Text was Acts 4, 5-12 and John 10, 11-18
"True leadership and discipleship cannot be separated from the personal love of those whom we know by name and voice."
In John's Gospel, Jesus picks up the metaphor of the shepherd, familiar to his hearers from the 23rd Psalm and gives it a new, self-referential, twist: the good shepherd is the one who is prepared to face death in order to fulfil his responsibilities.
In Acts, Peter follows his master's example. By healing the cripple and fearlessly proclaiming the source of his power, he puts himself in immediate danger. In each case, the willingness to sacrifice oneself is tied to personal love: the shepherd knows the sheep by name and they know his voice; the disciples act in the name of Jesus; the ones we care for are our brothers and sisters.
Peter is the dominant figure in the early chapters of Acts, and his appearance here is typical. After a night in prison, he and his companions are brought before the Jewish religious authorities. The assembled array is impressive: rulers, priests and scribes; the high priest and members of his family, listed by name. The disciples are thrust right into the middle of all this. They are unlettered, ordinary, men, as Luke reminds us a little later; we know also from his Gospel that Peter's nerve had failed when his master had been arrested. But now he is transformed: he speaks with the freedom and confidence that was, in the ancient world, the mark of a philosopher. His style is fluent and authoritative, more a sermon than a speech of defence. He even emphasises the errors of his prosecutors by adding 'you' to the Old Testament quotation, 'This is the stone which you builders rejected', and by insisting on the resurrection of Christ before the Sadducees, who rejected even the future resurrection. The transformation of Peter reveals the power of the Holy Spirit, bestowed on the apostles at Pentecost.
Jesus is rarely in the New Testament described directly as 'God'. Instead, the writers repeatedly ascribe to him activities or titles or descriptions that properly belong to God. Here Jesus identifies himself with the Good Shepherd who, in the Old Testament, stands for God. Ezekiel 34 makes a contrast with the bad shepherds, who neglect and exploit their flocks; Psalm 23 gives details of the painstaking care provided by the true herdsman. In John, Jesus contrasts the shepherd with the hired hand: the one abandons his charges at the first sign of danger; the other faces death for the sake of his sheep. The extension of the Old Testament metaphor is striking: Jesus identifies himself with God precisely in his self-giving death.
Jesus' claim is that his relationship with the Father, one of mutual love and knowledge, is the source of his love and knowledge of his sheep. They are his own: the Greek word idios is used of members of one's family. It is the unity between Father and Son that makes unity among the sheep an imperative. That is why the 'other sheep' will become part of one and the same flock. Some scholars argue that the 'other sheep' are scattered groups of Jewish Christians in John's own day, facing persecution by the synagogues; most think that they are the non-Jews who will eventually become Christians. In either case, the readers are reminded that they are all linked as members of one family through the one shepherd.
And the one shepherd is of course unique. As Peter says in his conclusion, “Salvation is found in no on else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.” He is the only one.
Its worth noting that although at Easter we talk about how Jesus rose from the dead, this passage makes it clear that it was God who raised him; he did not do it himself. The work of Christ on the cross, and the power of God which raised him from the dead, are how our salvation is possible. Peter’s speech before the Sanhedrin sees them with their backs against the wall, defending their faith and seeking to ensure the truth about Jesus is properly understood. Clearly, Peter took an enormous risk in speaking out, and could have suffered a similar fate to that of Jesus, but the Sanhedrin eventually release him and John.
I find it fascinating that Jesus’ picture of the sheepfold, with himself as the shepherd, the protective gate (verse 7), while apparently first of all implying a protected, isolated community, if we see the sheep as the Church, is of course followed by the statement from Jesus that “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen, I must bring them also … there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” So its actually a call to be inclusive of outsiders – whether, as we have seen, these other sheep are from other churches or from no church at all.
Here at Lindsell this is what we aim to do, to be inclusive, and we need to be ready to be transformed by our encounter with other sheep. I’m no farmer, but I do know that when you introduce new stock to a flock or herd, the gene pool is altered over generations and the animals become different – I wonder how long it would take fro a flock of plain white sheep to become spotty with the introduction of just one Jacobs ram? In the same way, as we grow as a church, and we are the only officially growing church in this benefice right now, we need to hold in tension our stated aims to have an open door and to hold to traditional values.
Our shepherd does want to let other sheep into the sheepfold, but are we ready to receive them? Have we perhaps regarded the sanctuary of this building, this church family as somehow sacrosanct? I think perhaps not so far in my experience, which is why we are growing. Yet at the same time we do not need to compromise our gospel faith, and instead we should be ready to model it by word and deed.
The sheepfold Jesus spoke of might have been made up simply of a circle of thorn bushes with a gap guarded by the shepherd – who would lie down across the entrance, hence lay down his life – but I suspect that for us the thorns are not just o protect us from what is outside; if you are sitting in or near thorns you cannot stay comfortable for too long and you have to move; the thorns in our sheepfold then might be a motivation to get up and go out- to turn the church inside out, for the sake of the other sheep, the people we know and love, who aren’t here today.
Using some material from www.rootsontheweb.com by Sister Margaret Atkins
