4th Sunday of Easter, April 22, 2018
To
understand what Jesus means in John 10, listen to the prophet Ezekiel, chapter
34. In this prophecy, it seems God is
quite angry.
What made God so mad? When God looks at the world today, how humans
treat each other, is He still as mad?
34 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal,
prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them—to the
shepherds: Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who
have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? 3 You
eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings;
but you do not feed the sheep. 4 You have not strengthened the weak, you
have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not
brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and
harshness you have ruled them. 5 So they were scattered, because there
was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals.
11 For thus says the
Lord God: I myself will
search for my sheep, and will seek them out.
14 I will feed them with good
pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they
shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the
mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my
sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. 16 I
will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the
injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will
destroy. I will feed them with justice.
Ezekiel
wrote his prophecy in Babylon, modern day Iraq.
Why was this Jewish prophet in Babylon? He was with the exiles in the 6th
century B.C. The Babylonians would not
let him or any of the educated Jews return home. Bible scholar James Ward commented on Ezekiel’s
scathing rebuke of the leaders of Judah and Israel. “According to the prophet, it was the failure
of Israel’s rulers to be true shepherds” that brought about exile.[i] “Instead
of using their power for the benefit of the people the [kings of Israel] fed
themselves.” Before he anointed Saul as
the first King of Israel 100’s of years earlier, the prophet and judge Samuel
warned this would happen. The rulers
served themselves at the expense of the people.
Samuel’s prescient statement proved true.
This
picture of failed leadership at the level of national government, depicted as shepherds
who did not protect the sheep, the people of the nation – this is the picture
to keep in mind when Jesus says he is the good shepherd.
One of the gripes that pastors hear often is church
is too political. I don’t go to church to hear about politics! Another frequent comment from worshipers
is that they want the pastor to preach the Bible. Stick
with the word, preacher! That’s
spoken as a command. Well, we can’t have it both ways. I completely agree. We preachers have to preach the word! But, the
word, the Bible, is thoroughly political.
In Ezekiel 34 the prophet comments directly about Israel’s bad governance. In
John 10, Jesus, using the same imagery, contrasts bad leadership with himself,
the good shepherd.
What mistakes of the kings of Judah and Israel lead
to the fall of the nation? They did not
strengthen the weak, or heal the sick.
They did not bind the injured or bring back the strayed. They did not seek the lost. Instead they ruled with harshness, fattening
up themselves, while the poor suffered.
In their failures, we clearly see what God expects
of leaders. What kind of leaders do we
follow? In our church family, we have
people who make a political sport of lampooning the liberals (read: anything
related to the Democratic Party). In our
church family, we have people who cannot say a single good thing about
Republicans. I find blind partisan
thinking uninteresting and inherently harmful.
Are we following leaders who strengthen the weak and heal the sick? That’s what God says the nation’s shepherds
should do.
Look at your own life, your own voting history,
opinions you have stated or tweeted or posted or blogged. Would the leaders you support match up, or
would they fall under Ezekiel’s prophetic hammer of justice? I have not espoused any position here. I simply ask questions we must ask if we
choose to read Ezekiel 34 and John 10 together.
I pose the question that must considered if we sit before the open Bible
and take what it says seriously.
Who are we, as a people? We hear Jesus, and we have to come to grips
with this. At the end of the service we
all go out from here, back to the places of our lives. We return to our homes and relax; it’s Sunday
afternoon; maybe watch some TV; maybe meet some friends downtown at a favorite
Franklin Street spot; maybe mow the lawn.
Tomorrow, it’s back to work; maybe you drive your child and spend a few
moments together in the carpool line; maybe you have an important meeting some
night this week; maybe someone you love is in the hospital and you’ll visit,
maybe Tuesday. In this normal stuff of
life, you may not think about John chapter 10 at all.
If we are truly Christ-followers, we stay connected
to Him, mindful of His ways, even in the midst of the normal flow of life, on a
busy, banal Tuesday, when Sunday seems as far away as Christmas. We might forget Sunday’s sermon, but the
message contained in it continues to shape our psyche. In unspiritual places,
we remember Jesus is there. The Holy Spirit
with us. We live in his promise, “I am
the Good Shepherd.” Because he is,
whether we are mowing the lawn, at the office coffee pot, or sitting at home at
the kitchen table, we are pushed to ask ourselves, who am I?
Jesus declares, “I am the Good Shepherd,” the one
who does strengthen the weak, heal the sick, and seek the lost.”
He contrasts the good shepherd with the hired hand
who flees at the first sign of danger, leaving the sheep – people, us – on their
own.
He restates his claim and expands on it. “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and they know me. … I lay down my life for the sheep” (John
10:15). Three times in his description
of himself as the Good Shepherd, Jesus makes the point that he lays his life
down. This mustn’t be missed. Not long after this statement, Jesus did what
he said. After talking the talk, he
walked the walk. He went to the cross,
took death on himself, the penalty for sin.
He shouldered it, taking it off us.
He gave his life for us.
The death of Jesus in our place and the forgiveness
of our sins: we call this the Gospel, the good news of salvation. Even this is a thoroughly political act. Jesus, the Gospels insisted, and not Caesar,
is Lord. Jesus is Lord. No one else
can be. Not Napolean. Not Hitler.
Not Kim Jun Un. Not Obama. Not Trump.
Through the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, God
condemned failed shepherds, kings of Israel who neglected the poor, served themselves,
and ignored justice. The prophet also
voiced God’s promise “I will be the shepherd of my sheep.” It was promise and prophecy. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
was promise and prophecy fulfillment. He
stood in the flesh as the good shepherd God promised to be in the days of
Babylonian exile.
We belong to Him.
A follower of Christ does not say, I’m a Republican or I’m a
Democrat. You or I might vote for the
Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate or the Green Party candidate. But when we listen to the Bible, which as
Baptist Christians we claim to believe is an authority in our lives, then we
hear our shepherd’s voice. And if we
listen to our shepherd’s voice, then we aren’t listening to other voices. When asked, who are you? Or what are you? We respond, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.
I follow Jesus. He defines me and gives me my identity. In all places and times, I am tuned in to the
voice of my shepherd.
Jesus
defines us. He also shows us how to
live. Throughout the four gospels, he
did all the things the failed kings in Ezekiel 34 did not do. He strengthened the weak. Following our shepherd, we look at the world
around us. Are people suffering from
poverty and injustice? We come alongside
them because Jesus did so in his day and because where the poor are, there
Jesus is. On the margins, to which the socially
disadvantaged have been pushed, Jesus sits.
He’s never aligned with the privileged.
Go through the Gospels with a fine tooth comb. He is with the weak, so in our day and time,
we work to help the weak.
Following
our shepherd, we look at the world around us.
Are people sick? We come
alongside them. We pray for cures. We offer care and comfort. We uplift the human dignity of those society
marginalizes under epithets like “special needs,” “handicapped,” and “disabled.” We bring love and grace to the ailing.
Following
our shepherd, we look at the world around us.
Are people lost? The isolating
loneliness plaguing our virtual reality age, the lie that sex equals intimacy
and companionship, and the mixing and matching of ideas from various religions shows
how far people are from life in Christ.
We speak the truth, all are sinners, destined for death. We speak the good news, God, through his son
Jesus Christ, has made a way for forgiveness and eternal life.
We
hear our shepherds tell us who we are.
We follow our shepherd forward as He shows us how to live. Supposedly
the two things not to be discussed in polite company are religion and
politics. But we cannot avoid that the
world is political. And in all places,
we live our lives in Christ, of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus
is the Good Shepherd. We live life under
his protection, following his lead. At
the beginning of this message, we read prophecy from Ezekiel in which it was
clear that God was frustrated with His people.
And I asked, is God still that angry with the world? No.
God
sent Jesus to be the fulfillment of prophecy, and Jesus came to guide people
into life. In the Good Shepherd, there
is hope for the world and for each one of us.
AMEN
[i] J.
Ward (1991), Thus Says the Lord: the
Message of the Prophets, Abingdon Press (Nashville), p.190.
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