God Gives Us All We Need

Revised Common Lectionary Fourth Sunday of Easter

John 10:22–30

22 At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; 26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”

And what God does in me, with me, through me — if it doesn’t speak for itself I’m not sure what will.

Some of you get it. The ones of you who have committed and kept following, I know you and you know me. We get each other. We can track. And you know the truth.

For those who hear it, I share the fullness of life that I’m offering to all — no holds barred, nothing held back. The ones who get it start to see things really open up, life to be more full and the possibilities of life beyond life — they’re in the flow.

I pass on what God has supplied me with. Nobody can take it away. I’ve got it in abundant supply, ready to share. And nobody can snatch it up or make it scarce.

I’m passing on what I directly am with God — eternal life, full life, connection to God.

Sheep are dumb

They’ve got a reputation, these animals — sheep are not smart. That’s why the need a shepherd. That’s why they run off and get lost. That’s why they need to stick to the herd, not think for themselves, stay close to home. They just mope around on the hillside, waiting to be sheered or butchered. End of story.

I decided to enlist the help of Google to test this case: “are sheep really dumb” I searched. Enquiring, much more highly evolved minds need to know.

And, low and behold, studies show that sheep are actually a lot smarter than we think. They have pretty excellent memories. They can identify the sound of a familiar voice, even years later. They establish friendship among their herd, often partnering off with another sheep in lasting relationships. One study, from 2001, found that sheep have quite strong facial recognition skills. "Sheep showed clear behavioral signs of recognising… individuals by vocalizing in response to their face pictures.” And according to that same study, sheep can recognize facial expressions, differentiating between a smile and a frown. They can recognise and remember at least 50 individual faces for more than 2 years. That is longer than many humans.

So before we get all high and mighty about being compared to sheep by Jesus, let’s consider the wisdom of sheep.

It seems to me, from this surface level of evidence, that sheep actually posses something quite extraordinary — an ability to recognize who they belong to and to stay close to that partner, herd, or shepherd. Is there not a wisdom in this? I’ll keep some of my embedded skepticism about sheep’s intelligence in mind, though. I cannot imagine them having the cognitive power to “think through” whether or not they want to stay with their community or internally process, “hey, I think that’s my shepherd, I think I’ll go to him.”

But internal monologue aside, it seems there is an innate wisdom in sheep. Because without that internal processing, they still are gravitating to the one who provides them safety and security.

This moves us into a whole other realm of knowing. We’re moving out of the realm of rational thought and into the realm of wisdom.

Wisdom

There is a wisdom among sheep, it seems, to know innately whom they belong to and what brings them safety.

There is a felt sense, something deep in their bones, that trusts in their security in the fold, the goodness of their shepherd.

The Pursuit of Wisdom

Sometimes I find it helpful to reframe the journey of faith as an opening to wisdom. Think about it. Isn’t wisdom what you seek? Is your pursuit in life purely rational, seeking direct answers to direct questions? Or is it something more nuanced, more fluid — a pursuit of deeper things, the questions that have no answers, only a felt sense and a discerned wisdom of something more along the lines of “this seems like the right way for us to go”?

Jesus confronts a crowd of rationalists at the temple, in the portico of Solomon. People come to him looking for answers about whether he is the Messiah. Rational response required — yes or no.

Funny, let’s pause for a second — where did John say that Jesus was walking in the temple? The Portico of Solomon? Right!

Ok, for those of you who seek wisdom, for those of you paying attention — notice where John tells us Jesus fields this question — on Solomon’s porch — a site in the temple that specifically names a figure from Jewish history deeply associated with wisdom.

Solomon — who had all the riches in the world, all the power he needed, but prayed to God not for more stuff, but for wisdom.

Solomon — son of the king and heir to all the history and rational knowledge of the enlightened Israelite legacy, and yet the one who prayers for something simple and boring like…wisdom.

When the authors of these texts drop nuggets like the location in the temple associated with the paragon of wisdom — we need to pay attention: This text is going to tell us something about what it means to be wise. Jesus isn’t talking about belief in the right answers here. He’s not talking about blindly acting like a sheep. He’s talking about wisdom!

The Porch

When I was growing up, we had this little porch out in the front of our house, just a couple of steps, that you could sit on and look down the hill toward the Puget Sound.

Now, at my home, we’ve been spending a lot of time out on our back deck, looking into our yard that is surrounded by leafy trees and bushes, grass and hillside.

Around the house, where do we go for wisdom? The porch of course, the deck. Picture the rocking chairs, the porch swing, the elder generation imparting some deep and wise words upon a younger’s ears.

Jesus is in the temple, the house of God — and he’s sharing wisdom on the porch! So good!

The people come looking for answers — rational answers about whether he’s the Messiah. Yes or no, thank you very much!

And Jesus just has to look at them flabbergasted.

Jesus’ answer

Here’s my paraphrase of his response to the question: Are you going to save us from the Roman occupation and inaugurate a new reign of the kingly line of Israel or are you not?

Jesus says, “Listen y’all, I’ve told you and you don’t seem to hear me. You keep asking for it but I already told you it is true.

And what God does in me, with me, through me — if it doesn’t speak for itself I’m not sure what will.

Some of you get it. The ones of you who have committed and kept following, I know you and you know me. We get each other. We can track. And you know the truth.

For those who hear it, I share the fullness of life that I’m offering to all — no holds barred, nothing held back. The ones who get it start to see things really open up, life to be more full and the possibilities of life beyond life — they’re in the flow.

I pass on what God has supplied me with. Nobody can take it away. I’ve got it in abundant supply, ready to share. And nobody can snatch it up or make it scarce.

I’m passing on what I directly am with God — eternal life, full life, connection to God.”

Jesus is teaching about wisdom. He’s saying to this crowd — “stop asking the wrong questions.” No rational answer is going to suffice.

Find wisdom with me. Like a sheep. Like a sheep that knows where it belongs and the face of its loving shepherd who will provide all that it needs. Find that connection in the collective, the community, the ones who have already figured it out. There’s lots of room for you here. Get on board, come along.

But the reality is that so many of us just can’t see it. We’re looking for another kind of knowing, the kind that is black and white and sure. And even when we’re faced with an assurance of something greater, deeper, truer — we don’t know what to do with it.

Innate Knowledge

The invitation to wisdom, to this kind of other life in Christ that’s being described here, it requires us to seek knowledge in a different kind of way. We live in world saturated with (but slowly devolving away from) facts. Truth is cut and dry, clear and clean. Yes and no.

But what’s being offered here is a different kind of knowing. Simply put, this invitation to wisdom is an invitation to knowing not only with our head, but rather fully knowing with our head, heart, and spirit. It is a full body knowing — one that must be moved into, not simply read. It is a knowing that is committed to, pledged to, covenanted to — knowing by doing, by practicing, by “taking the easy yolk upon us.”

Jesus goes on: “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” The knowing that we find in Jesus, the pursuit of wisdom, is not one-way, but rather Jesus enters into it with us — he “knows” with us.

He says “I give them life to the fullest and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.”

This wisdom, once discovered, is so very very very hard to lose. Think about another stereotype, like the dumb sheep: The Wise Old Sage.

When earthly capacities have diminished. When the body weakens and the quickness of our prime starts to slow. This is when the Wise Sage emerges. They embody something different than great knowledge of facts and figures — they live with wisdom and deeper answers.

The world’s great religions are littered with wisdom sayings, questions and riddles that when unpacked open a person to wisdom. I’ve found the same to be true of Children’s books. Asher and I read The Lorax last night — full of wisdom. Not comfortable answers, but wisdom.

If you’ve read the Hebrew Proverbs, not simply looking for simple answers, but for the deeper questions at tension within these wisdom statements — this is where the Wise Sage lives.

It is a knowledge that cannot be taken away. It is the oneness Jesus knows with God and the same oneness we pursue, the invitation to participation in the life of the Triune God that we can find.

This is what we have been invited to, to swim in a wide river of God’s wisdom. To follow the steps of Jesus down the path that does not always lead to greater accumulation of knowledge, but rather to a way of living in the world that sparks creativity, generosity, compassion, empathy, and hope for the restoration of all things.

That sounds pretty good right? That sounds like the freedom we seek, right? Hear this — God provides in abundance all that you and I need to swim in this river and share it with the world. All we need to do is stop asking for simple answers and step into the great unknown of life on that path. All we have to do is relinquish our desire for authoritative directives and instead, find the grace of each moment, with all its opportunities to embrace, to participate, to belong with a community of Jesus.

At the core of it, all that we have to do is let go of needing to be right and instead, find ways to love. Love each other. Love God. Help others love God.

We love so that we may know. Like sheep, we enter into belonging so that we might find a wisdom, a loving connected life together.

An Aside: Wisdom doesn’t fight back

Two more thoughts in closing. First, the ones who find wisdom need not fight back.

I want to jump to the story immediately following today’s text: The Jews start picking up stones to throw at Jesus to punish him for what they see as blasphemy, claiming authority of the divine that isn’t his.

In turn, Jesus continues to work out wisdom with them. There’s an openness in Jesus to these angry cynics. And what I want us to see here is simply this: If you don’t get it, or don’t want to get it, or are only interested in black and white answers — you are welcome to that. Stay there, be angry, stick with your assumptions, with your resistance. You are very very welcome to join the pursuit of wisdom, but if you chose not to, if you chose to keep asking for certainty, the People of Jesus are not going to force you to do something else. That would simply be us playing at your game.

Wisdom finds peace in its invitation, but also in trusting that God is at work in ways that even those who find wisdom cannot imagine or see. So to the ones who would throw stones or stay on the sideline, there is simply this invitation: yes, you may stay there…and we are ready for you when you chose to step in. We will not fight you (though we will certainly not bow to you or follow you).

Think about the sheep once more: aren’t there going to be ones who wander off? Yep. Does the herd wander off? No, not really. And who, according to the good news of the gospel, are the wanderers entrusted to? The Good Shepherd. So, we trust God is at work even in the wanderers. You are welcome with us all when you are ready.

My sheep

Collective memory in Israel — the ones who follow God’s voice. The ones tended by the Great Shepherd.

Our Pursuit of Wisdom

Second, for us all, there is the reminder of Jesus’ persistent invitation: Follow me.

Looking around this room, I see faces of so many highly educated, professionally successful, innovative and creative people. The sheer number of you all who hold advanced degrees, Masters, Doctorates, PhDs…it’s impressive. Bellingham is a well-educated, highly successful community and you all represent that very well. You’ve taught college courses, managed enormous businesses, performed astounding medical procedures, done research and written volumes on topics far and wide. You’re not just intelligent, you’re artistic. You’re poets, authors, singers, songwriters, musicians of all shapes and colors. Actors, photographers. And no slouches at any of it.

In all of this success, this knowledge, this accomplishment, we say “well done!” For the glory of God’s creation being made whole through your great work, “well done.”

But my question that I leave you with is this: do you desire wisdom?

When its all said and done. When all your rational questions have been answered. When the pursuit of what’s possible has ended in discovery. When the song ends. And you find the silence. Do you, under it all, after it all, through it all, do you desire wisdom?

If so — then the walk with Jesus, the Good Shepherd, will provide you with all that you need.

Let’s pray.