“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 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.They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.- John 10:1-10
Tony Campolo shared this story (Let Me Tell You a Story, pp 9-10):
As a boy growing up in the city, it was somewhat dangerous for me to walk to school all by myself. So my mother paid Harriet, a neighborhood girl a few years older than I, to be responsible for getting me to and from school each day. Harriet was paid five cents a day for this service.
As I grew older, I became very conscious of what I believed was an enormous amount of money going into Harriet’s hands. So I went to my mother and told her that there was no need for her to pay Harriet any longer, that she should give me the nickel each day, and I would walk myself to school. I assured her that I could do it with no problem at all. I kept on begging and begging until my mother gave in and said, “Okay! If you’re very careful, I’ll give you the nickel a day, and you can put the money in the bank and save it to buy Christmas presents for your sisters.”
That seemed like a good idea. So from that time on I walked myself to school, collected the money, and did not allow (any of it) to leave the household.
Years later, when my mother had passed on, I was at a family get-together with my sisters and I reminded them of my independent spirit, even when I was a child. I reminded them of how I walked myself to school, and how I needed no one’s help in getting there and back each day, and how that translated into good presents for them at Christmas time.
My sisters laughed at me and one of them said, “Did you think that you went to school alone and came home alone? Every day when you left the house Mom followed you. And when you came out of school at the end of the day, she was there. She always made sure that you didn’t notice her, but she watched over you coming and going, just to make sure you were safe and that nobody hurt you.
Didn’t it ever occur to you that there was something strange about the fact that when you knocked on the door she didn’t answer right away, and that it always took a minute or so before she opened the door of the house to let you in? That’s because she would follow you home then sneak in the back door. When she opened the front door and let you in, you were always left with the impression that you had been on your own, when in reality she had been watching over you all the time.”
The Good Shepherd is like that.
You’ve seen the stickers on the doors when you walk into a store. You might not pay much attention to them but they are there. A small 6x6 square with the words “code Adam.” Named in memory of Adam Walsh, son of America’s Most Wanted Host, John Walsh, it is the missing child alert first developed by Wal-mart in the early 90‘s and used in many other retail shops today.
During the few years I worked in retail I can remember having heard the code maybe 3 times. When the announcement is made everyone stops what they are doing. Someone stands at each of the entrances. Employees stocking shelves stop and walk each of the aisles of their departments. The only thing that matters at that moment is finding that child.
My wife and I were walking through Target when we saw workers obviously searching for a lost child. The name of the girl was called out repeatedly. For several minutes, an eternity for the parent, this went on, mom calling out every few seconds.
At the end of the long aisle, we saw the mom call back, “I’ve got her. she’s here.”
Among all the voices calling for her, the child knew her mother’s voice.
The good Shepherd is like that too.
Of all the images of Jesus in scripture, none is perhaps more familiar, nor more comforting than Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Images of being led beside still waters bring solace and peace to many people in time of stress or grief or loss.
Walk through a cemetery and you will often find several different statues of Jesus: Jesus with a group of children, Jesus praying in the garden, Jesus on the cross... one church I served had a statue in its cemetery of Jesus holding a lamb in his arms. Jesus has left the ninety and nine and has gone to rescue the one, which he now lovingly cradles in his arms.
Or perhaps you’ve seen paintings depicting such a scene. I know of several: one famously portrays Jesus with a shepherd’s crook and sheep are following him. Another is Jesus reaching down over the side of a cliff, saving a sheep that has wandered and become stuck on a ledge.
There is Jesus, the good shepherd.
I suppose that makes us sheep.
When I think of sheep... I imagine those sheep on the Serta Mattress commercials... kinda cute...great big saucer eyes...
Some years ago someone gave my wife a stuffed number 13 sheep... and for the longest time it stayed on our nightstand...
And there’s trying to fall asleep and being told to try counting sheep..
Or the classic Bugs Bunny cartoons…
“Morning Sam.”
“Morning Ralph.”
I remember as a child getting up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons. My brother and I would watch together while our parents slept. After mom and dad woke up we’d continue watching while they made our breakfast and did whatever it was moms and dads did.
But whatever chores they were doing stopped when Bugs Bunny came on.
So Ralph and Sam…. the coyote and sheep dog who clock in to work together as friends and at the whistle go their separate ways... the coyote to steal sheep and the Sam the sheepdog constantly thwarting his plans...
“The one who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit…
and that thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came,” Jesus said, “that they may have life, and have it abundantly."
The religious leaders would no doubt have heard these words as attacks against themselves. And rightly so. In the chapter prior, Jesus had healed a man born blind. The Jewish leaders didn’t believe it at first until they contacted his parents who said he was in fact born blind but they knew that the religious leaders had "agreed that if any man would confess him as Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue" (9:22). So the leaders brought in the formerly blind man again.
“Give glory to God! We know that this man Jesus is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.
The one born blind could now see and those who were born with sight were the ones who were themselves blind. They were not acting as shepherd but as bandits with no care for their sheep.
The religious leaders were playing the role of gatekeeper. Letting in only those who passed their tests, who jumped through their hoops, who believed the right things, said the right things…
Who looked and sounded exactly like themselves. You can join us, if you look like us and believe like we do.
One of my favorite preachers, Fred Craddock, tells this story (Craddock Stories, page 28-29):
First little church I served was in the eastern Tennessee hills, not too far from Oak Ridge. When Oak Ridge began to boom with the atomic energy, that little bitty town became a booming city just overnight.
Every hill and every valley and every shady grove had recreational vehicles and trucks and things like that. People came in from everywhere and pitched tents, lived in wagons. Hard hats from everywhere, with their families and children paddling around in the mud in those trailer parks, lived in everything temporarily to work. Our church was not far away. We had a beautiful little church – white frame building, one hundred and twelve years old. The church had an organ in the corner, which one of the young fellows had to pump while Ms. Lois played it. Boy, she could play the songs just as slow as anybody.
The organ was a little slow. The church had beautifully decorated chimneys, kerosene lamps all around the walls, and every pew in this little church was hewn, hand hewn, from a giant poplar tree. After church one Sunday morning I asked the leaders to stay. I said to them, “Now we need to launch a calling campaign and an invitational campaign in all those trailer parks to invite those people to church.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think they’d fit in here,” one of them said.
“They’re just here temporarily, just construction people. They’ll be leaving pretty soon.”
“Well, we ought to invite them, make them feel at home,” I said.
We argued about it, time ran out, and we said we’d vote next Sunday. Next Sunday, we all sat down after the service. “I move,” said one of them, “I move that in order to be a member of this church, you must own property in the county.”
Someone else said, “I second that.” It passed. I voted against it, but they reminded me that I was just a kid preacher and I didn’t have a vote. It passed. When we moved back to these parts, I took my wife to see that little church, because I had told her that painful, painful story.
The roads have changed. The interstate goes through that part of the country, so I had a hard time finding it, but I finally did. I found the state road, the county road, and the little gravel road. Then there, back among the pines, was that building shining white. It was different. The parking lot was full – motorcycles and trucks and cars packed in there.
And out front, a great big sign: “Barbecue, all you can eat.” It’s a restaurant, so we went inside. The pews are against a wall. They have electric lights now, and the organ pushed over into the corner. There are all those aluminum and plastic tables, and people sitting there eating barbecued pork and chicken and ribs – all kinds of people. I said to Nettie, “It’s a good thing this is still not a church, otherwise these people couldn’t be in here.”
"I am the gate," Jesus said. Not you. Not me. And that’s a good thing. Because if it were up to me…
I’m glad its not up to me.
Jesus is the gate and if Jesus loves them and says they are welcome then it must be okay for us to love them and welcome them too. Right?
