Sheep and Shepherds

John 10-:11-18

April 26, 2015

There is a lot of talk about sheep and shepherds in the bible.

Moses was a shepherd before he confronted

his step father, the Pharaoh

and requested that he let his people go.

David was a shepherd before he

was found by Samuel and killed Goliath

and was made the greatest king of Israel.

You would think that Jesus would have been

a shepherd by profession instead of a carpenter.

But Jesus is known as THE shepherd. The good shepherd.

not because he cares for sheep, because he cares for people.

We are the sheep.

Now most of the time people would be insulted

if you call them sheep, but the bible does it all the time.

And maybe it’s a legitimate metaphor.

One thing I have learned about sheep is that they

are not great by themselves.

They need someone to help them,

to find food and water.

They need someone to lead them to these places.
The shepherds of Jesus time
And without a guide in our lives,
It is the one that says do not be afraid.
The one that leads us from death to life.

They are kind of helpless in some ways.

They get lost, they drown if they go in moving water.

And they have no real defense against predators.

They can’t bite or scratch,

they don’t have a shell that they can curl up into,

they can’t change colors,

they can’t squirt a terrible smell, They can’t roar

they just go BAA which is not a threatening sound at all.

They are just delicious fluffy animals.

The only defense they have is to run

And when one runs in fear the others tend to run to.

Most of the time, when a sheep moves it is

because it is running from something.

It is trying to get away from a perceived threat.

I think that might be something

we can say about people.

As a species, our movements are often dictated by fear.

We might not always literally run,

but we do many irrational things because we’re afraid.

We lock ourselves up in our homes and

don’t talk to strangers

we arm ourselves to the teeth.

To protect ourselves from everything we’re afraid of

We run because we’re afraid of

being poor or unsuccessful.

We run because we are afraid of loneliness

we run because we are afraid of failure,

or because we are afraid of pain or rejection.

  

Lots of churches whole ministries are based on fear

fear of the other, fear of the unknown,

fear of the end of the world.

Fear of change.

And when we live in fear

we make decisions based on fear,

we are irrational and

so, like sheep, we run.

But running never works.

Because once we’ve run from one thing,

we find that there’s always something else

to run from again.

And like those sheep end up getting in the greatest trouble

when we’re running away from some perceived danger.

So sheep really do need someone to lead them

they really do need a shepherd that cares for their

well being, someone who can see the big picture

someone who has the sheep’s best interest at heart.

The sheep really need the shepherd.

Like we really need Jesus to guide us to help us

to show us the way.

One last thing I found out is that sheep

really do respond to the voice of their shepherd.

would have a hundred or so Sheep.

And there were always other flocks of sheep around

and they tend to all look a lot alike.

Sometimes the shepherds and flocks would meet to go to sleep

and they would all get mixed up at night.

But in the morning, the shepherds

could call their flock and their sheep would follow them.

So Jesus is saying that the sheep

do just know his voice and we respond.

But how do we know which voice is really Jesus voice?

There are so many voices.

There are even so many voices that say they belong to Jesus.

People take snippets of scripture out of context

We’ve got people who say that Jesus told them

that the sheep need to buy him a 65 million dollar private jet.

Other  people say that Jesus is telling them to

condemn to judge, to hate, and even to kill.

But we know that Jesus isn’t like that.

The one thing that Jesus says

the most in the scriptures

are these four words, “Do not be afraid”.

We know the voice of Jesus

because it will never lead us to run

Never leads us to suspect or hate others.

never leads us to stockpile weapons and ammunition

in our basement waiting for the apocalypse.

We know the voice of Jesus because it never leads us to fear.

Jesus never leads his sheep to run erratically in fear.

  

Jesus voice leads us beside the still waters.

It leads us by the green pastures.

Even when we’re in the presence of our enemies.

Jesus voice tells us to pray for them.

Even though we may be in hostile territory.

Jesus says “do not be afraid, I am with you.”

Even though we might not actually be safe.

Jesus says that death will not have the last word in our life.

Even though the world may be falling down around us.

Jesus tells us to seek God’s kingdom first.

There is much that we could be afraid of in this world.

we are libel to run and find ourselves lost.

But the good shepherd tells us

“Do not be afraid.”

The good shepherd has laid down his life for us.

We are Easter people,

We are shaped by Jesus life and death.

We are shaped by the resurrection.

We are guided by our  Shepherd’s voice,

the good Shepherd’s voice.

It’s the one that leads us beyond our own fears.

Real as Fish

Luke 24:36 b-48

April 19, 2015

Easter 3

Here is Jesus.

Visiting with the disciples after the resurrection.

And he talks to them. Not for a passing moment,

not just one faint misunderstood word, but for a long time.
They actually discuss things.

And it’s not like he only speaks to one disciple, like Thaddeus

and then Thaddeus conveys his interpretation of what Jesus said

Fish and Pita, Mark Hewitt, 2012

to the rest of them.

Jesus talks to all of them all together.

And then they touch his wounds, still visible and identifiable.
And he was hungry, he needed to eat.
And so they fed him.

Broiled fish, just to be specific.

The gospel writers go to some lengths to show us one thing:

This resurrection is real.

It wasn’t a hallucination, vision, whatever you might call it.

It was flesh and bone resurrection in real life.

The disciples saw it, felt it, smelled it, experienced it.

Jesus is alive again, wounds, hunger and all.

As much as you can prove matter exists,

Jesus was there and alive and snacking on fish.

Nothing is quite as real as fish.

Now we could get hung up on this one event

And never leave. And maybe the church has to some extent.

But we must remember, this isn’t just a story about the very real

resurrection of one person 2000 years ago.

This is a story about us, about right now, about all times, about human life.

It’s about hope, forgiveness, it’s about miracle of starting over again.

This story about how Jesus lived, died tragically

and then was risen again,

is a revelation about us,

and it is about God, and about our Creators wish for us all.

The story of Jesus is about

the cycle of life, death, and new birth again.

It’s about living in hope, not being afraid of death.

And we know this, because we have seen other resurrections.

Just in our own time,

We have seen cities and countries torn apart by disasters, war,

poverty, desperation, famine, neglect, greed, hatred.

And out of their ashes, we have seen new communities form.

We have seen how other people’s lives have been

burned to the ground with tragedy,

pain, sickness, addiction.

And we have seen them come back to life.

Many of us have been through our own deaths

years of sadness and worry,

and we have come here to this day,

still with hope, promise, and future.

We are alive, our wounds intact and visible.

But we know that resurrection is real .

As real as fish.

  

Now, other people have seen this.
People who do not share our faith

have seen the same kinds of things.

People with no faith at all have seen

things that were once hopeless come to life again.

But as Christians, we know this is the power of Christ.

We understand it as the work of God in the world.

And because we believe it is from God.

and we know that there is nothing

that is too far gone for God’s power,

we have hope for all things.

And even when death does come,

we know that we are still in God’s care.

And when Jesus was talking with the disciples

on that day and they were eating that real fish together,

he noticed that at the same time that they were filled with joy,

they were filled with doubt.

In their joy they were disbelieving and wondering.

Like us, they had lots of questions and concerns,

they didn’t know if they could trust their own eyes,

but Jesus told them that they would be

witnesses to him, witnesses to the story of Jesus

and to God’s love for us and God’s power to make life.

They could take their own wounds, their own doubts,

and use them to show people the love and power of God.

And since we have also seen

these things with our own eyes,

since we are witnesses to these things too.

We are also sent out into the world.

With our disbelieving and wondering,

with our doubts and questions

armed with our visible wounds

we stand as a testament of God’s work in this world.

We have been sent to share

the story of Jesus life and death and life again.

The story of God’s love and God’s power to make new.

To share, not just in words and sermons.

not just in hopes and prayers.

But in flesh and bone, solid ways.

Real as fish ways.

And so we do what we do,

We build houses with people,

we share food with them,

we work for justice in our community,

We welcome strangers,

We hold people’s hands when they need to be held

we make them food when they need to have food made.

we have real relationships and we

forgive one another when things go wrong.

Even in our disbelieving and wonder,

we have been clothed with power from on high

to share God’s love and resurrection.

We are Easter People.

People who are shaped by the gift of resurrection.

We share our wounds and stories and belief with a broken world

and testify that hope is possible.

That God is with us.

That after death comes life.

That resurrection is as real as fish.

That Jesus Christ is risen.