Sermon for Sunday, April 21,

Christ United Presbyterian Church

April 21, 2013

John 10:22-30

“Really.  Who Are You?

HERE'S THE AUDIO FILE IF YOU'D LIKE TO HEAR PASTOR JIM PREACHING THE SERMON IN CHURCH THIS MORNING

https://www.box.com/s/6vlxvj8syg4w2946kfhw

AND HERE IS THE FULL WRITTEN TEXT.

There was a couple from the Cities that bought a “hobby farm” and retired to south central Minnesota.  They didn’t want to do any serious planting – nothing more than a small vegetable garden for their own consumption.  They wanted animals, but nothing too big.  They bought two llamas, a couple of miniature horses, and a half-dozen sheep.  The sheep eventually produced a few lambs, and two of the baby lambs had problems and had to be hand fed. 

As I’m sure you may have guessed, the baby lambs became attached to the person feeding them, and as they began to grow they followed that person all over the little farm.  The couple were telling this story to a friend from the Cities, and the friend asked, “What did you call them?”  What else:  “Goodness and mercy!”

The reference of course was to our Psalm [23] that Eileen read this morning:  “goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”

Are there any shepherds here this morning?  I have cousins who raise a lot of sheep back in Ireland.  Sheep were very important to the agricultural economy of ancient Israel.  Both the Gospels and the Hebrew Testament are full of mentions and metaphors about sheep.  It wasn’t just David and his Psalms.  I found over 400 references to sheep or lambs in the Bible. 

Isaiah tells us: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. [Isaiah 53:6]”

Sheep could be bad as well as good!

In fact some people don’t actually like all those biblical references that compare us to sheep.  They think it’s insulting to be compared to any creature that is that dependent.  We’re rugged individualists, right?  We would rather go our own way.  What’s wrong with that?  We’re too free-spirited to just go along and get along with the herd.   

Or to use Isaiah’s phrasing: we have all turned to our own way and gone astray.

In the Gospel lesson this morning Jesus is walking through the Temple in Jerusalem as the festival of Dedication was being celebrated.  This festival is what we know as Hanukkah.  It celebrates both the death of Judas Maccabaeus and his followers as they led an uprising to bring independence back to Jerusalem and purity back to the Temple, and the eventual victory of their followers who did restore the Temple in 167 BC. 

That uprising and the subsequent reclaiming and purification of the Temple was an event of Davidic proportions in the eyes of the Jewish people.  In the midst of this celebration around 200 years after the victory, as the people are remembering with pride the promise of a new David, a new messiah, Jesus comes to the Temple.  David’s Psalms were part of the liturgical readings for the festival of Dedication, so the people in the Temple would have recently heard “sheep” and “shepherd” scripture readings from the scribes and priests.

This whole 10^th chapter of John is filled with “sheep” and “shepherd” images.  It begins with the story of the gate to the sheepfold and how the shepherd calls his sheep by name and they follow him because they know his voice. Then Jesus tells the story of the “good shepherd” who is ready to lay down his life for his sheep when the wolf comes prowling around the flock.  And again he talks about knowing His sheep.  They know him and they hear and recognize his voice, and it leads them to safety. 

At this point in his ministry Jesus has healed lepers and other people with a variety of sicknesses, He has given sight to the blind, He has restored life to people presumed to be dead, and He has consistently preached repentance.  He has announced the forgiveness of sins, and when asked several times if He was the awaited messiah He has responded:  “Look at what you have seen me do.  Think about what you have heard me say.  Isn’t it obvious?  Who do you say that I am?” 

“Really!  Who are you?”

I can picture the crowd around him smirking and saying:  “Why do you keep us hanging?  Just tell us who you are!”  And I can picture the look on Jesus’ face, perhaps as he shakes his head.  It’s a look of patient frustration.  “After everything that you’ve seen and heard, you still won’t accept it.” 

Are you the Messiah?  Are you God?  Both of those questions were fraught with danger for Jesus.  The people had come to think of the messiah in strictly political and military terms.  They thought that the coming of the messiah wasn’t about changing the people of Israel:  it was about defeating Israel’s external enemies.  It was about national pride.  It was about vengeance. 

“Really!  Who are you?”

He answers:  “No matter what I do, you won’t believe me.  You are not my sheep.  You won’t listen, so what’s the use?”

Jesus said:  “My sheep hear my voice.  I know them and they follow me.  They will never, ever perish, and nobody can snatch them out of my hand.” 

“My sheep hear my voice.”

How many of us still look at Jesus and say: “C’mon.  Who are you?  Seriously.”  How many of us fail to hear His voice?  Fail to listen for it?

That wonderful Presbyterian theologian, Fred Rogers, once said:  “Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.”  There’s no doubt in my mind that he would also have added “Listening to God.” 

How to be a disciple of Jesus is no secret:  listen and follow where He leads.  But being a disciple of Jesus is something that so many of us find very difficult.  We can talk about faith.  We can talk about how much we love Jesus.  We can talk about being “saved.”  But when you talk as much as so many of us do, it can be very difficult to listen, to hear.

That was the problem that Jesus faced in His time on earth.  Everybody talked so much about the messiah; everybody was so sure that they knew how the messiah would save them; everybody was noisily calling for God to restore them:  and nobody listened.  Nobody listened for thousands of years.  Nobody listened to the words of the prophets.  Nobody listened to the words of the Torah.  Nobody listened to the words of Jesus – except those who were trying to listen; except those who were waiting to hear God’s voice; except those who prayed for God’s deliverance; except those who simply wanted God’s return into their lives so that they might place themselves into the service of God.

I believe you will agree that most of us are great talkers when it comes to our devotional life.  We talk about it; we even brag about it. We tell God exactly what we want God to do for us today, and if He doesn’t deliver then we say that we are losing our faith in God.

Jesus said my sheep hear my voice.  When they hear My voice they follow Me.  We are very poor listeners.  Perhaps we should stop talking and listen for the sound of God’s voice.  Perhaps we should stop talking and listen to one another for a while.  Jesus said that we could judge who He was by watching what He had done and listening to His words.  We can also see and hear who Christ’s own sheep are.  You can judge them in the same way you can judge the shepherd.

You can judge whether a person is a disciple of Christ by how well he or she follows. Many of us want the benefits of belonging to Christ’s flock: to be known completely and intimately by God, without the responsibility of listening to Christ and following Him daily.

We want to know Him as our Savior without having Him as our Master.

Jesus is well aware of our weakness and our waywardness.  He would have been well aware of Isaiah’s words:  “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. [Isaiah 53:6]”

Jesus adds this final word of Grace: Christ says that no one can snatch His sheep from Him.   Nothing in all creation can come between us and our Shepherd.  He and the Father are one, and so too He is one with His sheep.  He knows them by name. 

He knows you by name.  Are you part of His flock?  Can you recognize His voice when He calls you to follow?  We call Him the head of our church.  As we struggle to discern the future of this congregation, do we spend our time loudly declaring what we want the future of Christ United Presbyterian to be, or do we listen for the familiar call of Christ’s voice and prepare ourselves to follow Him wherever he will lead us?

Are you praying?  Are you talking?  Can you listen?

Amen.