In the Name of the Good Shepherd
Saint Paul's Cathedral, San Diego
Homily for April 29, 2007; Easter IV: Good Shepherd Sunday
Rev. Canon Jack E. Lindquist
Holy Gospel, John 10:22-30
In the Name of the Good Shepherd
IN THE NAME OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD, JESUS CHRIST. AMEN . "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand." The words of Jesus in today's Gospel.
Like many of you, I'm sure, I grew up in a completely citified, secular world (in my case, all the traffic and hoopla of West Los Angeles ), and this language from the ancient Biblical world, all about the shepherd and the sheep, never meant much of anything to me. Oh, I heard it all my life in Sunday School and Church Services, but the only sheep I ever saw were in the Griffith Park petting zoo and I didn't want to be on! And the shepherd? Well, the idea of some guy somehow conversing with the sheep struck me as downright weird, if not nutty .Even when I much later went to a Lutheran seminary to become a shepherd (because that's exactly what the Latin word pastor means, "shepherd"), and even when I was finally ordained to be one, it was still pretty much a pious platitude to me, an ancient and romanticized title of leadership that might better be replaced today with something more "moden" and "democratic," like "presiding minister." That was before June of 1976 (in the American Bi-Centennial Year), one of the most transformational times in my life: I arranged to do a month of private study in the lands of the Bible, two weeks in the Holy Land (both Israel and Palestine) and two weeks exploring Early Christian Rome.
Arab Palestine was very "quiet" that summer, peaceful with beautiful weather. I stayed at St. George's Anglican Cathedral in East Jerusalem, where our Canon Bill Broughton now lives, and I had a wonderful Anglican Arab driver, Mr. Samir, who took me all around the West Bank on day trips. One day we were driving through some hill country up toward Nablus when suddenly we came upon a large flock of sheep ambling across the road. It was a back road. There was no other traffic. Sheep definitely have "right of way" there! We stopped and waited. I enjoyed the very Biblical "vision" of it all. But after a few minutes I said: "But Mr .Samir , where is the shepherd?" "Oh, he's coming," said Mr. Samir. "He's bringing up the rear, rounding up the strays. He sings to them so they can find him and get back to the flock."
"He's bringing up the rear? ," I said, dealing with ( for me) a new kind of leadership that was actually ten thousand years old. "Doesn't he lead the flock from the front?" "Oh, yes," said Mr. Samir, "much of the time, but just to keep them all aimed and moving in the right direction. Most of the time he leads from the rear, especially when they come to dangerous places like roads and ravines. Then he leads from the rear and sings to them so they don't wander off, get lost and die from hunger or from the wolves!"
"Oh my God," I thought, "that's what Jesus means when he says: 'My sheep hear; my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand."
And that's what serving in Jesus' pastoral ministry as an "under-shepherd" means, too: commitment to the survival of the sheep, especially reaching out to those in danger!
The last of the sheep crossed the road, and then came the shepherd: not a "he" but a "she!" It was an Arab girl about fifteen or sixteen years old, with close-cut hair, all in Levis and boots and carrying a long staff. She crossed the road, stopped, looked back, put a hand to her mouth and then let out a long, loud, ululating yodel three times in different directions. and suddenly a few last sheep did come scampering across the road. Then she looked at us, smiled, waved, and strode off with the flock. And, you know, I think of that Arab shepherdess every time I see Bishop Mathes, our diocesan shepherd, come down the aisle at the rear of the procession ("rounding up the strays," you might say) and carrying his shepherd's staff, his "crozier" with that hook on the end of it. The ancient shepherds used that staff as a "wolf-whacker" whenever the flock was attacked! And our bishop's staff means that he, too, must now defend and guide a flock, the Church of Christ. Indeed, his staff is a sign of the commitment of Christ the Good Shepherd to us today. How absolutely huge this sheep and shepherd image is in our Christian faith and psyche, my friends, and how we need to rediscover and relate it to our lives in this 21st Century!
That night, back at St. George's, I sat down with a Bible and a concordance and looked up every reference to the shepherd and the sheep. For the first time I realized that this is the Bible's most powerful and prevalent way of describing what God is like and what faith in God is like. All through the Old Testament it is how the believers describe their relationship with God: "The Lord is my shepherd," says the 23rd Psalm, "1 shall not want Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." And all through the New Testament it is how Christ describes his relationship to the believers, to us, his flock: "1 AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD," he says, earlier in this tenth chapter of St. Jonh “and I lay down my life for the sheep." And in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke he again describes himself as The Good Shepherd, the one who leaves the ninety-nine sheep safely in the fold and goes out to find the one lost sheep, to save it from the night and the wolves. And I must say this right here: Let's not worry that being faithful, obedient sheep who follow Christ will make us weak and passive and "sheepish" out in the world. Far from it! The most faithful and obedient sheep of Christ become lions out in the world, lions and lionesses whose roar can electrify , and sometimes terrify , and sometimes infuriate the entrenched forces of evil! See the movie " Amazing Grace," about the devoutly pious evangelical Anglican Wilbur Wilberforce, who morally hammered Parliament for years -in the face of raging opposition -until he finally rammed through a bill outlawing slavery - imagine, ending the slave trade throughout the British Empire by a vote! -- in 1807, two hundred years ago this summer! Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Dorothy Day, Albert Schweizer and Mother Theresa, Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King, Jr. God help us to be more like such "sheep," at least a little. We might give this world a roar when we walk out that door! But then, after my two weeks in the Holy Land, I flew on to Rome.
In Rome I stayed at the Collegio Santa Monica, the world headquarters and seminary of the Augustinian Order, located right on St. Peter's Square, and my tutor there was a delightful Irish Augustinian, Father Nicholas Toner .He had taught Early Church History there for many years but was now retired because he was going blind, and for several days he prepared me to go out and explore the Early Christian catacombs. Those underground burial tunnels were dug in the country all around the outside of the city's walls, mostly in the 2nd, 3rd and early 4th centuries, and contain thousands of niches into which bodies were laid, and hundreds of Christian wall paintings by common people, not great artists, who buried their loved ones in those walls. And here again I encountered the Good Shepherd in that June of 1976.
As I walked through the catacombs day after day, I met him again and again. At almost every turn, there he was: the Good Shepherd was painted in bright colors on the walls above the tomb niches; he was the favorite way, virtually the only way, those ancient Christians portrayed the Risen Christ, only he didn't look like a Biblical Hebrew shepherd anymore! They had re-imaged him as one of their own. Now he was a Graeco-Roman shepherd, beardless, with a short tunic and sandals, muscular like a young Apollo, carrying a lamb upon his shoulders and leading sheep through green pastures. He looked down at me all day long in those endless tunnels of the dead. Why, I wondered, why was this the way for them to have seen Jesus? And one night Father Toner explained it, and I later jotted down his words: "Remember," he said, "this was the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries, the Age of the Great Persecutions; this was the Age of the Martyrs, when thousands of Christians were rounded up and ordered to renounce Christ and 'worship Caesar' or be killed, and they took comfort and power from the Good Shepherd being with them through it all. It's what the Book of Revelation means in the 7th chapter when it says of the martyrs: 'The Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.' That's when we look for and see the Good Shepherd, Jack, when we're really up against it and come to a crisis of faith and don't know how we're going to go on." And then that dear man said something I've thought of a thousand times: "1 mean," he said, "I'm going through my own 'dark valley' now, and I see Jesus as the Good Shepherd more and more, now that I'm going blind." I visited Father Toner there in Rome three more times -in 1979, with my wife and a tour group, and then by myself again in 1981 and 1983 -and in 1985 I received word that he had died peacefully in his sleep. The Good Shepherd had finally led him through his "dark valley" to a glorious New Day! And so, my friends, after all of that over thirty years ago, I finally found the meaning of the Good Shepherd for our lives today and here it is: When we feel that we just can't take it anymore, whatever we are facing addiction or cancer, tragedy and the loss of a loved one, war and terrorism the Good Shepherd comes to find us and says: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."
When it seems that all the powers of darkness are reaching for us, and all the "wolves" are encircling us, and we don't feel strong enough to fight them off anymore the "wolves" of our own failure and regret, our fear and anxiety , as our lives fall apart or our homes are breaking up ...the Good Shepherd stands among us and says: "1 give my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no - NO ONE! NO ONE! NOTHING! EVER! -shall snatch them out of my hand!"
This is the Good News of the Good Shepherd! We together are his flock forever, no matter what; he has claimed us as his own forever in Holy Baptism, and he feeds us here together in Holy Communion; he has taken on and overcome all the "wolves of hell," and now he shares with us his Risen Life ! Yes, my friends, this has been a long homily, and I thank you for listening, but I wanted to share my story with you today on "Good Shepherd Sunday." I'll just say that "the Good Shepherd made me do it!" And now, far more importantly, may you and I be listening for and following his voice day by day. Remember: He will never let you go! Amen.
Homily for April 29, 2007; Easter IV: Good Shepherd Sunday
Rev. Canon Jack E. Lindquist