SHEEP? Why did it have to be sheep…?
Preacher: Revd Samantha Ferguson, Assistant Chaplain
Readings: 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18
In the name of the father, son and Holy spirit.
Amen
Good morning and welcome to our chapel service just as exams begin.
Even though you may be despairing of ever remembering why you decided to do your dissertation in semester two or questioning your module choices for the last 13 weeks,
We here in chapel continue with our 50 days of post Easter unremitting joy.
For some unknow liturgical lectionary reason we have the wonderful image of Jesus being presented to us as the Good Shepherd with our Gospel reading this morning.
For today is known as Good Shepherd Sunday.
And, to misquote the love of my life, yes I finally managed to get a quote from Indianna Jones in a Sermon…
Sheep? Why did it have to be sheep?
Although Indy was referring to Snakes in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The best film of all time, along with Dirty Dancing and Star Wars.
So. Why does today have to be about sheep?
First, sheep are cuddly, cute and everywhere in our fields at the moment with their adorable baby lambs. They are a familiar sight to us and they were a familiar sight to those who were listening to Jesus at the time. And Jesus always used the familiar to explain the complex.
And, over this year’s holy week, and I know that was only a few short weeks ago, Donald and I and the team reflected on various images found here in our chapel – using what is familiar to us to explain complex truths. So this morning is no different when reflecting on Jesus as the Good Shepherd.
For me, focusing on Jesus as Shepherd, protector of the flock, means I am drawn to a striking feature of our single depiction in stain glass of this image, found in the central pane just above me.
How Jesus looks at the sheep he is cuddling, the sheep that is supposed to represent you and me. There is an intimacy and a love in that gaze. Love that is reflected in our first reading from the first letter of John – that sense of we can know love by the actions of Christ, by his actions on that cross.
The intensity of love and devotion that is also reflected in the image of Mary touching the newly born Christ in his manager in the first of the mosaic panels behind the altar. Jesus looks upon his sheep, us, as a parent looking upon a child for the first time. In wonder, delight, tenderness, love and with a fierce desire to protect, to lay down his life.
So in amongst all that is going on in your life right now today, be it personal or professional or a mixture of both, with all that is going on in our troubled and wartorn world today, aren’t you glad we have Christ holding us close and promising to keep us safe?
Good Shepherd Sunday is also traditionally a Sunday that talks about vocations and the cost of ministry and being able to discern God’s voice in and through the noise of the rest of the world around us.
Because, as we heard this morning, Jesus calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. His sheep follow him because they know his voice.
He knows his own and his own know him.
But how can we, in amongst all that is creating noise for us in our world, know and recognize the voice of our Shepherd – of our Lord – Christ Jesus, when our busy lives actually prevent us from hearing our shepherd’s voice?
In the middle-east, at the time of Jesus – sheep did indeed know the voice of their shepherds, and indeed they did then – and still do now – flee away from the voice of other shepherds, the voices of people whom they do not know.
They did then – and still do now – follow the voice of the one they do know: the one who tends them carefully, the one who truly would lay down his life for them.
Sheep in there were not raised up to be slaughtered at a year old, rather they were raised primarily for their wool – and remained in the flock all their lives. They had a relationship with their shepherd that spanned a number of years, a relationship in which they had time to become familiar with the shepherd and with the places that the shepherd would lead them.
To those still waters and green pastures that the 23rd Psalm speaks of where our souls can be revived, as well as the places of danger that one often needs to travel through to arrive at a good place. Those places where the shepherd’s crook and rod protect us from natural hazards and from the hazards spoken of in the gospel reading – the thieves and robbers who steal, kill, or destroy.
The problem that we have today, and indeed it has always been a problem: – is in coming to recognize and know the voice of Christ our Shepherd in the midst of all the voices that speak around us – and how to recognize and know the voice of Christ our Shepherd and in the midst of the all different voices that speak within us – within our own hearts and minds.
How do we decide what the Lord is telling us is what the Lord is telling us? How do we know what we are hearing either around us from and through our friends, family, colleagues or from within us – is right or wrong, good or bad?
Much of what Jesus had to say and do – even when all he was doing was healing people and casting out demons and telling folk to love and forgive one another – was regarded as political enough to get him into deep, deep, trouble.
So deep that ultimately the decision was made to silence him by hanging him from a cross.
What is right for us today, is to listen to the various voices around us and those within us (not that we always have much choice about it) and then
– in prayerful reflection
– in diligent study of the word
– and in quiet and peaceable dialogue with others whose wisdom we know to be Christ-like ask ourselves – “What is it that what Jesus would do? What is it that the Spirit is placing on my heart?” What is it that Jesus would do and say now to his flock? About the Middle-East, the place of his birth?
About the war in Ukraine? About hunger and HIV in Africa? About the tendency we have to seek our own happiness first without regard for the needs of others?
Such questions, my friends, can only be answered by us – and for us – as individuals and as a community, if we enter into a continuous relationship with the Lord and with one another. A relationship like of the sheep to the shepherd and the sheep to the rest of the flock.
A relationship in which we spend time with one another – eating – resting together in silence – playing – clustering together and supporting one another in times of danger – praying – listening – and listening some more.
And, even then, the answers that we receive in our hearts may not be the same one that comes into the heart of another, though I think you would be surprised about how often in fact the answers we get are the same when we try in all earnestness to listen for Christ – and to follow his voice.
The important thing is not that we come up with “THE ANSWER” but that in listening and struggling with the issues in our lives and in the life of our community that we live in the answers that we already have been given by our Shepherd.
Our Shepherd’s voice is clear about how we should live and act. It is clear about what our attitude should be to those who are both our friends and those who we might regard as our enemies.
And if we have trouble figuring out just what the Shepherd is trying to tell us about the big issues within our families – and our society and our world – we cannot go wrong by doing those things that the Shepherd has already told us to do in a clear and obvious way.
And trusting that no matter what, no matter what the valley of the shadow of death we are wandering in is like, no matter what dangers surround us,
that if we keep on following the voice we already know – the voice we have already heard – that our shepherd will keep us safe and bring us to God’s house where we will be able to dwell forevermore.
What I am asking of you today may sound a big ask but really is quite simple. WE are commanded to love EVERYONE. And that includes loving yourself. Please, my friends, be kind to yourselves this week and look upon others as Christ would look upon you with love.
And so my friends it could only ever have been about sheep, sheep then and sheep today. So, as you all have enough on your plate right now with where we are in this semester and I will leave you with the Japanese Version of Psalm 23.
A psalm written by a real shepherd. David, the boy who became king and reflected on his lived experience to use the familiar to express eternal truths:
“The Lord is my Pace Setter, I shall not rush.
He makes me stop and rest for quiet intervals.
He provides me with images of stillness,
which restore my serenity.
He leads me in the ways of efficiency
through calmness of mind,
And His guidance is peace.
Even though I have a great many things
to accomplish each day,
I will not fret, for His presence is here.
His timelessness,
His all-importance will keep me in balance.
He prepares refreshment and renewal
in the midst of my activity,
By anointing my mind with His oils of tranquillity,
My cup of joyous energy overflows.
Surely harmony and effectiveness
shall be the fruits of my hours,
For I shall walk in the pace of my Lord,
and dwell in His house forever.”
Amen