Easter 4B – Psalm 23; John 10:10-18

From the texts I just read, I imagine you’re thinking that I’m going to talk about shepherds.  Well, yes….and no.  Because there’s MORE to these texts — especially John’s story — than the metaphor of God as shepherd, or even Jesus as shepherd.  So first I’d like to talk about the “more” and then we’ll talk about shepherds.

As you can see from the bulletin cover, [2] the key words in John’s text — in my opinion — are the words I AM.  If you recall the story of Moses and the burning bush, God spoke to Moses from the bush, after which Moses asked:  “Who shall I say spoke to me?  What is your name?”  Rather simple questions, ones we often ask when we meet someone new.  But Moses’ questions meant far more than that; they were deeper, because knowing a name was connected with power and control.  Name something, and it was thought you could understand it.  Names for God allow us to think we understand God and know WHO God is.  In that sense, names attempt to set limits on who God is.  But beyond that, knowing a divine name was thought to grant you power to command God to act.

But God would have none of that.  No single name (or even many names) can limit God’s freedom.  So God answered Moses in sounds that, when translated, equate to I AM WHO I AM.  It’s a marvelous mix of both ambiguity and humor.  God simply is whoever God is.  God will not be pinned down by names.  But the ambiguity is even greater, for the Hebrew language doesn’t distinguish between present and future tense.  The same words could be translated:  I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE or even I WILL BE PRESENT AS I WILL BE PRESENT.  It means each of these, and all of them together at the same time.  God is always free to be whomever, whatever, or wherever God chooses to be.

By now, some of you might be wondering what any of this has to do with the 23^rd Psalm or with Jesus saying, “I am the Good Shepherd.”  Good question; that’s where I’m heading.

Last week in our Sunday School class, we spoke about context.  We all know that circumstances have the potential to impact significantly what happens in any given situation.  A recent example is the murder of Trayvon Martin; what led up to that tragedy?  Without knowing context, it’s difficult to assess WHY either of the parties may have acted as they did.  And that tragedy occurred in a world we THINK we understand.  It’s far more difficult to know HOW people thought or responded several thousand years ago; the context is so very different than our own.  And yet so MUCH of Biblical translation hinges on context:  HOW did people think and WHAT made them think that way?

When the psalmist wrote what we’ve come to call the 23^rd Psalm, a psalm that many consider their favorite Biblical text, what was he trying to tell us?  First, let’s be very clear: this psalm is NOT about Jesus, even though many people THINK of Jesus when they hear it.  We’ll try to connect just how or why that association might come to mind.

The psalm is actually about Yahweh, Yahweh being the word that has been assigned by Christians to the indecipherable, unpronounceable sounds God spoke from the burning bush.  This is the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, the God of creation, the God who is free to be whomever God chooses to be.  This is NOT a male god — though many have assumed Yahweh to be male simply because it was unimaginable BACK THEN to think of anyone with power and might as being other than male.  And even today, by naming God HE or FATHER, people attempt to convey something, to narrowly define God in their own way.  But this God doesn’t fit narrow definitions; this is a God who transcends gender, who is Spirit in the best of senses.  It is THIS God who is our shepherd, who walks with us and leads us and restores our souls.  This is the God from whom goodness and mercy flow — endlessly.  We can attempt to make this God in OUR image; we can even attempt to decide whom this God will shower with grace.  But those are OUR shortcomings; they are not God’s.

When I read this psalm, I’m comforted.  This is a God whom I want with me wherever I go, not because I won’t be confronted with evil, but because I have the comfort and assurance of God’s presence no matter where life may lead me and how tough it may get.  God is with me in the low places as well as in times of ecstasy.  This is an awesome God!

Now, let’s fast forward many hundreds of years to the time of John, the gospel writer.  John is the most Christological of the gospels, concerned far less than the other gospel writers with recording details he may have heard passed down about Jesus.  We know each of the writers had their own agendas, but John’s was unique.  He was concerned with proving that Jesus was God — not just God’s messiah, but God’s very self.  That’s what he believed and he wanted his readers to believe it too.  And so with that as his intent and purpose, he created many I AM sayings and placed them on the lips of Jesus.  I say John created them because it’s highly unlikely that Jesus could have said any of those things and NOT had them recorded by at least one other gospel writer — especially since the other gospels were written so much earlier than John.  The I AM sayings are lovely, comforting:  most of us know them.  “I am the good shepherd; I am the light of the world; I am the bread of life; I am the resurrection and the life; I am the way, the truth and the life.”  There are more, and many people love these sayings almost as much as any other part of the Bible.  They speak of comfort, assurance, something to which we can cling in times of turmoil.  And it’s okay that we do that — but we also need to understand John’s purpose in placing them on the lips of Jesus.

John was clearly aware that translators of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures, rendered the divine name I AM as ego eimi (ay-go ay-ME).   So he very carefully used ego eimi at crucial points in his gospel to declare what he believed: the divinity of Jesus, that Jesus was God, the great I AM.  When WE, in today’s world, hear, “I am the good shepherd,” we most probably focus on the words “GOOD shepherd.”  The Jews of John’s day heard the divine name of God:  I AM.  The context in which that statement is heard makes all the difference.

The power of this name, I AM, becomes increasingly evident when two other examples of its use in John’s gospel are evaluated.  When Jesus speaks to the Jewish authorities, he says:  “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I AM.”  And then the story continues:  So they picked up stones to throw at him.[3]  The reason why the authorities wanted to stone Jesus was that they believed his use of the divine name was blasphemous.

Later in John’s gospel, when the soldiers came looking for Jesus in the garden and Jesus asked who they were looking for, they answered:  “Jesus of Nazareth.”  To which Jesus replied, “I AM he” — ego eimi.  In short, Jesus was responding with the divine name — apparent from the story since the soldiers stepped back and fell to the ground.[4]  They fell to the ground because of the sheer power of the divine name.

This is something that we, as Christians, fail to understand in today’s context where God’s name is often used quite frivolously and often without much thought.  Perhaps that says something about how Christians in today’s culture reverence God — or not.  Many USE God for political reasons but not for the RIGHT REASONS — the reasons that Jesus SHOWED US with his life and actions — helping the poor and oppressed and reaching out to all those whom others excluded.

So what about the shepherd image — as used not only by the psalmist but also by John?  What does it tell us, or not tell us, about God?

Within Israelite history, the expectation was that kings and religious leaders were supposed to “shepherd” the people.  Yet they failed horribly at the task, so horribly that God sent a message to them through the prophet, Ezekiel:  You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.  So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals.[5]

But God did more than tell the rulers they had failed, God also gave the remedy:  “I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out…  I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down…I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak…  I will feed them with justice.”[6]  This is the same God whom the psalmist knew, a God who would be with the sheep — with us — through the dark times and the good times — never forsaking us.

Jesus may not have spoken the words, “I AM the good shepherd” but he surely took Ezekiel’s words — God’s words — to heart.  He acted out with his life what God wanted, what God had promised, and he did it without exclusion.  In the particular I AM saying we read today, John captured the universality of Jesus’ ministry:  “I have other sheep which are not of this fold.  I must bring them also.”  John may have intended this to be a call for unity in a time when religious diversity was becoming more and more evident at the end of the first century — intending that everyone would unite behind Jesus.  But I think Jesus would have understood that God was BIGGER and more magnanimous than John could imagine and that God could gather together a very diverse flock.

Jesus rarely treated anyone differently than others — whether the person was a leper, a Syro-Phoenician, gentile woman who argued with him; Peter who denied him; or a Samaritan woman at the well who differed with him theologically.  If there was any group he may have treated with disdain it was the religious leaders who failed to understand their role as God’s servants, God’s shepherds.

We love the idea that God and Jesus are our shepherds.  We like to imagine that we will be guided and protected and kept from harm.  But that’s NOT what either of these passages promises.  The psalmist made that very clear:  “though I walk through the darkest valley…you are with me.”  The dark valleys don’t disappear simply because God walks with us; what we do know is that we will never be alone.  And while John tells us that Jesus, as the good shepherd, will “lay down his life for the sheep,” the shepherd’s willingness to do this doesn’t mean that the wolf will slither away into the darkness, never to be seen again.

God is our shepherd and Jesus kept that vision before him, doing everything in his power to seek the lost and strengthen the week.  I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.  That’s what God wants for us; that’s what Jesus hoped to bring us.  That’s what it means for the kingdom of God to be among us.  But the sheep in these stories have something to do as well: they need to follow the shepherd.  Following means ACTION; it means doing what Jesus did.  Amen.

 

 

This sermon was written by the Rev. Janet Weiblen, Intentional Interim Minister at Weston Christian Church.  It can only be used with permission of the author.  revj@kc.rr.com.

 

 

 

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