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New Covenant, 21 April 2024 (from 3 May 2009)

 John 10

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.”

Imagine my poor mother, still in her 20s, two kids in tow, leaving her familiar home in the big city to follow my father’s dream of an acreage surrounded by farms.  Further imagine her dismay the first time she encountered an ill-wind bringing a foul odour, and her desire to call the authorities.  Maybe not the best idea.  

But call she did, and the man from the township office listened to her story of an ill-wind and a terrible odour and replied with a simple message: “Well lady, you’re livin’ in the country now!”  In later years she could laugh about the man from the township office and his very primitive form of mansplaining, and in fact she had to laugh because until the end of her days, ever time she complained of any kind of odour someone in the family would say “Well lady, you’re livin’ in the country now!”  

To be fair to my poor mother, she did spend part of her childhood on the family farm and knew that the odourous ill-wind wasn’t quite right, and sure enough, the farmer responsible landed himself in some legal trouble with the man from the township office.

My own punishment for tormenting my poor mother happened on the very first day at my very first church across a country lane from a very busy sheep farm.  Whatever schadenfreude—that would be taking pleasure in the misfortune of others—my mother felt, she didn’t say anything, and I guess she didn’t have to.  In a karmic sense, I brought this on myself.   

Of course, it was a great privilege to be placed among the faithful on a pastoral charge deep in the woods.  Back then, you see, the church in her wisdom decided to send new ministers to small far-off places where we could do minimal amounts of damage while bringing years of dubious book-learnin’ to the people we served.  For me it was three little churches: Althorpe, Bolingbroke and Calvin, in three communities that no longer appear on the map. The third, Calvin, was also the location of a lovely Victorian manse, located directly across the road from that very busy sheep farm.  

And so I can confirm that both literally, and in a karmic sense, sheep smell.  Think of it, however, and the best kind of applied theology, since sheep and shepherds are found throughout the Bible—in story, in parable, and in the very identity of our Lord himself.  And so today, perhaps best described as Good Shepherd Sunday, we can enter the sights and smells—and the meaning of those sheep and their shepherds.   

You didn’t need to travel far in the Ancient Near-East to find a field of sheep.  Vast regions were well-suited to herding: too mountainous and too rugged for cultivation, but perfect for sheep.  And it’s fair to argue that sheep were so common that they were never far from the popular imagination, and a ready source for metaphor.  

“I am the good shepherd,” Jesus said.  And just to make sure they understood, he said it again three verses later.  So why the repetition?  I suppose Jesus is speaking outside of time here, speaking to the disciples and explaining who he will be to them in the time to come, and also speaking to the early church, beset as they were with wolves in the form of Roman persecution. And so the character of the shepherd becomes central to the early Christian community: trusting that “the good shepherd” will remain steadfast in a time of trouble. 

But he says more.  He draws a comparison between himself as the good shepherd and ‘the hired hand,’ the bad shepherd who runs off at the first sign of trouble.  He makes it clear to future followers that even death will not prevent him from guarding his flock.  He also makes it clear that as he laid his life down for the sheep, he has taken it up again to continue to be a risen presence.  We remain one flock, with one shepherd, and even in the valley of the shadow of death we have nothing to fear.  

So we know that the Bible is a source of stories and smells, but it’s also filled with clues. The text is filled with allusions and links that range for the obvious to the hidden. Three times, in our eight verses from John this morning, Jesus uses the phrase ‘hired hand.’  As I said, he is making a point of comparison, but I think there is more.  

The hired hand, it seems, was the most common type of shepherd.  It was an occupation for the landless, people who were not inheriting the family farm, which in the Ancient Near-East described just about everyone.  And so people would hire themselves out for this solitary life.  And like most consultants, some did it because they were really good at it, and some did it because they couldn’t keep a regular job.  Hire a consultant, and time will tell.

So the first listeners are busy nodding their heads and considering the limitations of the hired hand, but what’s the alternative?  I expect they knew the Good Shepherd was a compelling metaphor, even more compelling since the Good Shepherd was standing in front of them.  Still, I can’t help but think the first listeners would have been thinking about another common type of shepherd, and that would be the youngest child.  Some families, with a surplus of children, would simply put the youngest out in the field.  Farming was hard work, which the youngest couldn’t handle, and so they found themselves among the flocks.  

And this, of course, is beginning to sound familiar: that young lad out in the field, too small to be selected to take on the most onerous tasks, best left with the sheep.  All the other brothers are present, but poor David is only big enough to watch the flock.  If Jesus was unwilling to trust a hireling to do the work of a shepherd, the first listeners' minds would naturally wander to the most famous shepherd in scripture, and that would be David.  

David is the George Washington of the Hebrew Bible.  There’s the broad outline of his story, there’s a list of accomplishments and firsts, and there are stories, some true and some dubious that make up his story.  Such is the life of a national hero.  His story was told and retold until it became hard to separate fact from legend, but the abiding point remained: there was no greater king than David, he was the one against whom all other kings were measured.  

(I hope I can write an essay instead of taking the citizenship test, because this King David/George Washington stuff writes itself)

David, you’ll recall, is also credited with writing the 23rd Psalm. The most familiar passage in scripture is the second way that early readers of John would naturally assume that Jesus was drawing a link to David.  Psalm 23 was written to portray the kind of protection a good king would offer: prosperity and fruitfulness, protection in danger and membership in a household built on righteousness.  It becomes another test against which shepherds are judged, a way to determine which shepherd deserves the title ‘good.’ 

And it wasn’t just the Israelites that had heightened expectations about kings and governments.  Over in Babylon, King Hammurabi concluded his famous law code with the following words, "I am the shepherd who brings well-being and abundant prosperity; my rule is just.... so that the strong might not oppress the weak, and that even the orphan and the widow might be treated with justice."  It reads like both a promise and a goal: to ensure that the law serves everyone in society, and not just the powerful.  

But there is more. The prophets also weigh in on this question of good versus bad.  This is Ezekiel 34: 

The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak nor healed the sick nor bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays nor searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. 

The Kings of Israel, always known as shepherds, were not simply directed to care for the future of the nation but care for the most vulnerable, to heal the sick and seek the lost.  And Ezekiel, speaking from exile, has a catalogue of all the ways these kings failed.  The flock was scattered precisely because the bond between king and people, shepherd and sheep, was broken.  It’s about as timeless as scripture gets, pointing to the corruption of power, the sin of neglect, and God’s response when weak and the vulnerable are left to fend for themselves.

‘Depart from me [he said], for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’

There’s more than enough evidence here to convict: Failure to meet the Davidic goal, failure to align with the aspirational leadership of even foreign kings, and a failure to protect the most vulnerable.  

And in this we have circled back once more.  Jesus gives us a new vision of kingship, the Divine Shepherd, willing to lay down his life for his sheep, and willing to take it up again and continue to guide us each day.  Jesus takes the Davidic goal, and the prophets words, and the power of parable, and begins to separate the sheep from the goats.  There is very little ambiguity for the Matthew 25 believer, or the Christian leader who seeks to follow the Good Shepherd.  The sheepfold includes a food bank, a women’s shelter, an inner-city clinic, the county jail, and most certainly a refugee camp.  

So we’ve talked about the shepherds, but what about the sheep?

This is the point in the sermon that I planned to give you a 10,000 year survey of sheep husbandry, but some of you look like you might want lunch soon, maybe some lamb or a little mutton.  So I’ll give you a few interesting tidbits instread:

Sheep have indeed been domesticated for over 10,000 years, second in time only to dogs.  Initially used for their meat, milk and skins, wool became a thing around 4,500 years ago, and is considered by some “the first commodity of sufficient value to warrant international trade.”*  Further, it has been suggested that migrations beyond the fertile crescent may have begun because of wool clothing, and the ability to survive in places less like sunny Florida.

Speaking of Florida, we are home to a breed of sheep descended from animals carried by Columbus to the new world.  Feral until early in the last century, Gulf Coast Sheep (also called Florida Cracker Sheep) are now an established breed known for their hardiness and ability to resist parasites.  

Finally, the expansion of sheep farming (and the wool trade) in America was considered a threat by King George and his government in the run-up to the Revolution.  Hidden among the Coercive Acts from Westminster were restrictions on the exportation of sheep (and their wool).  I’m not really authorized to speak on behalf of His Majesty, but let me be the first to apologize for trying to take away your woolly mittens. 

So we’re talking about sheep, but Jesus would say we’re talking about ourselves.  Then he might open his Bible and read “All we like sheep have gone astray, and everyone has gone his own way.”  Yet still—he would remind us—God insists on loving us and following us and finding us when we’ve wandered off. To quote our friend St. Augustine: "By loving the unlovable, You (God) made me lovable."  

God has made us lovable and promised the protection of a good shepherd.  God has lifted up the ideal king for us, and we in turn know what to expect from kings and governments as they are confronted by injustice and the difficult life of the most vulnerable in our midst.  And God has promised that Jesus, crucified and risen, will walk with us and find us when we stray. We are lovable and ever loved, lost and imperfect, and the Good Shepherd abides, now and always, amen.

*https://www.sheep101.info/history.html

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 8:06 AM