Psalm 23, John 10:1-10
Do Sheep hear their shepherd’s voice?
There is a story told about President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Apparently, sometime after being president for a very long time, he got tired of smiling that trade-mark Roosevelt smile and saying the trade-mark Roosevelt things at all those White House receptions. So, one evening he decided to find out whether anybody was really listening to anything he was saying. As each person came up to him and extended his hand, he would flash that big smile and said, "I murdered my grandmother this morning." People would automatically respond with comments like "How lovely!" or "Just continue your great work!"
Nobody listened to what he was actually saying, except for one foreign diplomat. When the president said, "I murdered my grandmother this morning," the diplomat responded softly, "I’m SURE she had it coming." [hat tip to Dennis Deese]
This story points us to the primary application of today’s gospel lesson. In it, Jesus applies to himself a metaphor that provides, without question, the most popular pictures of Jesus among Christians over the centuries – Jesus, the shepherd of the sheep. But, that picture – the one that you have no doubt seen in countless Sunday School booklets and on hundreds of walls in Sunday School rooms and pastors’ offices – that picture AS A PICTURE is somewhat beside the point. For, when Jesus begins to expound the metaphor, it is not the merely visual or sentimental dimensions he mentions. Instead, he zeros in on one aspect of the way a shepherd relates to his sheep – his voice, which, Jesus says, is known to the sheep, so that by the voice alone they will follow him. Or, as the case may be, will flee from who calls them in a voice that does not belong to the shepherd.
President Roosevelt might reasonably have expected people who heard him announce his murdering of his grandmother to flinch in shock. But, they did not. Jesus clearly expects his sheep to flee when they hear a voice that is not his, but guess what? They many, many times do not. Instead, they are like the people in Roosevelt’s receiving line – hearing the most outrageous statement and saying “How lovely!” No one was actually listening to the President. And, today, many Christians are not listening to Jesus.
We are 2,000 years removed from the incident recorded here in John’s gospel, and this poses for us an additional problem for us. When Jesus gave this teaching, he was physically present for those to whom he was speaking. Today he is not. And, contrary to what many Christians fondly suppose, I do not think Jesus speaks in an audible voice from heaven; at least not routinely. He could, but I know from his own teaching that he much, much prefers another way.
So, to put it bluntly for us today – if we are sheep of his sheepfold, how do we hear his voice?
We begin our answer with the context of Jesus’ teaching here in John’s gospel. This gospel lesson is actually the middle of one of those confrontations between Jesus and the religious leadership of Israel. In John chapter nine, Jesus had just restored sight to a man who was born blind, and it occasioned a lot of consternation among the Pharisees, who immediately challenged him.
Jesus’ words in the gospel lesson today were said to these Pharisees. He first spoke to them in a parable, in terms that they obviously would understand – the way in which sheep follow the voice of their shepherd, but flee from the voice of thieves and robbers. The people to whom these words apply are all present – Jesus, the Pharisees, and the man born blind, who has just begun to worship Jesus. In fact, this man is THE example of a sheep acting as sheep should act – he has just previously refused to follow the lead of the Pharisees who wanted him to condemn Jesus; and when he finally confronts Jesus face to face, he worships him. More to the point, it is not his sight, but his hearing that shows he is a sheep of the true shepherd. Before Jesus identifies himself, the man born blind does not know what Jesus looks like! So, it is in response to what Jesus SAYS that he falls at Jesus’ feet and worships.
Here, I think, is a very practical point of contact between each one of us here today and the man born blind. Imagine, for a moment, that Jesus were to walk into this sanctuary, say, as he did when he made his first post-resurrection appearances to his disciples. When he appeared to them, they recognized him by sight. He looked like the Jesus they had known before the crucifixion. But, if Jesus were to walk through that door and come into our midst, I am confident that none of us would recognize him, for the same reason that the man born blind didn’t recognize him. We have never seen Jesus in the flesh. We don’t know what he looks like. So, how do you suppose we would recognize the Lord today, assuming he were to walk through that door back there? Jesus tells us it is by what he would say – his voice. And, I don’t think we’re talking about the mere qualities of a human voice, for we haven’t any experience of that either – I don’t know if Jesus spoke with a deep baritone, or a lilting tenor voice. or something in between.
The only thing we would have at our disposal to recognize the Lord is to recognize his Word in what he would be saying to us. To put the matter in the bluntest, most concrete terms possible, we would have to recognize him by finding his words to us to be those we have come to know in the Bible.
I got an interesting and very helpful insight into the Bible one time from my brother-in-law, Barbara’s brother Jan, who was a Colonel in the United States Army when he retired. He explained at our supper table one evening why it was that orders in the Army are written out. I’m not talking about a casual order an office might give to a soldier – to go next door and to bring him a file. No, the orders that are important are written down. Col. Beer pointed out that the reason for this is very simple – with an order written down, there is no question later on about what was said. The act of writing preserves the order through time. And, that is exactly what God has been doing since Mount Sinai – directing his prophets and later the Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ to write down the things that are important for later disciples of the Lord to know.
What was Jesus’ commission to the Apostles? “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. teaching them observe all things that I have commanded you …” And, that is exactly what the Apostles did. And by way of preserving the teaching which Jesus was talking about, they committed it to writing – not every word of it, of course, as John himself acknowledges at the end of his gospel. But, what they did write down was, as the Apostle Paul later said to his disciple Timothy, “All scripture is breathed out from God, and it is profitable, for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in all righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
From today’s gospel lesson, we could also add to that this idea – so that by the Scriptures we should have knowledge of Jesus Christ, and fellowship with him. Indeed that is precisely what John later wrote to his own disciples in 1 John 1:1-4 --
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life-- 2the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us-- 3that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4And these things we write to you that your[a] joy may be full.
So, here we are at the beginning of the 21st Century. And, all around us – in great abundance, in scores of different English translations – we have the Holy Scriptures, the things which John was talking about, things which the Apostles wrote down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and the prophets of the Old Testament before them. These things are everywhere in the Scriptures referred to as the Word of God, the Word of Christ, the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Do we hear them? Or are we like those silly people greeting President Roosevelt with gushy words because they haven’t listened to a syllable of what he has said to them?
I submit to you that a vast number of those who claim to be Christ’s sheep are like those people in Roosevelt’s receiving line. How do I know this? Well, the other readings appointed for today show us.
Take that passage from Nehemiah, for example. There we read about some shepherds – Levites, and Nehemiah even gives us their names – who lead the people of God in the worship of their Lord. Later today, get your Bibles out and reread that entire chapter. What you will notice is something very, very common among faithful undershepherds: their praises of the Lord are quite historical, recounting the might works and judgments of the Lord. Creation, the covenant with Abraham, God’s judgment of the Canaanites, God’s judgment of the Egyptians, God’s leading his people forth into the wilderness, God’s giving the Law at Mount Sinai. Keep this passage of Scripture in mind the next time you walk into a Christian bookstore and survey the titles on the shelf. Keep his passage of Scripture in mind when you turn on the radio and listen to a church service being broadcast. Sometimes you will hear voices which match these in Nehemiah; more often, you will not.
Or take the passage from 1 Peter that we heard in the second lesson for today. Let me quote a couple of lines again: “But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. 21For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.” How often do you hear that preached? How many television personalities in the Christian Broadcasting Industry would immediately lose all of their audiences if they began preaching and teaching something like THAT? When you hear the prosperity gospel people telling everyone that God wants us all to be driving Cadillacs and living in mansions, do you suppose they are … well, perhaps, they are NOT employed by the same head shepherd who employed the Apostle Peter? Jesus told Peter, feed my sheep, and here is Peter doing just that. Boy, it doesn’t sound anything like what I’d be apt to hear when I turn to the religious channels on the TV these days!
Or take the Psalm we sang earlier – the Lord is my shepherd. That one is so famous that I expect most of us here can recite it from memory. It was composed by a shepherd, King David, who recognized in all the ways God related to him the marks of a good and faithful shepherd. David the shepherd sees himself, rightly, as one of the sheep. Is the Lord your shepherd? How would you know?
I submit to you that Jesus’ words of admonition to the Pharisees in today’s gospel lesson also give to us the answer to this question. We can know our shepherd’s voice, and we can judge the faithfulness of his undershepherds by hearing his voice, knowing his voice, in the words of the Scriptures.
“20Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
