It’s been - what? - a month of lockdown, and some of us, our hair is starting to get rather long. I managed to get my hair cut just a few days before lockdown hit so I reckon I can manage a few more months before I start to look like a yeti. But I know some of you missed that chance and are now starting to feel a little bit panicky.
Well spare a thought for Shrek. This is Shrek, a marino sheep in New Zealand who accidentally wandered off and lost his farmer. Now that new found freedom might have seemed wonderful at first, but Shrek’s fleece did not stop growing. After 6 years he looked like this (slide). Imagine how uncomfortable it is for a sheep to be that covered in wool, barely able to move, almost blind, overwhelmed by the heat. Fortunately after 6 years Shrek the sheep was found - and the farmer swiftly had him shorn, and here he is happy as anything after it is all over.
Today’s reading is about the Good Shepherd. John 10:1-10
10‘Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’ 6Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7 So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Christianity is about relationship. There are many people who believe religion is about philosophy or a leap of faith or a way of being a good person. But Christianity is first and foremost about a relationship. That’s why Jesus uses the metaphor of the Shepherd. We may think of farmers today as people driving around in jeeps with thousands of sheep who he gets dogs to chase around, but an ancient shepherd had a much more intimate relationship with his sheep. Just as you might call your dog - and she hears her name and comes running over - well an ancient shepherd had names for each one of his sheep and he would call them and they would come running.
“the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”
Jesus uses all sorts of different picture language to describe God - a hen gathering it’s chicks under it’s wings, a shepherd caring for his sheep whom he knows by name, a dad waiting at the gatepost for his troubled teenage son to return home. They are all about relationship.
Human beings are desperate for relationships. This little clip from the sitcom How I Met Your Mother shows the character Barney Stinson. In most of the episodes we see him as a rather arrogant Lothario hopping into bed with whatever chick he can bang. But in this clip we see something of the backstory - him as a little boy wondering why he doesn’t have a dad.(1)
[video clip: Little Barney asks his mother “who is my daddy, why can’t you tell me?” “Oh I don’t know, that guy she says, pointing at the TV at the host of The Price is Right”. So the five year old boy becomes obsessed with the idea that the host of the Price is Right is his dad, sitting before the TV showing all his school prizes and photos and everything to the TV screen - so that his “dad” will see them]
Barney is desperate for relationship. As a little boy he is desperate for a dad, as an adult he is desperate for the cheap thrill of a one night stand.
But actually we are all desperate for relationship. Human relationships are important.
It’s interesting that during lockdown people could log on to live stream services from anywhere in the world. But people are not choosing in general to go to big famous churches. They are logging on to their church. We have the most basic of video stuff here - nothing hogh tech like some churches would have - and yet you are logging on to St Barnabas - because you have relationship here. Even when people are logging onto a church they don’t normally go to (which is happening) it’s usually because they have got family members there, or it’s the church where there old vicar went to, or it’s the church where they used to live - of all the churches people log onto in this lockdown, it’s ones where they feel relationship and connection.
Human relationships are important. But we need more than that. We have a hole inside us that no one human relationship can ever satisfy and that actually we will end up damaging the relationship if we try to make it fulfil that.
I had lost my dad when I was 5. As a teenager that was part of my journey to God. There was a hole inside me that came not so much from missing my dad as from not having a dad. I remember latching onto one surrogate father figure after another only to be disappointed when they let me down. But in becoming a Christian I found in God a new Father who did not let me down.
We are designed for relationship with God - for one’s who’s voice we instinctively know.
As St Augustine put it-
“Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you”.
The picture of God is the bible is of one who cares for us - the father who teaches his toddler to walk with the reins, the shepherd who takes the sheep to where the pasture is.
Indeed Like the ancient Shepherd who lays across the door post to prevent wolves getting in the paddock, and becomes the human gate for the sheep “I am the gate” - so God protects us.
Sometimes in our life we may go through phases when we give up on God - and it may feel liberating at first, giving up on all those strictures. Whether it’s things you thought God might disapprove of, or whether it is just having to get up on a Sunday morning.
But remember Shrek the sheep. How liberating it must have felt for him to wander off without the farmer telling him what to do. But as his wool grew longer and longer, as he struggled to move, as a struggled to see, as he became overwhelmed by heat, he desperately needed the good shepherd to take care of him
“I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture….I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
But Jesus also gives us a warning. Not only is there a good shepherd who wants to give us life in abundance, life that is the best possible life it could be - but there are also false shepherds. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” If we look to fill that God shaped hole within us with other people we will only get hurt. As we see in this second clip where the now adult Barney goes on the price is right desperate to meet the man he believes is his dad.
[clip shows Barney on the Price is right. He has spent years practising the answers to make sure he does well. At one point he says (to the very confused host) - “would you say you are proud of me”? At another, during a 30 second countdown, he spends 25 seconds trying to show family photos to the man he believes is his dad - before dashing in at the last moment with the right answer. But finally he can’t bring himself to say what he wants to say to the host, because he doesn’t want his dream to disapear and he knows this is not really his dad.]
{show Augustine slide again} Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. If we try and put other people - not just evil people but good people - our husband our children our mum our wife - in the place of God, they shall let us down. Because there is only one who “can lead us out and in and to find pasture” , there is only one who can bring “abundant life”.
So two challenges -firstly to set aside all the false shepherds, including the idols we make of family and loves ones, and turn to Jesus the Good Shepherd.
And secondly: there will be times in our lives when we will have taken each of the three roles
As under-shepherds pointing people to the good shepherd
As sheep needing someone to care for them
And false shepherds leading people away or the very least distracting people from God
This will be hard, but I challenge you to think of an example of each. A time from your own life when you have filled each one of those roles.
And let us ask the one we can truly turn to, the Good Shepherd, to show us what we can learn from each.
(1) from How I Met Your Mother Series 2 Episode 20
