Good Sheep Bad Sheep? John 10:11-18 Good Shepherd Easter 4B May 3 2009

Grace and Peace to you from God Our Father and Jesus the Christ. AMEN.

Jesus revealed God's radical love for people in the cross. Before his death in all of the gospels he boldly predicted what was coming. He spoke of his death knowing to his friends knowing that it had to come. Reading John this week I hear his word and sense that he knew about the cross and that he knew he wasn't going to be stopped by death from doing the work that the father sent him here to do.

In John 10 Jesus said that a true shepherd was entirely ready to face death for the sake of the sheep. A hired hand would turn and run when the sheep were most in need in order to protect his own skin; but not a Good Shepherd. One who truly cared for the sheep would put his body in harms way in order to defend those he was called his own. The true shepherd wasn't hired to protect the sheep; he claimed them and owned them as his own.

Jesus is letting you know just how valuable you are to God. Jesus said he was the Good Shepherd ready to face danger on behalf of his sheep. Looking back towards Good Friday and Easter we see that Jesus meant it. He wasn't pontificating or just using flowery images. He meant it when he said that he was a good shepherd. He was and is ready to take on the wolves and thieves who threatened his sheep.

The gospels have given us us rich images of God at work in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus was unique in history. In John's gospel Jesus' own "I am" statements helps us see who him

Only Jesus could say, “I am”...
I am the Messiah John 4:26
I am the bread of life John 6:48
I am the light of the world John 8:12
I am the door for the sheep John 10:7
I am the good shepherd John 10:11
I am the Son of God John 10:36
I am the resurrection and the life John 11:25
I am the way, the truth, and the life John 14:6
I am in the father and the Father is in me John 14:10
I am the true vine John 15:1
I am not of the world John 17:14
Jesus' simple sentences give us glimpses of God at work in his person. This weeks reading in John 10:11-18 invites us to explore Jesus work as shepherd and to explore what great lengths he's willing to go to in our defense.

Slide 3 What Kind of Sheep are you
In my first couple years as a pastor I remember sharing this text in a sermon. I grew up in Minneapolis and my first real exposure to any sheep; or anybody who cared for them came when I was 23 years old on my internship in Saint James.
In my sermon a couple years later in Kenyon, I asked out loud, “Sheep have reputation for being so dumb, so is it fair for Jesus to call us sheep?” One man in the congregation spoke up laughing at me, "They can't be all that dumb: they can always find their way out of a fence if there's a hole. And they can always get up on top of a stack of bails or building if they have half a chance to get there." Cordette was absolutely right. Jesus wasn't comparing us to dumb animals by calling us sheep. He was revealing both God's view of our nature and the distance that he would go to save us.
Jesus' mission, to be shepherd of our lives, runs head long into our rugged independence and our will to run our own lives. Jesus understood our inclination to be willful and sinful. Our generations' resistance to God and God's will is not all that new. The older I more clearly see that people have always been willfully going away from God, the difference is that each generation has different distractions and temptations that lead us away from the sheepfold.

Cordette convinced me that sheep aren't that dumb; and neither are we. We humans have been given so much by God. We were made to please God. Yet we all can choose to use our gifts destructively. The shepherd who knows his sheep knows our abilities and our temptations.

If Jesus is...
Jesus loves us enough to run headlong into the worst that humans can do to other humans. We live in an age when conversations about sin and human responsibility for sin often happen very publicly. We live in a time when the images and words about the worst things that people can do to other people are part of our public conversation and imagination.

A couple years ago I was part of a group from Zion Lutheran Church in Stewartville that headed down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to help rebuild after Katrina. Even a year and a half later people were still trying to rebuild and reorganize their lives after the storm had done so much damage. 19 people headed south and we were spread out along to coast at projects where we could help.

Five of us spent our week working at a home in Moss Point, MS. The owner was a single mom with 3 kids from 17-21 years old and a grandbaby. Her story was tough. She'd had a freak accident about 6 months before the hurricane and broken her ankle. She was a pipe fitter in a shipyard that rebuilds ships for the US Navy. After her accident she could never return to that work.

Her neighborhood was on the back side of a bayou. 2 or 3 feet of water had covered their entire neighborhood. The wind, rain, and storm surge had come and gone. Every home had damage. In some it was footings and piers that had been moved. In others there was damage to the floor joists and sub-floors because they'd been submerged. In other houses there was damage to the walls and ceilings in side. In a some places the rafters and roofs needed work.

After the storm was gone all kinds of people came into that place some came to do good and others to do harm. Some came selling drugs to numb the pain; others came to steal, and others to good.
This one sign on a house in Moss Point caught my eye.

“You criminal sons of guns broke into my house back in May of 2006 and destroyed my house. You left your finger prints. Also you broke into my daughters house and stole her baby's shoes...

Jesus made a promise; Jesus has pledged to be our shepherd. He is the one with the rod and staff in his hand in the 23rd psalm. He's the one true and faithful Son who is doing the will of his Father. He knows very well that he came to save a people who believe they don't need saving. Jesus knows very well that their are thieves and wolves ready to reach in and do us harm.

Jesus knows when we've been knocked down. He knows that we have value and worth even when the world around us misses our value. Jesus promised to the shepherd and he kept that promise on the cross and he will keep that promise unto the fullness of time.