Sermon Easter 4A

Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10

The first full weekend in May, I attended the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival. This is a yearly festival, one of the largest of its kind in the US, and I’ve been going with my mom for as long as I can remember, at least the years I’ve been close enough. There are vendors of all kinds: wool, yarn, needles, spinning wheels, […]. There are animals being shown: sheep, sheep, lambs, some more sheep. And there are, of course, competitions. The “sheep to shawl” contest takes relay teams who start by sheering the sheep, then clean, spin, and dye the wool, and finally weave a shawl, all over the course of the weekend, being judged at each stage. My favorite, though, is the sheepdog competition. which tests the training of the sheepdog and the communication between shepherd and sheepdog.

During my day at the festival this year, I was reflecting on our gospel reading for today and thinking about my experiences of sheep. We as church tend to take the images of sheep and shepherd in the gospels and we make pretty pictures out of them. I’m sure we’ve all seen it: Jesus as shepherd, clean white robe, maybe with a nice shepherd’s crook, standing with a tight little group of well-groomed sheep, who are all standing still right next to him.

Well… sheep don’t behave like that, or look like that, usually, and, after a day of working, neither do most shepherds. The pastoral care professor at the seminary, having spent some time as a shepherdess herself, does a discussion-lecture on this very topic, looking at our images of shepherd, and explaining how sheep are, actually yes, animals, who get dirty and messy and by the end of the day running around after them, so too is the shepherd dirty and messy. (Also, that shepherd’s crook? It’s not crooked so you can tell it from your other walking sticks. It helps with the herding.) Sheep and shepherding are images that we have sanitized and they have become almost fairy-tale-like in their serenity and the way it’s exotic to us. It’s certainly not an image you see walking in downtown Philly.

But the images in our readings today are real. Jesus describes the gate and gatekeeper situation as it was, and still is in some places. Thieves don’t enter by the gate. Sheep really do know their shepherd’s voice, usually by a particular song or whistle. The words we hear in scripture are real.

In our first reading, from Acts, we have a description of how the earliest Christians lived and worshipped together. In 1 Peter, we hear a response to a real issue that Christians were having: how to deal with suffering as the church, while being persecuted for following their faith, persecuted in ways that we cannot imagine. And back in the gospel reading, when Jesus interprets the parable to his disciples, we have reality. Not just a nice little story and image, but a truth about who Jesus is in relationship to us, in relationship to those who came before him, and in relationship to his mission. Jesus is the gate, and whoever comes in by the gate will be saved.

Sheep do wander. As 1 Peter reads, “For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” We go astray, like sheep. We wander, we lose our way, we take care of our own needs, with our heads to the ground: I’ll eat this grass, and now this grass, and – oh! – this grass looks tasty, and I see some grass in the shade over there, and the next thing you know we’re miles from the herd, which, made up of sheep like ourselves, probably doesn’t resemble a tight group of well-groomed fuzzballs anymore.

When I was working on this sermon earlier this week, with my apartment windows wide open to bring in the beautiful spring air, I turned to Handel, and I listened to the section from the Messiah called “All we like sheep.” If you’re not familiar with this piece, it has runs in all directions: up, down, soprano, alto, bass, tenor, notes sliding all over the place, emulating the scattered movements and bleating of straying sheep… and while I was listening to this, I realized that I was also hearing sirens go by on Germantown Ave and at first I could not hear the difference. The baaing of Handel’s choir piece, the baaing of the world around us, blended into one. Our world has gone astray, we have turned everyone to their own way.

Can you hear the bleating? In war-torn places like Libya and Gaza: baa. In the Mississippi River basin, where farms are flooded to save cities because there’s nowhere for the water to go: baa. In homes where violence lurks: baa. In churches, especially in the news here in Philadelphia recently, where clergy abuse their positions and lies are networked to cover it up: baa. In the greed hearts of those who allow others to go hungry: baa. In governments where the next election is more important than care for the people: baa. In our own hearts, in our own lives, we have turned, everyone to their own way. Baah!

It’s true. It’s true that we aren’t pretty clean little fuzzy balls of jumping peace in a serene green field. But we are sheep. We're messy, rolling-in-the-mud, faces in the dirt, animals who without guidance would hide in the thickets tending our own needs until… forever. And it’s easy to turn the bleating “baa” of the sheep into the “bah” of frustration, the “bah” of giving up and looking around at God’s scattered flock with agony and despair. But that’s not our decision to make. We’re just the sheep.

And we do have a shepherd, who does not give up on us. We have God who indeed calls us by name in the waters of baptism
And we have Jesus Christ, who here today has proclaimed himself as the gate through whom the shepherd, the gatekeeper calls us, Christ the gate through whom we are saved.
And we have a sheepdog, who would win any competition, wily and messy and disordered and scattered as we are: the Holy Spirit who runs down into the thickets and herds us back into the fold with a bark that is the Word of God.
And then we are brought, herded, to the table where we eat the true food and are loved for being sheep. No matter how far we have strayed. No matter if we come as a part of a (church) family, or if we wander alone in confusion of heart. No matter if we are poor, or rich, or whether we suffer daily in body, or mind, or spirit, or whether we don’t claim our suffering at all. No matter if we are covered in dirt, shaking from exhaustion of our wandering, wool matted so thick we barely recognize ourselves. Our shepherd calls us, the gate has been made open, and the Word of God is at our heels: we come and eat, and are made whole again.

(But don’t just take my word for it, let’s turn to our hymn of the day, in your green hymnal number 476, “Have no fear little flock,” and let’s sing together of how we are chosen, loved, gathered, and restored…