Can people be blamed these days for not worrying too much about whether or not they have a shepherd? The agrarian and pastoral metaphors that Jesus used when he taught speak with very little clarity or urgency to our urbanized society in which farming has been largely industrialized anyway. I might travel this city from river to river today and find hardly a soul who would want to hear me convince them that they need a shepherd in their life. When Audrey Evans died, it’s possible that we lost the last person in America who could have convinced anyone at all that they need a shepherd. Far more likely these days to come up against the counter-argument that shepherds are for sheep, which are stupid, herd-bound, and dirty. No one goes to the Wharton School - or any of the institutions of higher learning that surround us in this city - because they see themselves as sheep. Comcast is not looking to hire sheep either.
It’s a good thing that the people who make these choices (not me) ended the reading from this passage of John’s gospel immediately before the place where Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.” It’s a curious choice, but I’ll take it.
That choice leaves us, on this so-called “Good Shepherd Sunday,” with another of the “I am” sayings that St. John scatters through the Gospel. “I am the gate for the sheep,” Jesus says. “I am the gate.” For the itinerant Philadelphia preacher going from river to river, it may not be immediately clear that this message has significantly more clarity or urgency with those I might encounter. If you’re not looking for a shepherd, then what are the chances that you’re looking for a gate? Well, who knows? If we look closely, and if we don’t take Jesus too literally here, we might find that he has something to say that could mean a lot to a lot of people.
Listen to what Jesus says: “The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd.” OK, got it: the shepherd goes in, I guess to some enclosure where the sheep are kept enclosed, protected, sort of, but confined. We don’t know who built this enclosure. And we don’t even know who put the sheep in there. All we know is that the sheep are being kept in the sheepfold, within its walls. Well, we know a little more, we know that even though the sheepfold ought to keep the sheep safe, there are thieves and bandits who can find their way in. So, the sheep have been confined for their safety (I guess?). But they are not safe; they are susceptible to the wiles of thieves and bandits who are clever enough to infiltrate the sheepfold, and sinister enough to do God-knows-what once they are in there.
The shepherd is introduced to this situation. But we have already stipulated that the shepherd may not be of much interest to the modern person. Somewhere on her way to heaven, Audrey Evans is sighing a deep sigh that I am not preaching a sermon about the indispensability of shepherds, but she and I will work that out another time.
So, the sheep are enclosed, purportedly for their safety, but still they are not safe. In fact, there is a sense in which the sheep in this scenario are trapped! Am I reading too much into this? I don’t think so. These sheep (in John’s gospel) are not free, and they are in peril because of the threat of thieves and bandits. I think you could go so far as to say that the sheep are trapped. The gate is locked and they have no way out, although thieves and bandits may soon find their way in. This is a dangerous situation for the sheep.
What does Jesus tell us that the shepherd does? This is important, I think, in a world like ours that is pretty sure it is done with shepherds and thinks it has little to gain from them. What does Jesus tell us that the shepherd does? “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”
Did you hear that? Where does the shepherd lead the sheep? He leads them out! He leads them out! I checked the Greek text here, to make sure that I am not making too much of this. But it’s true that the Greek word here implies being led out of captivity. Elsewhere in the New Testament the same word is used to remember Moses leading the children out of their slavery, and to Peter being brought out of prison. In Greek the word is “exagai;” you can hear that it’s an ex word, an exodus word, an exit word; a word about going out, not in. It’s a freedom word!
“He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” And before long, Jesus is making the claim that I think could be useful, since apparently he knows that he might be speaking to an audience that is not looking for a shepherd. “I am the gate for the sheep,” Jesus says, “I am the gate.”
Now, here’s the thing: I am not sure we live in a world in which many people think they need a shepherd. But I am absolutely sure that we live in a world in which people often feel trapped. Sometimes we know how and why we feel trapped, but not always. We just discover that we are enclosed and there appears to be no way out. We are not necessarily sure who built the enclosure we’re in, and we may not know even how we got there. Maybe it was someone else’s doing, maybe it was our own doing. It may even be that we got trapped because someone thought it would keep us safe. Maybe not? But could be.
We might be trapped in a relationship, or in a job, or in a family situation. We could be trapped in a financial crisis, or in a medical emergency. Some of us are trapped in our heads where we over-think everything. Some of us are trapped in the circumstances of an unjust society. Some are trapped by our own biology. Some are trapped in addiction, and some by anxiety. You could be trapped by forces beyond your control, or by forces within your control. Some are trapped by depression, or by mania. Some by our inability to learn, or by our refusal to listen. There are those who are trapped by the cruelty of someone stronger than they are. Many are trapped by the money we think we need but we don’t have, others by the money we have and we don’t realize we don’t need. It’s easy to be trapped by a lie that we told, or by a trust that we breached. Some are trapped by a system that is so much bigger than we are. Many are trapped by their rent, or their mortgage, or by debt they cannot carry. You could be trapped by a fear that no one else knows about. Whatever it may be that traps us, most of us know what it is to be trapped by the thickness and the height of the walls of some enclosure, no matter what those walls are built of, or who built them.
There are ten thousand ways we might be trapped, and then another ten thousand, too. Most of us have felt trapped to one degree or another at some point: not just lost and unsure of where we are, but cornered, pinned down, with nowhere to turn. And when we have felt this way, there is hardly a one of us who said to ourselves, “If only I had a shepherd to lead me out of here.” I’m sorry, but I think this is true. When you are trapped you are not sitting there praying for a shepherd. When you are trapped, you are lying there in the dark, praying for a way out. And you might not call it this at first, but when you are trapped, you are hoping and praying that somewhere, somehow you will find a gate that leads out of this confinement, out of this misery, out of this hopelessness, out of this hell!
You want a gate when you are trapped! You want a gate! And the thing about Jesus is that he is such a good shepherd that he knows that sometimes, all the sheep need is a gate!
It is a cruel irony that so many people have been led to believe that Jesus is the kind of shepherd who leads people into narrow, ignorant, constricting, repressive, priggish, self-righteous confinement. But Jesus himself said that he is the kind of shepherd who leads people out of confinement! Jesus doesn’t want to put you in prison; he doesn’t want to trap you! Jesus wants to set you free! Yes, he wants to protect you. And once we are free, Jesus wants us to be able to come in and go out and find pasture in places where we can be safe, and come and go as we please. This is freedom.
Now, look, it’s often true that people don’t know what to do with their freedom when they have it. We misuse our freedom and make mistakes. Just ask Adam and Eve. But also remember that God’s punishment for those two, for the misuse of their freedom, wasn’t to take that freedom away from them; it was to change the circumstances in which they could exercise their freedom, by expelling them from paradise.
And Jesus did not come into the world to restrict the freedom that God gave to his people, either. Jesus came into the world to try to help us use our freedom better, by teaching us to love one another, and to mark the way of love that will some day lead us back to paradise.
Near the end of the passage we heard today, Jesus uses another word to describe where the sheep may go , once they have been freed by the shepherd. He says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”
“I am the gate, whoever enters by me will be saved.” The Greek word here is practically the opposite of the exit word Jesus used earlier. For, once Jesus has led his sheep to freedom, then we are free to enter into his pasture of our own accord, and we are free to come and go as we like. Yes, Jesus wants us to be free.
It may be the case that not too many people are worried about whether or not they have a shepherd these days. But in a world where it is easy to find yourself trapped by any one or more of ten thousand causes, inflicted by ourselves or others, it is very good news to discover that there is a gate that leads to freedom. And that Jesus wants to lead us through that gate, out of captivity.
Jesus helps us to break free from all that entraps us - the relationship, the job, the financial crisis, whatever goes on inside our own heads and our bodies, the unjust society we live in, our mental state, our stubbornness, the cruelty of others, our own dishonesty, our debt, our sickness, the systems we live in, and our fears - Jesus helps us to break free from us by giving us a spirit that is meant to be free, by teaching us what it might mean to be free, and by assuring us that God wants us to be free. Because you cannot get free of all that entraps you without first knowing that you are meant to be free - this is essential! You may not think you need a shepherd. But Jesus is such a good shepherd that he knows that sometimes all you and I need is a gate.
So Jesus is the gate, too. Which is to say that Jesus is the way to find freedom from the many things that entrap us. Jesus is the way out.
When you are lying there in the dark, praying for a way out… you are trapped, you are hoping and praying that somewhere, somehow you will find a gate that leads out of this confinement, out of this misery, out of this hopelessness, out of this hell! It hardly matters what it is that has caused your confinement. The first thing you need to know is that God made you to be free, and that there is a way out.
Jesus said that the good shepherd “calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”
You don’t think you need a shepherd? Fine. Just use the gate!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
30 April 2023
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
