May 3, 2009 Des Moines

TEXT: John 10:11-18

Making Room for More

It wasn’t so much the first part that was surprising. They had halfway been expecting it.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there had been a leadership problem. I know it’s hard for us to imagine, because leaders in our experience are always careful, prudent, selfless people who keep a steadfast eye on the big picture rather than quarterly reports and the next election cycle. But there was a time, believe or not, when at least some of those in charge had lined their own pockets, taken dangerous risks, and without oversight or regulation enjoyed extravagant, luxuriant lifestyles all under the apparent belief that ordinary rules didn’t apply to them. But as always happens sooner or later, their comfy little world was about to collapse.

In the 34^th chapter of the book that bears his name, the prophet Ezekiel was given a word. The word was directed at these very shepherds of the time. Now, just be clear, that word wasn’t directed at the literal shepherds – the laborers – who were presumably acquitting themselves admirably in the fields, but rather the figurative shepherds of the day: the governors, the pastors, the leaders, the ones in charge; the CEO’s. And the word that Ezekiel received went something like this:

“Ah! You shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves while the ribs of the sheep are showing; you who have been taking your billion dollar bonuses while the company goes bankrupt; you have been failing in your charge.

v You have not fed the sheep.

v You have not strengthened the weak.

v You have not healed the sick.

v You have not bound up the injured.

v You have not brought back the strayed.

v You have not sought the lost.

You have, in other words, looked out for yourselves while letting everything else fall apart. As a result, the sheep are wandering around and lost and become prey for anything that’s hungry. They are scattered, and no one is even looking for them.

“So,” God continues, “here is what I’m going to do: I am going to take my sheep back. No more expensive junkets, no more extravagant lifestyles, no more golden parachutes. You’re fired.

v I, myself, will go look for them.

v I, myself, will go find them.

v I, myself, will snatch my sheep back out of the jaws of the wild and bring them home to green pastures and feed them.

v I, myself, will be their shepherd, and I will give them rest.

You…are fired.”

It wasn’t, of course, to be a permanent solution, God goes on to say. I mean, no more than the President of the United States can run General Motors in his free time, God has bigger issues than just this one with which to contend. “Eventually,” God says, “when I get things straightened out, I will set up over them one good shepherd to watch over them, and feed them – one attentive and responsible shepherd who will care about them and learn their names, and they the sound of his voice; that one shall feed them and be their shepherd, and I will go back to being their God. (cf. Ezekiel 34:1-24)

And for a time that’s how it went. And by all reports it went quite well. The psalmist, at least, seemed content. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…” It’s amazing, isn’t it, how much there is when a few aren’t taking it all. Green pastures with room to spare. Still waters, safe paths, blessing oil and food enough to go around; goodness, mercy, safety, eternity. All in all, it was a pretty good deal.

But the expectation was always there: eventually a good shepherd would come on the scene into whose hands the sheep would be confidently entrusted; one who wouldn’t fall prey to his own greed and self-advancement, but who would look out for the best interest of those in his keeping; one who wouldn’t run away at the least little sign of trouble, but who would give his own life for their protection; one who wouldn’t view them as numbers or commodities or collateral or expendable overhead, but as precious extensions of his own heart and soul – living beings with names and faces and voices to know and recognize and understand and love.

So, you can see that when Jesus came along and announced that he was the good shepherd, they had some frame of reference, and some ability to respond, “Oh, well we have been waiting for you.” No, that first part didn’t likely surprise them. Jesus had demonstrated his concern. His whole ministry had been about building relationships – about learning the sound of their voices. From the beginning he had been seeking them, gathering them, feeding, healing and watching over them. Since that first shocking day when he had called their names and they had dropped everything to follow him, he had been shepherding them in one good way or another; so when he finally said the words, “I am the good shepherd,” it hardly caught those who knew him off guard.

No, if they were anything like we are, it was that other part, I’m guessing, that grabbed their attention like an emergency siren and put them on guard – that part about “other sheep”, other “folds”. Maybe it’s just human nature, but we have a hard time making room in our embrace for other folds. Oh, we know they are out there, of course. The world is full of other sheep grazing around on other pastures, but the operative word there is “other.” We tend to prefer our own, and are seldom crazy about the idea of moving over to make room for more. We would rather just close our eyes and pretend that Jesus came just for us – our kind, our persuasion, our style.

In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, xenophobic paranoia convinced us good, morally decent Americans to round up more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent – over 2/3rds of whom were American citizens – and place them in internment camps, though none of them had shown the slightest disloyalty to this nation. And there we confined them – quarantined them, really – for the duration of the war, because we were afraid of them. They were, after all, different.

It happens at a smaller scale, as well. When I first graduated from seminary I served as Associate Minister of a congregation in a major metropolitan city. Though the church building was located on the fringe of a very affluent neighborhood, it fronted one of busiest, most prominent streets in the central part of the city. As a result, it wasn’t unusual for strangers to wander in. But one Sunday a particularly unsightly gentleman joined us for worship whose abrasive scent both preceded him and remained after him as a kind of olfactory calling card. He had some physical quirks that led him to gesture in seemingly random ways, and to call out in an occasionally disruptive voice, pertaining to nothing that we were ever able to identify. We were, as a congregation, nothing if not nice – Southerners, after all – but when he returned for worship several weeks in succession – always well after the service started and each time proceeding all the way forward to find a seat in one of the front pews – people started to complain. “He stinks.” “He talks.” “He disrupts.” “He’s weird.” “He makes me nervous.” “I’m scared of him!” And so it was that the ushers, under the direction of the minister, asked him to leave and not return. He wasn’t, after all, like the rest of us. He didn’t fit in. He was, to put it simply, different.

In fact, according to some church growth experts, “different” just doesn’t work very well in churches. “Look for people like yourselves,” they counsel. “That’s how to grow. Appeal to your own kind of people.”

Sure, sure, sure, anybody is welcome, but the onus is on those who are different to fit in. “We are glad you are here,” churches all across America have told newcomers. “Now become like us.”

It is something like the social equivalent of the astronomical understanding of the universe that Copernicus and later Galileo unraveled. Everyone operated under the mistaken idea that the earth was the center of the universe, in the same way that we tend to position ourselves in the same location: at the center of the universe.

The only problem is that the universe, at every conceivable level, is bigger and more beautifully diverse than we have yet to fathom – we as Disciples, we as Christians, we as Americans, we as humans. We aren’t the only sheep in the pasture worth the rod and the staff of the shepherd; ours isn’t even the only pasture.

I have other sheep, Jesus said, that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

A good shepherd who cares for us, but not only us. One flock. One shepherd.

Now, let me confess that I don’t know much about sheep – the literal kind – other than what I observe at the State Fair. My guess is that apart from looking out for the next mouthful of food they don’t take a lot of initiative. So maybe this where the analogy for us – the figurative sheep – breaks down. Initiative is, after all, something that we can take. We aren’t confined to simply watching the Good Shepherd go about his work. We can participate in it -- making room for more; seeking out on our own some of those other sheep and folds with the gift of hospitable grace and non-judgmental welcome.

Learning the sound of their voice and interests;

standing in their defense;

seeking out those who are lost...

...as though we had watched the ways of the Good Shepherd, and taken them as our own.

It’s just a thought.