Transcript
My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. Please be seated.
Did you know that sheep are not actually as dumb as they sometimes are portrayed to be? Turns out that a rumor started by the cattle herders. Apparently there’s some ongoing long term rivalry between cattle herders and shepherds. I don’t get it. So here’s the thing. Cows are led from behind with shouts and prods from cowboys. Sheep, on the other hand, are not. Sheep must be led from the front. In fact, according to some of the research I found about sheep, if you stand behind a herd of sheep and make noises at them, they will simply run in a big circle around and stand behind you. You cannot lead sheep from the back like cattle herders do with cows.
Plus, apparently sheep know their shepherd’s voice. Like literally. Not theologically. As in sheep will not follow just anyone who leads them. Sheep only follow the voice of the one they know to be their shepherd. Thus sheep will only follow a trusted leader. They will only go where their trusted shepherd has gone first, and is willing to go first.
So maybe actually being a sheep might be a compliment because we’re not called to blindly follow, blindly be pushed in one direction or another. Instead, sheep know the voice of the trusted leader and will only follow that trusted leader. So when Jesus in today’s gospel reading says, my sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. He is referring to his followers as those smart enough to know his voice, and to trust that he will lead them where they need to go.
Kind of makes me think of the Lord’s Prayer when we say, thy will be done – I know you might be wondering about that thought jump, bear with me- and the Lord’s Prayer. Which we pray at every service Eucharist, morning prayer, weddings, funerals, even just burials and the Lord’s Prayer. We say Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as in heaven. We are asking for God to allow God’s will to happen to be done here on earth, in our lives, as it already is done in heaven.
If you’ve ever heard me pray extemporaneously, then you know I often add this line to the end of prayers. I say something like, and may we go out into the world doing your will. This is because I recognize that all we do, if done correctly, is done according to God’s will, not our own. Not our friends or family or spouses or teachers or neighbors or whatever. Everything we do should be according to God’s will. And that especially applies to what we do in church, how we serve, what ministries we offer, and what ministries we are part of. It’s all according to God’s will. Which means it all involves discernment as well.
It’s not like a flip of the coin or roll of the dice or drawing lots, as the disciples are so often doing. Instead, when we make choices, when we decide what to do or where to go, we know it is according to God’s will. According to the one whose voice we know and trust and follow, according to our good Shepherd. And as we can read in today’s gospel reading, if it is according to our good Shepherd Jesus, then it is also according to God the Father. After all, as Jesus says, the father and I are one. That’s one of the core theological claims of the Gospel of John, that Jesus isn’t just some man, you know, like Peter who raised Tabitha, who in Greek is Dorcas. Instead, Jesus is the light that came into the world, the Son of God, the Son of Man. Jesus is God.
We don’t get this nuance in English because our nouns aren’t gendered like so many other languages. But the word one in Greek it doesn’t mean one person or one essence. Rather, it means being united. One front, so to speak. So when we call upon Jesus for guidance, we are also calling upon God quote the Father. And when we are asking for God’s will to be done, we are also asking for Jesus’s will to be done. And when all of that happens and everything aligns, and we discern expectantly and thus do accordingly, we are also united with God, with Jesus, and with the father.
So I want to take this time to invite you to consider what you are doing, and to consider what we are doing as a church and to discern if it is according to God’s will. Let us listen for that trusted voice of the Shepherd whom we follow. This means big picture. Yes, like the visioning and strategic planning that our vestry is working hard on doing right now. And it means on a smaller scale, as in, what are you doing yourself? Are you serving Christ? Are you giving all that you can to God? Are you truly working to have God’s will be done here on earth as well? In your efforts, in your own life, in your own heart? Yes.
This means when you wake up in the morning and go to work or to school or to retirement, and more specifically, this means when you come here to church, when you agree to be part of this community, not just on Sunday morning sitting in a pew. Although we always need those who are willing to simply sit in a pew on a Sunday morning. And we also need those who are willing to serve in all of the amazing ways one can serve at Saint John’s. Be it in the bell choir or choir, or on the altar guild, or as a lamb or acolyte, or usher, as a member of vestry or finance committee, or stewardship and pledging team, or any of the other financial groups – we have a lot of financial groups – as part of outreach or the many groups we support who do good in this community, or as an office, volunteer or librarian or historian within reach or coffee hour. The men’s study group was Saint Anne’s Guild, was Sunday school or music camp, adult formation or youth ministry, or pastorally with flowers or as a newly trained Eucharistic visitor.
I could certainly keep going. I mean, I could pull out the annual report from January and just go through the list of all the various and wonderful ministries we have. Or maybe there’s a ministry that’s on your heart that you hear God calling you to do, and we don’t have it here yet, and you want to bring it here and by all means, yes, please just let me know what you’re called to do so I can cheer for you.
This is now three weeks into the Easter season, and after two weeks of gospel readings that portray post-resurrection sightings of Jesus, we’re now back to before. Before the reality of resurrection as truth. Back to Jesus going over the new life he envisions for us. A life where he is our Shepherd, leading us beside still waters, comforting us, reviving us. A life where we know his voice and we follow him. That is this life, the life we live together in community, as part of Saint John’s Church, the life God calls us to have together and also individually within that togetherness. May these words from Jesus, the oneness of Jesus and the father, the promise of a good Shepherd. May they be words of comfort as we decide how to best serve God in this church and in the world.
If we are Jesus’s sheep, if we know his voice and we follow him, how will we follow him at Saint John’s Church? How will we serve the God who is worthy of all we have and all we do and all we are? Or more specifically, how will you serve Jesus at Saint John’s Church? There are certainly plenty of ways we each just have to listen for God’s voice, to know where we are being led. Amen.