Sermon for April 21, 2024: Lay It Down based upon John 10:11-18

​John 10:11-18
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‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’

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     I remember Palm Sunday four years ago when I was trying to figure out something I could do that was fun and engaging for the service when we couldn’t gather together in person. We emailed out some paper palms people could color and print and left some real palms for people to pick up at church, so that seemed to cover the palms. What I had to think harder about was the parade. Before Covid, I often invited the youngest ministers of the church to lay palms and cloth down around the sanctuary and march with me while the whole church shouts “Hosanna!” I do not live with a bunch of children to reproduce that kind of parade. I did, however, live with some chickens and guinea fowl. So, I drafted them into service. Bribed. I bribed them into service with many freeze-dried worm treats. A whole bunch of the families at church also sent me clips of parents and kids shouting “Hosanna” for the video.

     This video of me and my silly birds and so many of the kids of this church and their families may be one of the best things we’ve ever made together as a church. I’ll share the video when I post the sermon so that you all can be reminded of the glory of it.  If you haven’t seen it, it starts with me and the birds. I shake a bag of worms and start walking around the driveway with my palms. The chickens and guineas eventually started to follow me, even though I was shouting Hebrew words they didn’t know. At some point, they got spooked and peeled off towards the woodshed instead of following me towards the coop. The video records my dismayed shout of “You’re going the wrong way!”

     I shared the finished video on social media and two of my clergy colleagues immediately noticed the birds acting a lot like Jesus’ human followers. Rev. Alexis Fuller-Wright said, “[T]hose chickens make the BEST and most accurate followers of Jesus.” Rev. Liddy Gerchman-Barlow heard echoes of Jesus’ own exasperation in my words. Putting my words in quotation marks, she typed: “’You're going the wrong way!’ - Jesus.” How many times did the disciples get scared or confused or distracted and start running towards the woodshed? Pretty often, if we’re being honest about it.

   

  Even though we are well past Palm Sunday and into the Easter season, I bring up my poultry and that video because I don’t know much, really, about having sheep. I do, however, know a little bit about having chickens. Rev. Dr. Cheryl Lindsay points out in her commentary on this text, Jesus used agricultural images that were familiar to the people who lived around him. Just about everyone would have known a shepherd. They would have known what it was like to deal with real-life, often troublesome, behavior of sheep on a regular basis. As Lindsay notes, even though sheep are often gentle and easily domesticated, that doesn’t mean they always do what their shepherds want. And, they are vulnerable to many predators.

     Just about all of those things can be said of my birds, too. It was a challenge to keep them healthy and safe, especially through Maine winters. After five years of not losing any to predation, last year, we lost our last two hens to a hungry fox. It is not always easy to care for other living things, even things you may one day eat or rely on for eggs or wool. The people who first heard Jesus preach would have known that. It is no small thing to keep a herd of sheep safe. Shepherding was a challenging and necessary job. Shepherds could end up in danger themselves while tending to and protecting their sheep. 

     When Jesus speaks of himself as a good shepherd as recorded in the book of John, he is making a couple interesting choices in how he teaches. One, he is choosing to use a metaphor to describe himself that many people will be familiar with, which is good pedagogy. And, two, he’s aligning himself with a hard-working, ubiquitous, often dangerous kind of work in his society. It is interesting to me that Jesus chose to describe himself as a shepherd and not a king or a warrior or even simply as a teacher. Knowing that people hoped for the Messiah to lead them out from under the thumb of Rome, you might expect Jesus to speak of himself as a king or a warrior, but he doesn’t. And, he doesn’t simply refer to himself as a teacher. The common ideas about being a teacher would have left out the danger that Jesus understood himself to be facing. Though, were Jesus speaking now, in this country, with far too much easy access to firearms, and teachers who regularly prepare themselves to lay down their lives for their students, the ideas of shepherd and teacher aren’t so far apart as they once were. 

     Jesus started talking about being a shepherd at this point in John, as Karoline Lewis reminds us in one of her commentaries, in response to a community that has forced a man out after Jesus healed him. I won’t retell that whole story, but it starts in John 9. Jesus heals a man who had been born blind. Religious leaders disagreed as to whether or not Jesus’ power to offer than healing came from God or from somewhere bad. The powerful leaders grew angry with the man when he asserted that he believed Jesus to have come from God because only God could have healed him. They drove him out of their community. Jesus went and found the man, who declared that he believed Jesus to be the Son of Man. Then, Jesus began to talk with the Pharisees about what happened. That’s when he says he’s a shepherd, and he’s come for sheep like the man who had been born blind.

     Notice how Jesus acted like a shepherd by going and looking for the man who had been run off from his former herd. Karoline Lewis notes that the man heard Jesus before seeing him, and still believed. Seeing him confirmed that belief. The man chose to become part of Jesus’ flock, and Jesus would claim him and care for him when he was cast out. “I know my own and my own know me.” Jesus also promises that the flock will grow. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” Lewis speaks of this as the promise of abundance that comes with being a part of Jesus’ flock... not an abundance of money or power, but of healing and renewed community. “Healing leads to belonging,” Lewis says. And belonging leadings to abundant life.

     You may have noticed that this story happens before the crucifixion and resurrection in the book of John. This isn’t a post-resurrection story like we’ve heard the last couple weeks. I do wonder how the memory of this encounter would have felt to those who would have witnessed the crucifixion and the resurrection. Would this image of the shepherd who was willing to lay his life down, bolster them after the gift of the Resurrection, that is Christ’s renewed life? Jesus, who had promised abundant life, lived out that promise by defeating death and returning to his disciples. Did they remember the man born blind, to whom Jesus also returned with a promise and a gift of community?

     In this time where we are watching too many people with power, hoard more power, and harm people with the authority they’ve amassed, what can we learn from this shepherd who laid his power down on behalf of the ones he loved? And, how will we share the abundant life we are cultivating guided by his Spirit? Even though we sometimes act like my poultry, running off in the wrong direction, away from the treats promised us, like the birds, may we know that the shepherd will come looking for us, ready to share abundance with us. May we help find the rest of the flock so they can share the abundance, too.
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Resources consulted while writing this sermon:

Palm Sunday 2020 video: https://youtu.be/BfT92jbsyVY?si=1kTjuXKy9dY7lt-K

Cheryl Lindsay: https://www.ucc.org/sermon-seeds/sermon-seeds-power-to-lay-it-down/

​Caroline Lewis: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-1011-18-6
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