Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10
I am the door; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and go out, and shall find pasture.
The Fourth Sunday of Easter is always Good Shepherd Sunday. Over the three year lectionary we hear passages from the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel, a portion each year. This year our focus is on the first ten verses, where Jesus talks about being the gate and the gatekeeper, the only way to salvation. We will hear about His willingness to lay down His life for His sheep (John 10:11-18) next year. And finally in year three, Jesus provides proof of His authority to be the Good Shepherd. His sheep are those who believe, they’ve been given to Him by His Father (John 10:22-30.)
The psalm for this day is always Psalm 23; it is a song of the sheep who is praising the goodness of the Shepherd who is the LORD. The LORD provides. The LORD directs. The LORD leads. The LORD restores. The LORD guides. The LORD protects. The LORD comforts. The LORD feeds. The LORD anoints. Life under the LORD’s care is good. Life in the presence of the Shepherd is blessed.
In the Old Testament, the word shepherd often refers to the leadership of the people, both religious and secular. David was a shepherd boy who became the shepherd king. The priests were seen a shepherds, caring for the people. In Jesus’ day, the shepherds were the Pharisees and other leaders both in the community and the temple. Ultimately, however, the LORD is our Shepherd, a reality so eloquently stated by David in today’s Psalm.
The Old Testament talks about good shepherds and bad shepherds, referring to the kings. Some of the kings, like David, though not perfect, had a heart for God. They took care of the people. They led them in the right path. They trusted in God and followed God’s will for the nation. The LORD was their Shepherd and they were blessed.
Other kings were not good. They approved of false gods and built temples in their honor. They stole from the people to create palaces and treasuries for their pleasure. They ignored the word of God and went their own way. The rejected the judges and prophets sent to call them to repentance and they suffered the consequences of their disobedience. Those kings were not good shepherds who looked to God, but trusted in the false voices that led them and the nation astray.
Israel was no longer a sovereign nation when Jesus walked on the earth. They had a king who was a puppet of the Roman Empire. The priests were more concerned with their power and position to recognize God’s presence in the world. They had established a burdensome way of life that was impossible for the people but which made themselves look wholly and holy righteous. The reality is that they were self-righteous and they had lost touch with God like those kings of the past that failed to be good and godly shepherds.
Sadly, there are many today who are called to shepherd God’s sheep who do not follow Him. They are false; they have rejected the truth that is Christ. They claim there are many paths to the kingdom of heaven and that all ways honor God. However, Jesus said, “I am the gate.” He is the way to eternal life. The others are thieves and robbers. This refers to the false prophets who have distorted God’s word and burdened the people with a false gospel. “The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy.” Jesus came so that we might have life and have it abundantly, like the sheep cared for by the Good Shepherd. The others may claim to worship the same God, but if they reject Jesus they are following a false god.
Here’s a joke for Good Shepherd Sunday: Saint Peter was walking the streets of heaven which seemed overly crowded to him. He went to the gate to look in the book they keep when people check into heaven. He found no comfort in what he saw; he knew that there were too many people on the streets based on the information in the book. He told Saint Paul of his concern. “Paul this doesn’t look good! Are there really that many extra people in the streets? Who are these people and how did they get here? Go and see if you can find out what is happening.” So, Saint Paul ran off to investigate while Saint Peter stood at the gate personally. After a while Saint Paul returned with a report. “You are right, Peter, there are extra people here.” Saint Peter replied, “I knew it. Where are they coming from?” Saint Paul answered, “Oh, its Jesus. He’s helping people climb in over the back fence again.” Jesus doesn’t have to bring people in over the back fence because He is the gate. It is through Jesus Christ that we enter into the blessedness of eternal life.
We live in a world that is full of noise. It is full of voices calling us to follow this path or that path. They want us to believe in their idea, to do things their way, to follow the path they think we should follow. That path is very often not the narrow path of the Gospel that relies solely and only on Jesus Christ, but is a wide path filled with options. People today prefer choices. They want the best of every religion. They want to believe what feels good. They want their faith to express their desires. I once met a woman on the Internet who called herself an eclectic Christian. She didn’t like the narrow focus on Jesus, but thought He was a good person to emulate. She liked aspects of other religions and saw nothing wrong with picking and choosing what felt best to her. She said, “We all worship the same god, don’t we?” The answer to that question is, “No.” If you reject the parts of Jesus that you don’t like, then you are rejecting the revealed Word of God. He is the gate. He is the Good Shepherd.
The false gods will not take care of you the way the Good Shepherd has promised, and like the bad kings in Israel’s history they will demand that you carry heavy burdens and perhaps even demand your blood.
Peter reminds us that dwelling with God does not mean we will never walk through the valley of the shadow of death. As a matter of fact, even our Lord Jesus suffered at the hands of men, though He’d done nothing wrong. He was hung on the cross, innocent of sin. Though men found it right to put Him to death, Jesus did not turn away from their wrath; instead He stood firmly in the will of God, doing that which He had been sent to do. It was for our sins that Jesus died, and for our sake that He now lives. “For ye were going astray like sheep; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” No other gods, or ideas of God, can do that for us.
Those who hear His voice will follow without fear, knowing that the Great Shepherd will provide all we need. The life we live in this world will never be perfect. The shadow of death looms over all that we do, because sin still rules in this world. However, we walk in faith knowing that God has already established our home forever. Until that day when we will know the fulfillment of that promise, we have the gift of the community of faith to support us; the Church is like that green pasture and still waters in David’s song of praise. It is in the fellowship of believers who gather at worship that we can find rest and refreshment of the Word and the Sacraments.
We live in a world that is increasingly becoming “people-free.” The grocery store provides “self check-out” lanes so that the consumer can do all the work for themselves. You can take care of almost all your business on the internet, with voice mail, with text messaging. We use email instead of the phone. Gas pumps have pay points, so we do not need to pay a cashier. We don’t even have to go to the post office anymore: we can print our stamps on our own computer and put the envelope in a mailbox. We can order pizza on the Internet and rent videos that automatically arrive in our mailbox.
And of course we have smart phones and tablets that let us converse with our neighbors without ever seeing them face to face. We text even when we are in the same building. We have more friends on Facebook than we have in real life. We need to interact with other people every day, to share our joys and pain. We need hugs and smiles. People need people. Sadly, too many of us, myself included, get most of our human contact without ever being in the same room as another human being.
In the beginning, God said, “It is not good for man to be alone” so He created woman and at the same time a community. He drew His people together and gave them laws to help them live together. He ordained a pattern for worship that was practiced in community and a social system that made all people important to the whole.
The “people-free” society is even making its way into the church. Besides televangelists, people can attend worship at mega-churches where they are assured a sense of anonymity. Individuals get lost in the crowd, which is just as well for many of the people who attend. On the other extreme, many Christians are choosing to have a solitary life of faith, no longer attending services at the church down the street. They sit in front of their television or go worship in a field. They read and study the scriptures and have a life of prayer, but they miss the life of community that comes from fellowship with other Christians. Those smart phones and tablets have wormed their way into the corporate worship, as pastors even encourage the congregation to use their phones to look up scripture and send twitter posts about the sermons they hear.
In the beginning, the Church was more than a group of people who got together for an hour or so a week to hear the Word and receive the Eucharist. They prayed together. They studied the scriptures together. They ate meals together. They gathered in their homes as well as at the synagogue. They shared with one another. If someone needed something, someone else supplied it. This wasn’t like the cults that require everyone to put all their worldly possessions into a treasury; those leaders are no different than the bad kings of old. This was a community that knew each other so well that they knew what everyone needed and offered it without thought.
I was watching one of those cooking competition shows last night. The women competing were all mothers; it was a special event in honor of Mother’s Day. At one point during the competition, one mom needed something, a common staple like butter, and she asked the neighboring mom to use some that was on her station. The second mom said, “Sure.” There was no question of sharing, even though they were competing for a lot of money. That’s not always the case; some contestants on the show can be unmerciful.
There was no question of sharing for the Christians in that community. It wasn’t something that was even acknowledged. They didn’t give plaques to the Sunday school teachers or list the names of every flower contributor in the bulletin. They also didn’t need to have nominating committees to harass people into taking a place on the council or a committee. These things happened naturally. It was part of their daily life. If a person needed prayer, they prayed. The children heard the Bible stories on a daily basis as members of the community naturally shared with them. When someone needed to be done, someone did it; they didn’t need to join a committee to decide who would do what when.
Unfortunately, the Church does not look much like it did in those early days. There are few who gather so regularly for prayer and study. We do not sell our possessions to support another’s needs. We don’t eat together with one heart or constantly praise God for His mercy and grace. We are also not adding to our numbers daily those that are saved. We are, at times, like a flock of sheep gone astray. We have become so separated from our brothers and sisters in Christ that we do not see their needs. We no longer know each other so well that we can tell when they are sad or lonely or upset.
Even the best of us have difficulty always knowing God’s voice in our noisy lives. We don’t live in a community of faith like those early Christians who were constantly immersed in God’s Word and the Christian life. Many of us work in places where most of the people do not know Jesus or they have rejected Him. Many of us work in places where the truth of Jesus has been lost to modern interpretations and worldly misunderstandings. We even find this is true in our churches. While I am sure most of my readers do spend more time with God than that one hour a week on Sunday, how many of us are truly aware of the constant presence of God? How many of us are so aware of God’s voice that we know without being asked when a neighbor needs help and we don’t think twice about sharing? How many of us spend time daily immersed in God’s Word and in fellowship with others in the Christian community?
The grace of God overpowers us when we are deeply immersed in our life with Him. We can be good Christians living a solitary life, but it is so much easier to hear God’s voice when we are doing so in a community. The sheep are safer together; the wandering sheep often gets lost and then attacked by wolves. The wandering sheep doesn’t find a soft place to rest or clear water without the help of the shepherd. The wandering sheep ends up on a dangerous path. We keep one another from wandering when we live in community and it is easier to follow the shepherd’s voice because we do so together.
Jesus doesn’t need to help people over the back fence into Heaven because He is the gate. In all things, Jesus is our focus. He is easier to hear when we listen together, pray together, worship together, study together, and live together in His grace. Let us constantly dwell in the presence of our Good Shepherd, immersed in the life of hope and peace and love that He provides. He is the only One who could save us and the only One who can guide us in the way that we should go.
A WORD FOR TODAY
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