Shepherded in Love

Our two texts today bring the familiar image of Jesus as the shepherd  into focus, but our passage from John’s First Epistle introduces another element that is more challenging:  Do we think about “other” sheep (both those already in the fold and those not yet in the flock) in the same way that God does?  On this Sunday when we welcome Pastor Clare into our local flock, we will reflect how God cares for all the sheep, and then consider how we human sheep sometimes consider the “other” sheep in God’s flock.  

Will you pray with me?  “Dear Shepherding God, open our hearts to love all of your sheep as you love them.  Shepherd us all in yourunconditional love.  Amen.”

I am struck by the audacious question that our Epistle lesson for today asks right from the start.  Listen again to this question in First John chapter 3: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods, and sees a brother or a sister in need, and yet refuses help?”  The Greek here is very clear.  This is a rhetorical question that demands a negative answer:  God’s love does not abide in someone who has the world’s goods and refuses to help those in need.  Our passage asks us how we regard the “other” sheep, and it goes on to say, “Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”  Action, not words, are the measure of our love for one another.

What would happen if we place this idea of caring for the “other” sheep in John’s First Epistle into conversation with our Gospel of John reading?  In our reading today, Jesus starts by saying “I am.”  In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I am” over 80 times, each time echoing God’s great “I am” spoken to Moses.  In this particular series, Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd.”  Jesus continues, “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.”  Did you hear that?  Jesus selects the sheep in this fold, not us.  And the flock of Jesus contains many who are not yet here.  This is why we welcome the stranger, always anticipating that any person we may think of as “other” now may in fact, be a member of Jesus’ larger eternal flock.

I have always been fascinated by the metaphor of Jesus being a shepherd and the church being a flock of sheep.  First, this comparison would have been shocking to ancient people.  Shepherds were the lowest people on the social ladder in biblical times.  Smelly, rural hicks, landless and poor, social and economic outcasts.  When an ancient Jewish father was asked what he wanted his children to be when they grew up, he never would have responded “I want them to be shepherds!”  This is why David moving from shepherd to King was so shocking to the ancient Jewish people—so we need to be shocked also when Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.”  This would be like saying today, “I am the urban poor” or, “I am the undocumented alien.”  Jesus claim is shocking.  He doesn’t say, “I am the King” or “I am the president.”  He says I am the Good Shepherd, the lowest on the social totem pole.  Shocking.  Jesus is our servant shepherd.

Shepherds tend the flock, selecting which sheep are in the flock, and which are not.  Again, this is shocking.  We sheep have nothing to say about who is in and who is out of Jesus’ flock.  Let me say that again: Jesus teaches here that we sheep have nothing to say about who is in the Body of Christ and who is not.  So that means that churches like ours that openly claim that everyone is welcome—no, I really mean it—everyone—well churches like ours are just acting in the gospel of inclusive love that some others have seem to have forgotten.  We sheep do not have a vote in flock membership.  Christians who claim otherwise disregard this teaching.

So the Good Shepherd tends us sheep.  Interesting word: sheep.  Is this word singular or plural?  Is it one sheep, or many sheep, or both?  Sheep is a communal word in the Hebrew, Greek and English.  The word sheep is a community, a flock.  If Jesus is the Good Shepherd, then we are the sheep of community.  And here is where our Epistle lesson challenges us to re-imagine what is means to be sheep together.  We do not select who is in the flock and who is not.  That is Jesus’ work.  When someone joins our congregation we do not take a vote to accept them, rather, we pledge to walk with each other as we mutually discern our path with God.  And here at Spring Glen Church we do not care about the sheep’s racial background, or economic standing or political beliefs because all sheep are welcome into this flock of Jesus.  Our Epistle reading goes on to say that we will know we are Christians by our love-in-action within the diverse flock.  And we are condemned by our own hearts, it says, if we do not act in love.  Our own hearts will tell us if we do not love all of the flock in active loving kindness.  But if we do act in love, then we can be bold before God.

I so dearly wish inclusive love was as easy to live out as it is to say in words.  How do we love other sheep of the flock, all chosen by Jesus, if another sheep lives a different political and social life than we do?  How can we love other sheep with whom we disagree?  How can we love “other” sheep who look different, who have a different family structure or maybe even have tattoos or piercings?  How can we love other sheep of different denominations or on other faith journeys?  How on earth do Republican sheep love Democratic sheep?  Well, we focus on Jesus—we listen for Jesus’ voice.  If the sheep next to us hears something different than we do, we love them as fellow sheep and focus on our personal journey with Jesus.  We are not commanded to agree with one another in this flock, we are commanded to love God and love one another, and follow Jesus as our shepherd.

In our complex world, it is difficult to live as diverse sheep.  But if we live in the law of God’s love, it is easy.  Jesus is the good shepherd, and we are the sheep.  All of us.  Big , little, straight-haired and curly-haired, different colored, different flavored.  But we all belong to the Good Shepherd’s flock.  If we pay closest attention to our relationship with the shepherd, then our relationship with other sheep is not the primary focus.  All of us sheep are equally beloved by God.  As the body of Christ, our unity comes not from being similar in appearance or religious belief or politics, but our unity comes from our spiritual relationship with Jesus that transcends our human diversity.  “That we may all be one” is our motto in the United Church of Christ.  John’s Gospel says it this way, “So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

As I ponder our modern world and think about welcoming diverse sheep in our ever more complex and varied globe, I wonder how these passages apply to discussions about immigration reform, healthcare for the poor, healthy food and water for everyone, and those who worship God differently than we do.  I remember a trip I once took in Japan, when I was the “other,” and I was held lovingly by strangers in a small Japanese village. 

Our aircraft carrier Constellation visited Tokyo in 1984.  The crew was excited about getting some great rest and relaxation after having been in the Persian Gulf for over 100 days—100 days with no days off.  The ship’s crew went into town to party, but I decided I wanted to “get away” from my shipmates.  I got on the bullet train and headed into the countryside.  I took the bullet train to the end of the line, got on a local train, took it to the end of the line, got on a bus, took it to the end of the line, and ended up in a small fishing village on the west coast of Japan.  I had a small guidebook and some translated phrases and some yen.  By the time I got to the seaside village, it was late.  I found a modest room, and made my way to a local restaurant, which was the community gathering place.  The locals took me under their wings, feed me, sang, regaled me and we roared in laughter at my “otherness” in the middle of their amazing hospitality.  I felt more welcomed there than I have felt in some Christian churches.  Humanity and compassion there transcended language, culture, race, skin color, food and expectations.  I was a very different sheep, but I was taken into their fold.  It was a night of shared humanity that I will never forget.  Every time I see someone who looks “out-of-place” I remember that night of global hospitality in a small fishing village at the end of the bus line at the end of the train line at the end of the bullet train line in Japan, and I remember that we are all beloved sheep in God’s eyes.  And as followers of Jesus, we are sheep in a common fold, members of the body of Christ.  And if strangers can treat each other with unconditional love and compassion as I was treated that night in Japan, then we as Christians can certainly do likewise.  Our passage this morning compels us to act in love to everyone; strangers, enemies, why, even people from California and as far away as Guilford all the way on the other side of the Q River.

And so, today, as we always do here at Spring Glen Church, we welcome a new sheep into this local flock of Jesus, another sheep who hears our still-speaking God and who also knows the voice of Jesus.  We enfold you, Clare, into our midst, as we each listen to Jesus’ voice as clearly and as faithfully as we can with you.  And we open ourselves to the knowledge that we will all be changed in this now new flock.  Each time someone joins us, we are re-birthed into a new body of Christ, a new flock of sheep, living into a new time of resurrection, becoming new mid-wives each helping each other birth the new resurrected Christ into our new lives together. 

The church is one flock.  Let us live active lives of love that constantly demonstrate this fact to our God, the world, and one another.  May God be with each one of us as we faithfully live our love-in-action, not just with Clare, but with every single sheep that we meet, each one a lamb in God’s flock, each one a member of the Body of Christ, each one a fellow sheep being shepherded in God’s unconditional love.    And God’s sheep say, “Amen.”

 1 John 3:16-24

¹⁶We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. ¹⁷How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? ¹⁸Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. ¹⁹And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him ²⁰whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; ²²and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

²³And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. ²⁴All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

John 10:11-18

¹¹“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹²The 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. ¹³The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. ¹⁴I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, ¹⁵just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶I 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. ¹⁷For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. ¹⁸No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”