John 10:1-10 Hearing the Shepherd=s Voice
I have been away for a long time – four weeks. In addition to being in Germany, I have also made a trip to Nashville. That is where I was last weekend. The Nashville event was the Annual Campus Ministry Conference. While I hated being gone for another week, the Campus Ministry conference is my favorite event of the year. Attended by ELCA campus pastors and Church College Chaplains, the Campus Ministry Conference is a combination of continuing education and gathering of old friends.
It has been a tough year, for campus ministers. We gathered a few weeks shy of the first anniversary of the shootings on VA Tech’s campus. This was the first time we had been together since Diane Dardon and the campus ministry at Northern Illinois responded to the outbreak of violence on the NIU campus. Our time together renewed our appreciation for the task of speaking the shepherd’s voice. We reminded each other how essential it is that these little ones be trained to recognize the words of the One who comes to give life – the one who comes to give abundant life.
Jesus says, “The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice.” In a world which can be confusing and deadly, it is essential that we have a guide to lead us to life. We need a shepherd who will lead us. That shepherd can only perform the shepherdly function if we have listened to his voice and learned to recognize his word. The shepherd, the one who cares for the sheep, knows that it is his task to lead us to life, to lead us to abundant life.
We all need a shepherd. We need to be guided to the places where God is ready to tend to our wounds and fill our lives. We need to have shepherds. Without someone to guide us, we become helplessly lost.
Sheep are dumb animals. I am sure that I have given at least one sermon in which I talked about how stupid sheep really are. Without someone to guide them, sheep will simply lie down in the field and die. When hungry, they don=t go looking for food; when thirsty, they don=t go looking for water. They simply lie down and ba-a-a-a themselves to death, waiting for someone to come and lead them. Sheep are stupid – but God gave them the ability to know one thing. They are smart enough to learn to listen for the voice of their shepherd. When they hear the shepherd’s voice, they follow.
They still lack the ability to discern for themselves whether the shepherd is a good shepherd, whether the shepherd is worthy of their trust. That is where the analogy breaks down. This is where those who heard Jesus speak would have had the advantage over us. They had enough working knowledge about sheep to know that they can be fooled, they can be trained to follow one who poses as a shepherd but is really a bandit and a thief.
This is a bit tricky. It is more than a little difficult. There are a lot of voices out there claiming to be the voice of our shepherd. There are a lot of folks out there claiming that they are speaking for God when at best what they are speaking are half-truths. Half-truths means exactly what the word suggests: a good portion of what they are saying (maybe even half of what they say) is true. It sounds Aokay@ because the part that is often spoken the loudest is that part that is true. But then there is that other part, the part that is false. Maybe even half of all that they are saying is false. By half-truths we are lured and mislead.
Half-truths can get a grip on us only when we don=t know enough to oppose them. Half-truths can take hold only when we don=t know the whole truth. All too often we wait for something terrible to happen. Then, in a fit of desperation, we look for a passage or an image or a story that will make sense of it all. We search our Bibles for something that will meet our immediate need. That would be okay if this were a math problem. But, this isn=t a math problem. It is life, and life is immanently more complex.
When the horrible and terrible happens in your life, you have to have a prior familiarity with the shepherd=s voice. You=ve got to have a reservoir from which to draw. You can=t wait for the fire to erupt and then devise a plan for containing it.
We began planning the LSM Retreat for next February. During the conference call, I asked the students whether they were as familiar with the Bible as they felt they should be. Most agreed that they didn=t know the content and were often at a loss biblically to defend their faith. I gave them a challenge; I hope what I gave them was permission. You don=t need to master the whole Bible - all you need to do is to read one book. Pick a book - maybe one of the Gospels or Paul=s letter to the Church in Rome or good old Genesis. Select a book and read it. Read it a couple of times. Give yourself a whole month to come to some understanding of what this book is saying.
We can=t move from where to we are to where we want to be in one giant step. We have to get there by degrees. We have to start where we are in establishing an ability to discern between what is the Word of God and that which is the rambling of some self-absorbed broker of false piety.
If you want to test whether someone speaks for Christ, a good place to start is by asking a few questions about the manner in which they speak. Jesus reserved his strong words of condemnation for those who were confident in their own piety. He did not begin his interaction with sinners by condemning them and warning them about the fires of hell. Those warnings were for the Pharisees and Sadducees and those who kept the books of law.
Christ came so that we might have life and have it abundantly. Far from scaring us into God=s arms, the voice of God is one that invites us into a loving and caring relationship. This Word of the Shepherd we don=t say often enough or loud enough. Some recent converts to Christian faith may be here because they are afraid of the consequences - but few stay for those reasons.
There are many who would like to serve as gatekeepers. There are many who would like to decide who is in and who must remain out. Sometimes, these distinctions are difficult to make. Sometimes, there is no reason to make them at all. It terribly important that we learn to recognize the voice of our shepherd - we must have someone to guide and lead us. We will never recognize that voice unless we spend some time listening to it. The life that God wants us to have is a precious gift. It is a glorious thing. It is an abundant life, a full life a life of meaning and purpose. It is a life saved from the futility of trying to prove myself and amass symbols of power and strength.
This is the promise of our God. This is the Word of the Lord.
Amen.
