Good Shepherd Sunday (bluegrass mass cancelled)

I learned pretty quickly over the past couple of weeks that when you visit a foreign country and have no international data plan on your phone, you need a shepherd.

Several of the 13 women on the trip got lost at various points in time. I got lost walking to a pharmacy that was 500 feet away. I got lost with a friend trying to find a church where we were supposed to pick up tickets. No cell phone service. No GPS. No idea how to walk anywhere or back to where we came from. No clue where everyone else had wandered off to. We were sheep always waiting for a shepherd.

The fourth Sunday of Easter, although we couldn’t gather to celebrate it at Dockery Farms, is known as Good Shepherd Sunday. Each year on this Sunday we consider what it means when Jesus said “I am the good shepherd.”

What does it mean to be a good shepherd? There were certainly lots of people trying to shepherd us in Italy. Throughout the crowded streets and open-air markets were those constantly coming up to you and trying to get you to buy something or “step right this way.” Come here and eat this. Come over here and buy that. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to lead us somewhere.

But Jesus says he is a good shepherd. Maybe when you think of this you think of pastoral imagery like we find in Psalm 23 with the rolling green hills and clear river rolling through. Sounds lovely, but how many of us are gazing on a bunch of fields with sheep in them on a daily basis? What might a good shepherd look like in the 21st century?

Nancy Blakely says “The life of a shepherd was anything but picturesque. It was dangerous, risky, and menial. Shepherds were rough around the edges, spending time in the fields rather than in polite society. For Jesus to say, “I am the good shepherd,” would have been an affront to the religious elite and educated. The claim had an edge to it. A modern-day equivalent might be for Jesus to say, “I am the good migrant worker.” Some of our ladies in the group were able to take a special tour of the Vatican with the head plumber. So we might imagine Jesus saying something like “I am the good plumber.” It had a shock value to it.

A good shepherd vs. a hired hand. Jesus draws a clear line between the two. The hired hand runs away when trouble comes, doesn’t own the sheep, and doesn’t care for them or feed them. In contrast, Jesus as the good shepherd lays claim to owning the sheep and a special relationship with them. This kind of closeness is like the closeness we have with best friends and family. It is personal.

There are a lot of sheep and shepherd references in Scripture, including times when earthly kings are referred to as false shepherds who are accused of feeding themselves such as in Ezekiel 34. In contrast, Jesus becomes for us the water of life, the bread of heaven. Jesus has come that we may have life, and have it abundantly.

Jesus isn’t a hired hand under a contract paid to protect us, but a shepherd who made the choice to love us until the very end. Jesus is the good shepherd. Good here doesn’t just mean the opposite of bad.

Barbara Essex says “Good” (kalos) implies that which is ordered, sound, noble, ideal, model, true, competent, faithful, and praiseworthy. Jesus is not just any run-of-the-mill shepherd; he embodies strength, power, sympathy, kindness, and mercy... By his declaration, Jesus takes up God’s mission and links himself with God’s redemptive work in the world.” Jesus becomes for us the model shepherd in feeding the sheep, care for their ailments, keeping them gathered together, and placing their well-being before his own.

Maybe that is all well and good for our flock, but then Jesus goes on to say that messy little bit about how he has other sheep that don’t belong to this fold that he must bring? Is he just talking about Gentiles? Rather than answering for you, I encourage you to consider what your own answer might be. Who might “the other” be to you? Are there certain others that you have considered to be outside the fold? How have you cared for the other flocks around you? And yet, we are one flock under one good shepherd.

This was revealed to me in more ways than I have time to fully share in my time in Italy. Our group of clergywomen was comprised of United Methodists, Episcopals, and Presbyterians. We also all contained different faith backgrounds. Twice during our time together we shared Holy Communion. Different ladies from different traditions would lead the liturgy. We may have said some different words and sang different songs, but together we were united by the Good Shepherd, the body and blood of Christ. When we were in the Vatican, our tour guide was talking about the Pieta, Michelangelo’s statue of Mary holding the crucified body of Jesus. Our guide said “it really doesn’t matter if you are religious or not or where you come from or what denomination. When you gaze upon Mary holding the body of Christ, we are all united. We are all caught up in the wideness of such love.”

This past week, this community had their own good shepherd moment in the aftermath of the incident at Hayes Cooper Center that left staff and students displaced and reeling.I have seen fundraisers and school supply drives. Then on their first day off-campus, I witnessed shepherds line the sidewalk and welcome other little sheep into their fold, a college campus making room for elementary students.

One flock. One good shepherd. Jesus says I know my own and my own know me. But how do we recognize the voice of the good shepherd from among all the others? Jesus says they will listen to my voice. Notice, the voice is the key. The voice of the shepherd makes the difference.

Like when St. Francis was feeling defeated because he didn’t have what it takes to be a knight and faced the crucifix in a crumbling church only to hear God say “repair my church.” Like when a friend who went with us on the trip was lost and scared and heard God say “turn around and go this way.” We cannot follow the shepherd if we don’t know how to recognize his voice.

In Italy, there were hundreds of tours going on at the same time all around you. Each tour guide would have something unique on a pole and would hold it high in the air so that you could keep up with them and distinguish them from the others. I saw funny hats and flags and all sorts of things being used. But on one tour, our guide was a petite lady who chose to use a bright yellow glove to guide us. The only thing was that she had the glove’s middle finger sticking up rather than the pointer finger, leaving us as the tour group led by the bright yellow middle finger high in the air. In addition to this, it was hard to hear with so many large groups. So each person on the tour would receive a small radio set and an earpiece. That way, even if we lost sight of the guide, we knew how to find them again by their voice. Let me say that again. That way, even when I felt lost, I could find my way again as long as I could find the voice.

As the hymn says, “Savior, like a shepherd lead us, Much we need Thy tender care; In Thy pleasant pastures feed us, For our use Thy folds prepare: Blessèd Jesus, blessèd Jesus, Thou hast bought us, Thine we are; Blessèd Jesus, blessèd Jesus, Thou hast bought us, Thine we are.”