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Jul 1, 2007
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Of Shepherds and Hired Hands
Rev. Dr. David Hogue
John 10:11-18
1 John 3:16-24
It’s a story I’ve told here before, but it’s just too good to pass over in light of the Scripture passages we are considering today. A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin, age 5, and Ryan, 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. If Jesus were here, he would say, “Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.” There was only the slightest of pauses before Kevin turned to his younger brother, and said to him, “Ryan, you be Jesus.”
It’s a challenge that appears in many of our Scripture readings, and too simply stated the question goes something like this: What does it mean to follow Jesus? Are we to imitate him, or in Jesus did God do something that only God could do? Is Jesus a model for our own living, or does following him mean believing in God’s love for the world? Much depends on how we answer that question. In case those words sound too theological or pious, consider these questions: How do we balance healthy self-interest with compassion and generosity? How do we address our frequent failures to live out our ideals, without losing hope?
This morning that challenge centers around this rich image of a shepherd. Over the years the shepherd image has been over-simplified, sentimentalized, and sometimes even made much too complicated in our ages-long attempts to understand God, and to make sense of God’s relationship to us. It’s also the most comforting image in all of Scripture, and Psalm 23 (especially in the King James Version) is the one Psalm most of us are likely to have memorized. It’s the Psalm we are most likely to call on in times of suffering and death.
A former student at our seminary alerted me years ago to a web site many pastors consult as they prepare for sermons. It is kind of a world-wide lectionary group, and its telling name is “Desperate Preacher.com,” a term that captures the emotional status of many pastors, especially on a Saturday night. I admit to consulting the forums regularly (well before Saturday, by the way) mostly to find out how other pastors are making sense of the assigned texts for a given Sunday. I have stopped being surprised at how often pastors assume the Scriptures are about them. And today’s passages are particularly vulnerable, since shepherd has become a central image for pastors. Much of the talk when this Scripture appeared concerned unhappy flocks, straying sheep, and shepherd/pastors under attack from wolves.
But the author of the Gospel of John is not talking about congregational leaders at all. The image of shepherd here describes Jesus, and even that image has drawn on the Hebrew Scriptures’ descriptions of God as the Good Shepherd. It is one of many powerful metaphors that Christians have used to talk about our experiences of God’s guidance and care. In the language of theology, John’s image of the Shepherd is Christological. Since John was the last of the four Gospels in the Christian canon to be written, it shows a very different Jesus from the Jesus who appears in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. By the time these words were committed to writing, Jesus’ early followers had had decades to struggle with what Jesus’ life and death meant, and those interpretations had multiplied and shifted as the Jesus movement encountered jolting historical realities. John’s Jesus knows who he is and what is happening from beginning to end. Jesus willingly lays down his life, and takes it up again. How different from the Jesus in the synoptic Gospels who is a victim of a violent collusion between Roman imperialism and Temple rulers – a Jesus who is raised up by God.
But the image of God is clear in this morning’s passage. The Shepherd is so completely invested in the lives of the sheep that he willingly sacrifices his life when his flock is threatened - all so that the sheep might be saved. God’s care for us is always self-giving rather than self-interested. God’s life, God’s future, is intimately linked to our own. The Good Shepherd stands in sharp contrast to the hired hand, the one who is in it for the money, the one whose personal survival always trumps the welfare of those he is expected to be taking care of. “I’ll take care of these sheep as long as there is no real risk to me, as long as I am receiving what I am due.” John 10 is a crystal clear reminder that God relates to us in ways no one else can.
But of course no one claim about the Scriptures is ever quite that simple or clear-cut. If the Gospel passage tells us what God is like, the epistle reading from First John makes a critical connection for us. Because God is like a shepherd, because Jesus put love before self-interest, we are to do the same. Verse 16: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” It’s not a promise many of us will be called to act on, at least in such a literal sense, but it does happen. And it’s a radical stance, because it cuts against our deeply ingrained, automatic responses to save our own lives when danger strikes. Every cell in our body seems programmed to live, to avoid death at almost any cost, like the hired hand. But here we are reminded that we are to be willing to die so that others might live. More than pancakes are at stake here, Ryan, but “you be Jesus.”
During this week in which we get ready to celebrate that history-changing document signed 231 years ago, our own Declaration of Independence, we still debate what it means to make “the ultimate sacrifice.” If we lay down or lives for our country, is that what Jesus was talking about? If we die protecting those who mean more to us that life itself, is that being a good shepherd? What does that strange phrase “lay down our lives for one another” really mean? Is it martyrdom? Is it letting ourselves be used? The next verse spells it out a little more clearly: “How 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?” OK, so maybe it’s not about dying, it’s about offering help. Well, that’s a little easier to take. Not quite as high a price is being asked of us here. Push come to shove, I’d probably rather help someone in need than die. I’m so relieved.
Helping people in need is a noble act, to be sure. And it was surely not just the followers of Jesus who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and healed the sick – nor is it just Christians today. The imperative to care for others is present in all the major world religions, and people who claim no faith tradition frequently put Christians to shame in their compassion. It’s not even just us human beings who will sacrifice on behalf of our fellows. Albino rats can easily be taught to push a lever to release a pellet of food. But they will actually starve themselves to death if pushing that lever also shocks another albino rat within their view.
Compassion is hard-wired into our brains; we are created to love. (You didn’t really expect me to pass up an opportunity to talk about the brain, did you?) But we are also created to fear. The brain’s fear-system comes on-line very early in life, and over the course of life we learn a whole host of events that will instantaneously make us afraid – either paralyze us, or make us want to fight or to flee. The brain structures that contribute to love, on the other hand, also appear early in life, but they take much longer to develop. Years of nurture and care are critical to helping us contain our fears of the dangers present in the world, and learn to love and trust others. It probably makes sense in the long run, since we must first avoid dying if we are to live long enough to love. Fear is good for us. But from the standpoint of the brain sciences, the short lesson is this: fear is naturally stronger than love or generosity. It is undoubtedly no accident then that biblical commands to “fear not” and to love others come so frequently and so repeatedly. Fear and love are both innate, but love takes longer to develop. We are pre-prepared for fear; it can be triggered into being. Love is learned; it must be practiced over time.
Fear may be a natural state of being, but life itself depends on love as surely as it does on protection. Isolated, apart from others, we will wither and die physically, as surely as we die emotionally and spiritually. In the earliest verses of Genesis, God declares that it is not good for us to be alone.
So back to our opening question: what does it mean to follow Jesus? Today’s passages suggest a well-worn claim: our faith is known through our compassion for those in need. Belief that does not change our relationships with each other is no belief at all. In the 70s we reminded ourselves of that claim every time we sang a song titled “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love.” But for the writer of 1 John, that isn’t all there is to it. Acts of compassion can lead to burnout, but they are nurtured when we remember the stories of Jesus’ life and ministry, and most powerfully when we remember the ways he gave his life for the world. Laying down our lives for each other will rarely be dramatic; it is lived out in our everyday responses to human need. But it is empowered by the memory of One who laid down his life for the world, not only in his dying, but in his living.
Most of us won’t be called on to be martyrs, at least in the literal sense of the word. We know all too well from recent history that willingness to die for a cause leaves us vulnerable to being manipulated by powerful religious, political or psychological forces. All too often it is a disguised form of narcissism. We might imagine a wonderful payoff - a home in Paradise or at least being remembered as a saint. And in some ways, martyrdom may even be easier than compassion – as terrifying and painful as death can be, it is a single act. Compassion is a way of living that calls us constantly to recognize the pain and suffering around us and to respond in love.
Rabbi Michael Lerner tells a poignant story from the Talmud in his book The Left Hand of God. Once upon a time there were two brothers who loved each other very much. They worked together in their field all year, and when harvest time came, they shared the produce equally. That night the older brother could not fall asleep. He kept thinking: “My brother is married and has two children, while I am single. He needs more food than I do.” So he arose from his bed, gathered up a great gift of produce, and secretly started walking toward his brother’s house.
That same night, the younger brother also could not sleep. He reflected, “My older brother is all alone in the world. He has no one to work for him and sustain him in his old age, whereas I have my two children. He needs extra profit from our labors so that he can save up for those difficult days.” And with that thought, he arose, gathered up a gift of produce, and he, too, secretly started walking toward his brother’s house.
Next day each arose to find that although they had left a large quantity of their produce at the other’s house, their own produce had not been diminished. They could not understand what was happening, and each resolved to try again. This happened for many nights, until one night, on the hillside separating their two homes, under the moonlight, the two brothers met as each was halfway to the other’s house. For a moment they were both shocked, but they suddenly realized what the other was doing, and they embraced and kissed and cried for the love they felt in their hearts and the way that love was being shown through acts of generosity and caring.
According to Talmudic tradition, years later, during the time of King David and his son Solomon, that very spot where the brothers met and embraced was selected to be the site for the building of the Holy Temple, the Temple of Peace at the center of the world, a site that many of us have visited. It is a story that offers another vision of our relationships to each other, a story that embodies the quality of love called for by our Scriptures today. So young Kevin’s words speak to each of us, “Ryan, David, Marti, you be Jesus.”
Amen. |
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