“Trying to get the point across”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Saturday, September 3, 2022
John 10:1-18 (Forward, p. 36) CEV p. 1114
Jesus was the master communicator but even He sometimes had trouble getting His message across to people and being understood. As today’s passage unfolds, He has just had a serious conversation—confrontation is more like it—with the Pharisees over the matter of His healing of a blind man on the Sabbath, and, it would seem, with many people listening in. Now Jesus comes across with a serious indictment of those leaders.
He begins with the image of a sheepfold and sheep, with the requisite gatekeeper and shepherd, several images that would have been most recognizable in the agricultural world of first century Palestine. In fact, there were lands devoted to pasturing sheep just outside the walls of Jerusalem where sheep destined for the Temple were kept. In this opening volley, Jesus describes Himself as being the gatekeeper of the sheepfold. All others—those who climbed in over the walls of the sheepfold, rather than entering by the gate--He describes as thieves and robbers. He says that while these thieves and robbers have come only to rob, kill and destroy, He has come to provide life and life in all its abundance. He says that the shepherd is the only person who genuinely knows and cares for the sheep, such as he knows them personally, calls them by name and leads the out to green pastures. That shepherd is the only one they follow, as they know him and recognize his voice. With a stranger, however, they only run away, as they don’t know him.
Interestingly, He doesn’t, at this point anyway, explain just who the shepherd might be, but the point is made. (Or, at least, it should have been). He has told everyone that He is the gatekeeper tasked with caring for the sheep, with everyone else being strangers or impostors at best, or thieves or robbers at best. And so, the crowds, and the Pharisees themselves, could easily have figured out where they stood, according to Jesus’ estimation. They should have gotten it, but it is obvious that they didn’t. (Maybe they didn’t want to!)
So then, Jesus changes the metaphor, in order to make His point all the clearer. He then calls Himself the good shepherd, a shepherd who truly cares for the sheep and isn’t in it for pay or for what he ‘gets’ from it. In fact, He says that as shepherd He actually lays down His life for His sheep. This is in stark contrast with many of the Jewish officialdom, who were in it more for their own benefit and well-being.
And not only does this draw the battle line a bit, but His mere description of Himself as the Good Shepherd—with an emphasis on the ‘good’—was also designed to make a point, and probably raise some hackles in the process. The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel had previously talked about good and bad shepherds, describing the leaders of Israel as being such exploitive and nasty shepherds that God would have to replace them with a shepherd of His own choosing. So here Jesus was picking up on that notion and describing Himself at that shepherd, the one that God had chosen, and placed in their stead. Whoa. No wonder some people took offence. Clearly, Jesus has struck home with His communications this time.
Clearly, He has gotten His point across.
But then there is the bigger question: how many of His hearers then, or His hearers now, are willing to take that point to its logical conclusion? The logical conclusion is that seeing as Jesus is God’s appointed one, His appointed shepherd, the only one who truly cares for and loves the sheep, we should all give our attention and allegiance to Him, and follow Him. Sadly, unfortunately, there be many who have heard this, and yet fail to say ‘yes’, choosing instead to put it off, or worse, to say ‘no.’ My prayer is that all of us will always say ‘yes’--in everything that we do--and that we will help others, lead others, to say ‘yes’ as well. Amen.
Forward notes: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me” (verse 14).
“Imagine how listeners in Jesus’s time responded to these words. Sheep and shepherds were common sights—and ones that many people avoided. The work of a shepherd is messy and smelly, and as we hear in scripture, sheep cannot always be counted on to behave.
“Even today, in the twenty-first century, this is a powerful image (although far fewer of us have encounters with sheep!). At my home church in Greenwich, Connecticut, the main window over the altar depicts Jesus as the good shepherd. I have contemplated this image for more than 20 years. Recently, Sister Joan Chittister, activist and theologian, spoke at our church. She decried those Christians who have misunderstood Jesus’s message and turned him into someone who is simply ‘nice.’ She said Christians need to get closer to other sheep and yes, get stinky like a shepherd.
“I love the image of the good shepherd. I listen carefully for the voice of our shepherd amid the noise that surrounds me. I love that Jesus knows me and calls me his own.”
MOVING FORWARD: “What does the image of Jesus as shepherd mean to you?”
A concluding note: do we ever think of ourselves as ‘stinky’ sheep, encrusted with mud and manure and burrs and ticks, and needing the shepherd’s benign, loving and careful care? This image gives us a new perspective on just how much we need Him.