“They just didn’t ‘get it’”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Wednesday, February 16, 2022

John 10:1-18 (Forward, p. 18) CEV p. 1114

Here Jesus picks up on a very familiar and oft used image from real life, and from Scripture as well, the image of sheep with their shepherd. Sheep and sheep raising was a key element of the nation’s economy, and of its worship life as well. Everyone, city or country dweller alike, was familiar with sheep and the various challenges involved in raising them and caring for them. Sheep were subject to any number of dangers, from predators (as the shepherd boy David related) to insect pests and diseases to the vicissitudes of wind and weather to the dangers of watery torrents, cliffs and rocky defiles to the predations of the ever watchful and present thieves and robbers.

On frequent occasions, Israel and its people were described as the ‘sheep of his pasture’, of God’s pasture, that is (see Psalm 74:1; 79:13; 95:7 and 100: 3). These most surely speak of how we belong to God and of how God has a sense of ownership over us and our lives. There are also passages that speak of His care for us (e.g. Isaiah 40:11) and of our need for this care (e.g. Psalm 23 and Isaiah 53:6). All of these images would have been more than simply familiar to Jesus’ audience.

But then, in the Hebrew Scriptures, particularly in Ezekiel 34, there is yet another image. Here we read that God had appointed the leaders of Israel as His ‘under-shepherds’ as it were. However, here He condemns them as having utterly failed in this task, pillaging and mistreating the sheep, failing to protect them and looking after their needs, and using them for their own benefit as shepherds instead. It reads like a pretty damning report, a pretty thorough condemnation, of their past behaviour. And so, in light of their total failure, He proposes to take over and replace them with someone of His own choosing, someone who would do the job ‘properly.’

It is against that background that Jesus speaks in today’s passage, calling Himself firstly, the gate to the sheepfold, the only way that anyone can properly and legitimately gain access to them. Anyone else. He says, is a thief or a robber.

Then He goes on to call Himself the good shepherd, as opposed to ‘bad shepherds’ perhaps, but particularly, in this passage, as opposed to the ‘hirelings’ who are in it only for what they ‘get out of it’, rather than being totally devoted to the sheep and being concerned only for their welfare.

I can well see why the ruling elites of Israel took offence at this, and why they ‘didn’t understand’. (I think that this was, at least in part, because they didn’t want to). To hear—and accept—that Jesus was the only way to the sheep, that is, to Israel, was more than they could bear. And certainly, to hear themselves lambasted as ‘hirelings’, mere hired servants, who were ‘in it’ only for what they could get out of it, that is, for personal gain. And then to hear, from Jesus’ own lips, that God was replacing them with Jesus Himself, the Good Shepherd, was simply ‘out of the question.’

So, how does this connect up with us? For us, I think that we need to go back to the first premise, namely that we belong to God and need God. I think that this has two implications. Firstly, I think that many people today have lost that sense that God owns them and has a claim on their loves. And secondly, I think that they often do not have the belief that they desperately need God in their lives. They think, instead, that they can run their lives perfectly well on their own, with their own resources and in their own power and sense of direction. And, when any of that fails, then to rely on others, whether that be family or friends or church at one level, or on government and community at another level, somehow thinking that one of them should ‘bail them out.’ Sadly, unfortunately, any sense of a need for God and God’s help comes relatively late in their thinking. So, let us, as we approach Lent, try to see ourselves more clearly as God’s people, the sheep of His pasture, and grasp more clearly just how much we need His help and His direction. Amen.

Forward notes: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (verses 10b-11).

“As a city dweller, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know much about sheep. But I also have to admit that for a long time, I had a general idea of them as slow, helpless, and dumb.

“It turns out that nothing could be further from the truth. Sheep have strong opinions, complex emotional lives, astonishingly good memories, and the ability to run at speeds of more than twenty miles an hour!

“Knowing this gives me a very different perspective on Jesus’s framing of himself as the good shepherd and us as the sheep. He is not describing us as helpless or expecting us to follow him without question. Instead, he is promising to lay down his life for us exactly as we are: by turns headstrong, doubtful, fearful, and joyful, sometimes eager to follow and sometimes reluctant. Even if we are the ones who get ourselves into danger, Jesus will always guide and protect us with love—and if we can find it within ourselves to follow him, he will lead us into abundant life.”

MOVING FORWARD: “Reflect on Jesus’s words, ‘I am the good shepherd.’”

A concluding note: Actually, today’s author is wrong, at least on several counts. According to the account of shepherds that I have read, sheep are helpless, and are subject to many and manifold dangers, few of which they can escape on their own. And while indeed they have ‘strong opinions, complex emotional lives and astonishingly good memories’, they are also ‘dumb’, in the sense that they don’t always think before they act, prone to get themselves into danger rather readily, and rather headstrong and stubborn, often being totally unable to learn from their past mistakes or scrapes. Obviously, then, given all this, they certainly need the care and protection and guidance of a shepherd. And so, they are remarkedly like us, which is why the image of the sheep and a shepherd is so very apt—and accurate.