cannot help ourselves and we get lost following our basic desires, forgetting where we are, following the devices and desires of our hearts the prayer book tells us, then suddenly we look up and its ‘where am I’…’what am I doing here’ ‘….help me God!!’. And then like all the wealth and possessions that we cling to and think that we need so much, a sheep’s fleece gets heavy and it weighs it down and if by unfortunate accident, a sheep in a heavy fleece falls into water, it will drown. Also a heavy fleece gets caught on fences and briars….ensnaring a sheep making it easy prey for bandits and wild beasts. Heavy fleece needs stripping back regularly.
And these thieves, bandits and wild beasts…what do they represent in the illustration?… I like to understand them as the three ‘T’ s temptation, trial and the terror of evil if you like. Like sheep, we have all gone astray as to each one his and her own way…then we are left vulnerable and alone… prey to forces more powerful than ourselves.
That is why we are like sheep and that is why we need the good shepherd.
But is there even more to this story than doors and shepherds?
Jesus is being quite funny with this story….he is being very cryptic and having a bit of a laugh at the expense of the poor old Pharisees. He is, in telling this story, doing a Samson and bringing down the whole crumbling edifice of pharisaic religious law crashing down…and whilst doing so, Jesus is packing this metaphor of him being the door and good shepherd with enormous and significant theology about His own claims and his divine purpose.
This passage is a direct move on everything that the Pharisees taught and stood for….That is why it is very useful for us….especially if we are involved in evangelism and wanting to set a good Christian example to others.
Jesus is saying to the sanctimonious and elitist Pharisee …‘no more of this!’ No more complex rules and complex laws…no more temple, temple sacrifice, temple taxes, infinite debate of tiny aspects and ruminations regarding the rights and wrongs of levitical law. No more showing off and demonstrating holiness in front of others…no more long faced fasting…po – faced prayers…no more pious giving, be like the widow, or the forgiven whore, the broken innkeeper, the repentant tax payer, the failed fishermen, be real to me and real to yourself…enough of the farce, the fake faces…’stop it do you hear stop it now!’ …’your game is up’ Jesus shouts!…and his message is that simple to them and to us…….I am the good shepherd, I am the door, I now manage the transaction between God and mankind…I know who should come in and who should not, I am the keeper, the watcher, the counter, the lover, the judge, the protector, I am the good shepherd, I am the way the truth and the light, I am your temple itself, I am the door into eternal life…I am your sacrifice, your king, Lord, ruler and friend next door, I am your true neighbour, the bread of life. I am the one and only, I am the shepherd…
Your job…you scribe, Priest and Pharisee is over. From now onwards it all goes through and by me and if it doesn’t come through me…it is – like lies and deceit. Nobody enters unless it is through me…all else is like a thief. I walk on water…I command the wind and the waves…I have evil and chaos under my feet.
And woe betide anyone or anything that attempts to go around me…so be careful how you conduct yourselves…if you know my voice, you are one with me…if not you are a thief and bandit.
And as with all Jesus parables, all the sayings and ‘I ams’ …they are multi layered, deeply systematic and so they keep going on and on - delving deep into the Old Testament and into the very beginnings of creation. Before Abraham I am, in my opinion the most seminal ‘I am’ of them all…. John’s Gospel chapter 8 verse 57. And the ‘I ams’ also work the other way- through forward time as well, on into our modern world and into the lives and hearts of all men and women, they challenge us and are so relevant today. That is why the words of Jesus will never go away…because they are the very words of God sown at the very beginning of time. And Jesus tells us that he is the good shepherd at the door of the sheep fold he is saying to those like you and me that have become his disciples and followers…that you can be in no better hands and no better care… and that is so reassuring.
Jesus the door to the sheep fold works for me on a very personal level as well because I am independent! …it helps me in my own walk with God…Jesus the good shepherd reassures me that I am alright…and God loves me for who and what I am…. the idea of Jesus heading up a search for the one lost sheep. That describes mine and many others calling and conversion. I also like the idea… that the outcast, the sheep that is different to all the others…the one that stands out, the black sheep of the family is the one that Jesus acknowledges and accepts…it helps me when I feel rejected by people and the world that Jesus does not reject any of us…and it reminds to do the same with others…never to reject anyone, especially those so different to us…. ….it also tells me to be reassured that nothing, no sin or terrible thing that anyone has done or will do is ever so bad. Jesus will forgive seven times seventy seven and we are expected to do the same …I also love the idea that Jesus knows his sheep by name…I know its hard to believe in a world of 6.92 billion people, but everyone is known intimately by God, no favourites, everyone equal all loved for who they are. And I love the fact that sheep is both plural and singular…we are one with one another…part of a world wide flock!
And Jesus knows his flock intimately, he knows us by name, each one being counted in and counted out. There is Ben, there is Mark, ok there goes Cameron, Dave, Claire, Esther, Rachel, Gary, Bernadette, Richard and so on he knows us by name and knew us in our mother’s womb. (Psalm 139), and I think its great that Jesus will defend us when we are attacked…we pray to be delivered from evil as in the Lord’s prayer….we often think nothing of it …but behind the scenes is a real battle going on, around and over us…Jesus is doing the business here and now….as his angels do all the time on our behalf…Jesus the door and the good shepherd works for me on every level.
Finally, I have this book called a shepherd looks at Psalm 23…a brilliant book. The refrain that he returns to throughout the book is very simple: when the shepherd is good, then so is the flock is good…the fences and fields are secure and the boundaries safe, the sheep are healthy and clean, the sheep feel safe and they know him and he them. When it is necessary, and the time is right, the good shepherd… leads his sheep along new paths to fresh still waters, to new pastures, the sheep know his voice and only trust that voice and so they follow him. The good shepherd prepares a path for us and will lead us to fresh pastures, even if it means going through the tough times, Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil for thou art with me they rod and thy staff they comfort me….and the good shepherd will lead us home safely…you can be assured despite all those terrible and frightening things that assail us on the way. Sheep, this shepherd concluded, when happy and safe, are carefree, fun loving, very amusing and very trusting…they are animals that are deeply loyal to one another and to their shepherd, and will follow their shepherd wherever he leads them.
I am very happy to be a ‘Jesus sheep’ - are you…
Dear Lord help us to live and know you more. Thank you for calling us, thank you that we have answered that call and know your voice…thank you for who you are. Bless us all…Amen.
posted by Parish Administrator at 2:32 pm
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