April 26, 2026

A Good Shepherd

I’d like to open a little window for you on how I go about writing a sermon.  The first thing I usually do is read the scripture passages that are listed in the lectionary (or Bible readings) for the Sunday in question.  Sometimes I don’t find much there that “grabs” me, so I move on and look elsewhere.  But often there is something in the lectionary that speaks to me.  When I’m reading through these passages of scripture, here’s what I’m looking for: anything that surprises me, anything that confuses me, or anything that makes my skin crawl.  If something like that happens, I sit up straight and take notice – I know I’ve found my sermon.

Well, that’s what happened when I was looking at the lectionary readings for today, and it happened big time!  I was reading this lovely little story that Jesus was relating about the sheep and the shepherd.  It’s such a familiar image, it almost lulled me to sleep.  There’s the sheepfold, and the sheep, and the good shepherd whose voice the sheep recognize and follow.  We all know who the good shepherd is, right?  We’ve read it in the psalm: “ The Lord is my shepherd.”  We’ve seen it in paintings and stained glass windows – Jesus leading sheep and carrying lambs.  We remember Jesus referring to himself as the good shepherd.  So, in other words, I was pretty far along with the image of the sheep, and shepherd, and the sheepfold when I got to where the gospel writer said, “Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.”  They didn’t understand? You’ve got to be kidding.  What does it mean, “they didn’t understand?”  You’ve got sheep and a good shepherd – it’s us and Jesus.  What’s not to get?

Then I got to verse 7.  Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.”  I stopped for a minute and said, “Wait.  You’re the gate?  I thought you were the shepherd.”  Then, he says it again in verse nine, as if he were answering my question, “I am the gate.”  I put the Bible down and said, “Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”  That’s when I knew there was a sermon in here somewhere.

It’s very comforting to think of ourselves as the sheep and Jesus as the shepherd.  I like being a sheep.  I like the idea that Jesus is in charge.  I like to think that if I go astray, he’ll come looking for me.  Like a sheep, I may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but I don’t have to be very smart if Jesus is leading me and showing me the way through life.  You know: “his rod and his staff, they comfort me.”

But if Jesus is the gate, what does that mean?  Where does it leave me?  And – wait a minute – who’s the shepherd?

“The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.  The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

So there is a shepherd.  The shepherd comes in and the sheep hear his voice.  Let’s see, Jesus says:

“Whoever enters by me [“me” being the gate] will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

“Whoever enters by me will be saved.”  It’s the shepherd he was just talking about entering the sheepfold by the gate.  That’s when it hit me.  We’re the shepherd!  You and I.  We’re the shepherds.

Do you have any idea what this does to me?  Do you have any idea what it does to centuries of comfortable thinking about what it means to be a Christian?  It’s all out the window.  If Jesus isn’t the shepherd, then we’re not just sheep.  We don’t have the luxury of wandering along blissfully nibbling at whatever blades of grass happen to get in our way, knowing that the Good Shepherd is out there looking after us.  We don’t have the luxury of being followers – knowing that we don’t have to step up and take responsibility ‘cause it’ll all work out OK anyway.  We don’t have the luxury of placidness, timidity, or ignorance!  We’ve been left in charge!

We’re not the sheep.  It’s the rest of the world out there who are the sheep.  And they’ve been placed in our custody.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it!  If you’ve been thinking church is just a nice place to come on Sunday mornings and forget all your troubles and maybe hear a good sermon if you’re lucky, this is bad news!  You’ve been given a job!  If you’ve been thinking that religion is a spectator sport, and that faith is a comfortable way of patting yourself on the back, this is bad news!  You’re in the game!  If you’ve been thinking that this is a good place to hide from the world and all its problems, this is bad news!  The world is your sheepfold!  If you’ve been thinking that folks pretty much get what they deserve, and if someone out there is raising a child in poverty or addicted to crack cocaine then at the least they’re bringing their troubles on themselves and don’t deserve any of our attention, and at most they’re someone else’s problem – if that’s how you see it – this is bad news!  When just one of those lambs out there goes astray, it’s your job to leave the ninety nine behind and go find him and bring him back!  If you’ve been thinking that what goes on here inside these walls is what church is about, that it’s about us and our families, and who makes what decisions that affect us, this is bad news!  Church isn’t about us and ours, it’s about whether and how we reach beyond these walls, and whether and how by our example we teach those who come after us to have their hearts focused beyond themselves as well.  If you’ve been thinking that the work of the missions committee is a nice thing for some folks to get involved in, but it doesn’t happen to be your “thing,” this is bad news!  The church is mission, or it is nothing.

I don’t know about you, but all that gives me the willies.  If I’m the shepherd and the world is the sheep, I don’t even know where to begin.

Well, I know you’ve been waiting for some good news, so here it is: Where you begin is right here.  Sometimes we call this a church, but it’s actually a shepherd’s school.  Sometimes we call this a sanctuary, but it’s actually a classroom.  Sometimes we refer to those doors you came in this morning as the doors into the church, but they’re actually the world’s gate, and they open into the fold where your shepherding takes place.  We start from here because this is the locus of the “body of Christ,” and he told us that’s where the gate to the sheepfold is found.

In truth, the lines between shepherd and sheep get a little blurred.  And that’s good news too.  Because sometimes you get to shepherd others, and sometimes you’re the one shepherded.  Sometimes you enter the fold and call and lead, and other times you go out and find pasture.  Yes, you may have been given a big job, but you don’t have it alone.  You’re part of a whole community here of shepherds and sheep.  And there can be emotional, relational, and spiritual rewards beyond your imagining to be found in sharing this ministry we’ve been given.  You might be thoroughly amazed at how life-changing, how fulfilling, how enlivening it can be to be truly engaged with dear friends and companions in doing something that makes a real difference in the lives of people around you.

There’s some other good news here.  We’ve all been in a number of coffee hour conversations about our church – wanting to see it grow and become healthier.  There’s nothing wrong with that; our hearts are in the right place.  The question is: what do we do about it?  If our response is that we need a better “marketing plan” or a way to make ourselves look better, we’re missing the point.  Jesus makes it clear that the sheep (those who are out there in that sheepfold beyond our doors) will respond to shepherding – to genuine caring and authentic ministry.  Jesus says that the sheep will not follow the voice of strangers.  The strangers he is referring to are those who sneak into the sheepfold by some other means.  In other words, those whose very presence is based on a lie.  Those beyond our doors who are hungering for truth will not ultimately respond to the hollow marketing of bad judgment and the dishonest appeal to fear that so often characterize the messages they hear from “religious” types.  Your friends and family members and colleagues and neighbors are longing for someone to speak to them who enters through the front door.  The world is hungering for an authentic word.  And when they hear it they will respond.

I was in a restaurant some time ago.  I noticed a group of young men at a table near the bar.  They were sitting and talking with little enthusiasm, and with a posture of resignation that made them seem to be glued to the chairs.  Finally, one of them got up to leave.  I overheard another one say, “See you tomorrow night,” as he walked away.  I began to envision this group as the same sort of bar stool “fixtures” that were portrayed in the TV show Cheers – you remember, the place where “everybody knows your name.”  Somehow, in real life, though, they didn’t seem funny, charming, and romantic like they did on TV.  They seemed only empty, a little sad, and no less lonely than those who go to places where nobody knows their names.

People need more than a place “where everybody knows your name.”  They need to recognize the voice of the one who calls to them, and trust it as the authentic, compassionate word of hope that points their empty and sometimes troubled spirits in the direction of wholeness and meaning.

You touch the lives of more people than you often know.  In every conversation at a table, in every chat across the backyard fence, in every casual encounter while pushing a grocery cart you have an opportunity to truly touch the heart of another person.  And the by-product of such encounters of grace is that the lost ones are found, and more sheep are led in and out through the doors of the sheepfold, and the world is that much better a place.

Yes, you are often a sheep – sometimes gone astray, often in need of shepherding, but you are also an ambassador for Christ, a purveyor of hope and possibility, a friend indeed, a light in the darkness.  More than that, you are one who comes in and goes out by the gate of the sheepfold, one whose voice is recognized, a good shepherd.