Easter 4

Preparation

    Please begin by reading John 10:22-30 in your Bible. If you do not have one at hand, we have provided that text for you at the end of this reflection.

Reflection--Are You in the “In-Group”?  

    That question, "are you in the in-group?" has an odd ring to it, particularly in our "politically correct" 21st century culture. We talk a lot about being inclusive (as well we should). The odd thing about Christianity is that it is at once both inclusive and exclusive.

    I once had a cantankerous friend who loved to apply to himself Groucho Marx's famous line, "I wouldn't be a member of any club that would have me as a member."  My friend was one of those "equal opportunity" kinds of people. He could manage to offend you regardless of your race, gender, nationality, or belief system.

    As far as I know, despite my best efforts, my friend remained an atheist, or at best an agnostic, until the end. But there would have been no road blocks to his becoming a Christian (assuming he could have found a faith community that would have put up with him!), because our faith is inclusive. "For God so loved the world that God gave God's only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." (John 3:16)

    But make no mistake about it, we Christians also make exclusive faith-based claims that set up apart. Everyone is invited to believe, but not everyone will. We can, and should, honor all people, including people of other faiths, but we also claim to believe Jesus when he says "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)  And we also claim that there are incalculable benefits from that relationship with Jesus. We belong to the Good Shepherd.

    Jesus as the good shepherd should not be passed off as some saccharine pastoral image. When Jesus used shepherding imagery when he taught in the temple, it probably sounded distasteful to his scholarly, "proper" audience. Shepherds were a lowly class. Shepherding is hard, dirty work out in the heat or the cold. That a good shepherd was expected to give up his or her life for the sheep was a lot more than a figure of speech in that time and place. When we have Jesus as our shepherd, we have someone who looks out for our well-being, even to the point of giving up life for us.

    When you have a relationship with someone who loves you deeply and who is passionate about your well-being, that relationship takes on real intimacy. It may take a little time when your first join the "flock," but real Christians are an exclusive group because we know our shepherd and our shepherd knows us. We know our shepherd's voice.

    There was an interesting article in the National Geographic some years ago about a shepherding people in India. It tells how the shepherds gather themselves and their sheep together at night, so that the shepherds can share the night watch so that each one will, in turn, be able to get a little sleep.

    Each shepherd has slightly different calls, variations on a theme. There are morning calls to move out, a call to bring the sheep to water, and so on. Each man knows his own sheep and vice versa, and his particular flock will disentangle itself from the larger flock and move out behind him in the morning. This may or may not seem astonishing, until one realizes that perhaps 5,000 sheep are gathered together in a single large nighttime flock.

    Robyn Davidson, "Wandering with India's Rabari," The National Geographic, September 1993.

    Very few Christians are called to live out their lives in isolation. We live and move in the larger world. That world is filled with an overwhelming number of competing voices; some loud, insistent, and alluring.  But the secret of successful Christian living is listening for that one special inner voice that calls our name. We are not called to follow the voices of popular culture, but to follow the shepherd who shows us the way out of danger and directs us to green pastures and still waters; the one who again and again restores our souls.

revclay

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John 10:22-30

    At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.

    So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly."

    Jesus answered, "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 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. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one."  [NRSV]