Good Shepherd Sunday

Good Shepherd Sunday/ Sermons / By Chris Dorn

This is Good Shepherd Sunday. And today we have the opportunity to listen to the Apostle John.

There is an interesting feature about John: He is the only apostle who lived out his years and died in old age. Exiled to the island of Patmos during the persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Diocletian, he alone escaped the martyrdom that was the lot of the rest of the apostles.
In fact, John became so old and infirm that his friends carried him in a chair and placed him in the middle of the congregation at the worship service. Too enfeebled by old age to preach a sermon, he is said to have addressed to the people a mere five words:
“Dear children, love one another.”
John has been called the apostle of love. This makes sense when we consider the main theme of his Gospel and epistles. This shows us that for him love is the very heart of the good news. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”
Jesus reveals the love of God. More than this, Jesus is the self-revelation of God. That means that if we want to know what God is like, we look at Jesus.
When Jesus acts with compassion to heal, forgive and restore, it is God acting to heal, forgive and restore. For the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does (John 5:19).
When Jesus acts with care to provide and protect, it is God acting to provide and protect, because the Son does the works of the One who sent him (cf. John 9:4).
Probably no other image in the Bible expresses this aspect of the love of God more evocatively than that of the shepherd. Indeed, when Jesus declares that he is the Good Shepherd, he immediately associates the image with love, in that the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.
Our epistle lesson makes this association explicit: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16).
For us—the sheep! Have you ever wondered why the Bible compares us with sheep? What is it about God’s people that makes the image of sheep so apt?
Consider that sheep are defenseless, vulnerable to predators. They depend on the care of a shepherd, without whom they will wander away and become a meal for a hungry wolf.
They come to trust the shepherd, who protects them from danger and makes them to lie down in green pastures and leads them beside still waters.
Can not the same be said about us? Are we not defenseless and vulnerable and dependent on care? Are we not prone to wander away and expose ourselves to every kind of danger?
Without question. Consider the following:
Calves, colts, fawns, puppies—most animals learn to move more or less right after they are born. If they cannot stand, nurse, and walk alongside their mother, exerting their own bodies to find the warmth and nourishment they need from her, they are defective and will almost certainly die.
For them helplessness means the end, as our veterinarian here will attest.
We human beings are different. We are absolutely helpless right after we are born. And we remain helpless for a very long time.
The first century Roman poet Lucretius describes our state in vivid language:
The baby, like a shipwrecked sailor cast onto the shore from the fierce waves, lies naked on the ground, unable to speak, in need of every sort of help to stay alive, when nature first casts it out with birth contractions from its mother’s womb into the shores of light.
And it fills the whole place with mournful weeping, as is fitting for one to whom belongs such trouble.
Lucretius goes on to observe: animals don’t need rattles or baby talk. They don’t need clothing for different seasons. They don’t need to arm themselves with weapons. They don’t need high city walls. The earth and nature provide everything that an animal needs.
Not so with us. We are born into a world that totally overwhelms us. I was reminded of this just yesterday, when I saw my brother’s seventh month old son. Terribly soft and vulnerable, we lie there kicking about helplessly, absolutely dependent on our mother and others to provide what we need—food, warmth, comfort, reassurance.
Seen in this light, it turns out that we have a lot in common with sheep, which are entirely dependent on their shepherd.
But not only shepherds care for sheep. There are also hired hands, with whom Jesus contrasts himself.
Jesus shepherds the sheep for their good, even going so far as laying down his life for them.
But hired hands shepherd the sheep for their own good. It is neither the work nor the sheep in which they are interested, but the pay. It is for themselves that they do what they do.
Their object above all is private gain. They are motivated by a spirit of self-regard. No wonder then that they flee from danger when it comes, more concerned for themselves than for the sheep.
The object of the good shepherd, on the other hand, is the welfare of the sheep. It is concern for them that motivates his work. As a result, as all sincere love is self-giving, so the concern of the shepherd for the sheep prompts him to give himself, to the point of laying down his own life to save them from danger.
The distinction between the good shepherd and hireling has been applied throughout the centuries to that between the faithful pastor and the false teacher, who preys on the sheep and scatter them.
For us today it is those television preachers who prey on the widow, the poor, the sick and the hopeless by offering them a miracle in exchange for money. “Sow seed money and reap a harvest.”
Of course, the only ones reaping the harvest are the television preachers, the scammers who amass fortunes, acquire mansions, and maintain a fleet of Falcon 50 private jets, so that they don’t have to suffer the inconvenience of flying first class on commercial planes—all at the expense of the sheep.
The sheep exist for them, not they for the sheep. They care nothing for them, much less know them.
False teachers have been with us from the very beginning, and are still very much with us today.


But the key to understanding the good shepherd is that he knows the sheep and they know their shepherd.


Jesus highlights this bond, and then makes an astonishing comparison: “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.”  


How does the Father know Jesus? By name, in love, and in wisdom. With joy and delight, with complete understanding, as no one else does, in perfect mutuality (David F. Ford).  


How does Jesus know the Father? In the same way. By name, in love, and in wisdom. With joy and delight, with complete understanding, as no one else does, in perfect mutuality (David F. Ford).


Now if this is true, if this comparison is valid, then how can we conceive of any greater love? We can’t. This is divine love—the love that the Father and the Son share. What is astonishing is that it’s into this divine love that Jesus invites his own.


He makes this explicit in his prayer to the Father before his suffering: “I have made your name known to them, that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26).


Of course, there is a reciprocity here, as we should expect in any relationship of love. Just as Jesus shares with his own the love of the Father, so also he wishes his own to be devoted and obedient to him, just as he is wholly devoted to his Father, and refers everything to him (Calvin).


The Good Shepherd loves his own. How should this make a difference in how we live?


Today we hear: You have to learn to love yourself, before you can love others.


There may be some truth in this statement. But it isn’t really how John thinks. We love, because he first loved us. As he laid down his life for us, so also we ought to lay down our lives for others.


The love of God affects how we relate to one another in the church, as well as to all people outside the church. If we do not sense we are already loved, then we relate to people out of a lack, perhaps even out of desperation, that is, if we relate to others at all.


Now this is not to deny that we are needy. We are born needy, as we have already discussed, and we remain so to a greater or lesser extent until the end of our lives.


A friend invited me last Thursday evening to the bookstore where she works to attend her dad’s book launch. Her dad is a counselor at Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services in Grand Rapids and was promoting his book titled, Mental Illness in the Church. A phrase from his presentation stood out to me: “each one of us is both needy and needed at the same time.”


Without question. But love makes us feel secure. And when we feel secure, we are less needy. We can give love more freely and unself-consciously than when we feel insecure.


In her searching reflection on her vocation as spiritual director, author Alisa Kasmir recounts how she first came to realize that God called her to this role.


Born in the United States, she later made her home in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. She says that the Netherlands is a great place to live if you love dogs, because dogs are welcome in most places—restaurants, stores, buses and trains.


Alisa and her dogs, which are black labradors, have been walking around Rotterdam for years. Attracted to the dogs, people stopped them so often to talk, that being stopped became impossible for her to dismiss or ignore.  


Behind the stories, the small talk, people were communicating to her that they want to be seen. They want to matter. They want a friendly face to receive their stories.


Eventually, these people became the real reason that Alisa and her dogs walked around those city streets. Those who shared their concerns, needs, and questions were showing Alisa who she was. They were the instruments that God used to call her to her role of spiritual director.


Now we don’t have to be called to be spiritual directors to do what Alisa does. For what she is doing more than anything is showing love.


To lay down our lives for one another probably will not mean making the ultimate sacrifice, as Jesus did for his sheep when he gave himself up for us on the cross, saving us from the eternal consequences of our sins.


It will probably not always mean providing the world’s goods to a brother or sister in need.


But it will definitely mean laying down our preoccupations to be fully present and responsive to the person who is in front of us.


The Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, whose work in large part was a response to the horrors of the holocaust, wrote that, inscribed on the face of every human being is the question: “Are you there for me?”


How often by our words and actions have we ignored and thereby silenced this most fundamental of all questions?


In our first lesson, John warns us against loving in words only. This is perhaps the hazard of a church goer who knows all the right words to say. But John insists rather that we should love in truth and in action.


We have already mentioned that when we sense that we are already loved, we are confident in expressing love to others. But it turns out that this is a self-reinforcing feedback loop. For when we love in truth and in action, we also have boldness before God.


John is teaching us that the Spirit can use our obedience to strengthen our confidence in God’s gracious goodness towards us.


In other words, the Spirit settles our hearts and soothes our consciences as we don’t just talk about love, but also actually practice it.


This confidence shows up in our prayer life. We come before God confident that we will receive what we ask of him, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him, according to John.


When our hearts are at rest, we put ourselves in a position where we can acknowledge and receive God’s generosity. We are in tune with what we wants to give us and do in us.


Let us find rest in the love of the Good Shepherd for us. As we grow in the knowledge of his love for us, we will also grow in our love for others. Amen.