28 April 2018

Sermon Easter IV John 10:11-16 22 April 2018 Year B


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“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.”[1] Jesus says to us in John’s Gospel. Or, here’s another version of Psalm 23 as interpreted by a five year old: “The Lord is my Shepherd, that’s all I want.”
Just for a moment here, let’s think about these metaphors Jesus uses: those of shepherd and sheep. I find one of the challenges of preaching is translating biblical metaphors into something we actually encounter in our lives today. What used to be common metaphors in people’s imaginations often don’t really make sense to us today.
Take sheep and shepherds, for instance. Would you please raise your hand if you have ever herded sheep, owned a sheep, or sheared a sheep? See what I mean. Not too many of us get up close and personal with sheep.
Metaphors, though, and their next step, imagination, are helpful when we can attach something to them that we know about. If you can’t, a metaphor can be confusing and your imagination has no room to expand. If you’ve never been near a sheep, you might not understand why knowing and being known by his sheep would be something a shepherd would find important. Finding a contemporary image that works might help those of you who aren’t familiar with sheep. Perhaps it might be chickens since more people are raising chickens, even in many urban areas. Or it might be bees. Because these creatures also know their “shepherd” in a similar way that a sheep knows its shepherd.  
I once taught a class about the parables of Jesus. In one session we spent nearly an hour imagining a contemporary version of the story about the man who was tended by the Samaritan on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The class, no thanks to me since I wasn’t a native of the area, came up with several stunning alternate versions that made people think more deeply about that particular story than they ever had before. None of us, you see, knew much about the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. What people from the area did know about was Interstate 35 that cuts down through Kansas. They did know about a devastating flood that had washed away a family in a car on Interstate 35. They knew about a tornado that had destroyed a small town near Interstate 35. So those dangerous events on that road were more familiar to them than the dangerous events on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. By the time we were finished identifying contemporary metaphors, we felt we knew more about Jesus, even if we didn’t know about the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.
Right there is something important to think about. We need to know Jesus even if we don’t know everything there is to know about the metaphors, or the stories, or the places we hear about in Scripture. We need to gett to know Jesus and make Him known.
So whether it’s Jesus the Good Shepherd, or Jesus the Light of the World, or some other metaphor we might imagine for Jesus, he longs for us to know Him and to follow Him.
Here’s the best illustration I know of what will happen to us if we get to know Jesus. Other people will see Him in us and want to know Jesus too. In Madeleine L’Engle’s book, Story as Truth: The Rock That is Higher. She writes,

There’s a true story I love about a house party in one of the big English country houses. Often after dinner at these parties people give recitations, sing, and use whatever talent they have to entertain the company. One year a famous actor was among the guests. When it came his turn to perform, he recited the twenty-third psalm, perhaps the most beloved psalm in the Psalter. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” His rendition was magnificent, and there was much applause. At the end of the evening someone noticed a little old great aunt dozing in the corner.  She was deaf as a post and had missed most of what was going on, but she was urged to get up and recite something. So she stood up, and in her quavery old voice she started, “The Lord is my shepherd,” and went on to the end of the psalm. When she had finished there were tears in many eyes. Later one of the guests approached the famous actor. “You recited that psalm absolutely superbly. It was incomparable. So why were we so moved by that funny little old lady?” He replied, “I know the psalm. She knows the shepherd.”[2]

AMEN.

The Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2018



[1] John 14 (NRSV)
[2] L’Engle, Madeleine. Story as Truth: The Rock that is Higher. Harold Shaw Publishers. Wheaton:1993.

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