I am the good shepherd

John 10:11-18

When I was in Haiti this past January, I experienced many things. I saw the level of poverty in which the Haitian people were living. They didn’t always have access to food, coals to make a fire and water. There were shops with food and water, but people didn’t always have access to them. Despite seeing all of this, I didn’t really understand it or it didn’t hit me until I came home. I had been out of the country before to Costa Rica and I saw similar poverty, but Haiti hit more deeply for me than Costa Rica. Haiti hit me at a much deeper level because when I came home I had one of the most memorable experiences of the trip. I hopped off the van that had transported us to the Seminary and I drove off in my car. I knew that I didn’t have any milk for cereal in the morning, so I decided to stop at the grocery store on the way home. I stopped at the Giant between Lititz and Oregon Pikes. As some of you may know, this is a pretty large Giant. So I walked through the door and it hit me in the gut right away. I thought, “I have so many choices.” It was normative for me to walk into this store so many times before and just go choose what I want, but I immediately had reverse culture shock and realized the abundance that we live in in the U.S. I realized that people in Haiti can’t choose between 100 different kinds of cereal; people in Haiti can’t choose between 10 different kinds of apples; people in Haiti don’t have the opportunity to choose between different kinds of deodorants, if any deodorants at all, and people in Haiti can’t choose between the bounty of different kinds of meat. This then led me to wonder, with so many choices and so much freedom to choose, as to whom am I exploiting around the world. I wondered if the bananas I got were from Costa Rica where banana plantations take advantage of their workers. I wondered if the rice I bought was from the same manufacturer who put rice farmers out of business in Haiti. I wondered if the clothes that I give to Goodwill are sometimes sold in Haiti and have destroyed the garment industry. I realized that we are all more interconnected than we might want to admit and living in the U.S., we have more choices than we may realize.

In our passage today, Jesus talks about being the good shepherd. After studying this passage, I began to think about what is the relationship like between sheep and shepherd? The shepherd and sheep don’t necessarily have conversations, but they do have a relationship. The best thing that I could compare it to in my mind is people who own pets or more specifically own a dog. I have never owned a dog personally, but when I hear people describe their relationship with their dog, it is a very intimate description. Adults and children develop a relationship with the dog. You can tell when the dog is happy or excited or sad or angry. The dog may have a big happy grin on his face or his tale may be low to the ground. You learn over time what the dog gets upset about and what the dog is sensitive to. You also experience times where the dog expresses love and affection when it is most unexpected. So, like being a dog-owner, a shepherd has a similar relationship with their sheep.

Unlike the sheep though, the shepherd has choices that the sheep do not. The shepherd can choose to feed his sheep or he can choose not to. The shepherd can choose to protect his sheep from wolves or the shepherd can choose not to. Now obviously the consequences of these decisions are that the shepherd won’t make an income and the shepherd won’t be fed, but I think the shepherd chooses to protect and chooses to feed for a deeper reason. This passage talks about the hired hand running when wolves came. Why would the hired hand run and the shepherd would not? The gospel of John reveals this in verse 14, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” As Greg Laszakovits says in his book A Guide for Biblical Studies Spring 2012: God's Creative Word, “They will come to him because they know the sound of his voice. This closeness of this sheep/shepherd relationship is not only a way to find safety and comfort, but it shows how deeply the shepherd cares for each of the sheep.” So the shepherd has a relationship with the sheep that the hired hand does not. The hired hand really didn’t care if the sheep died because he didn’t have a relationship with them. Similarly, dog-owners have a relationship with their dog that others do not. We all have choices like the shepherd and dog-owners have choices, but the choice to protect and care for their animals comes from a deeply rooted relationship. It is hard to make choices on the behalf of an animal or person or people who do not have the same choices as you or I because it requires a great burden on our part and it requires for us to engage. When we make the choice to engage in relationship we begin to care. This is no easy task and it comes at a price.

When we have a choice or freedom, we also have power. What we do with that power depicts who we are. The shepherd chose to stay with the sheep when wolves came not only because he had a deep relationship with the sheep, but because he also had a responsibility to do so. The shepherd had the power to protect and to save the sheep. Since Jesus is the shepherd and Jesus is God, Jesus has power that we do not. Jesus could choose to beat us up or discipline us. Jesus could choose to leave us to die or to be destroyed by our own capability to hurt and to inflict pain upon one another. Rather, Jesus seems to protect and save humanity. God chooses into a relationship with humanity to a place where God deeply cares. God seems to understand that God has a great responsibility with the power that God has.

Although Jesus makes these choices to feed and to engage, these are choices that come with a cost. Jesus says in verse 17, “I lay down my life in order to take it up again.” I think it’s pretty obvious that Jesus is foreshadowing his death and resurrection, but as we look at this and as we attempt to also be good shepherds, what does this mean for us? Can we lay down our lives in order to take them back up again? I struggled with this for a while, but then it clicked for me. One of the things that keeps me thinking since my time back from Haiti is, how am I going to live now and how am I going to live post-seminary? When I first got out of my undergraduate education and I received the job at Lancaster COB, I all of a sudden had money. I all of a sudden had this new found freedom to choose how I wanted to spend my money. The budget wasn’t tight and I could enjoy some things that I couldn’t before. At first, I spent my money like crazy, even to the extent that I spent more money than what I was making. I didn’t know how to budget and I didn’t know how to manage my money well and wisely. When I decided to leave my job at Lancaster, I had to make the decision many of you have to make sometimes, is it worth the money to stay in the job even if I am no longer passionate about it? Do I even have the luxury to leave my job and still live? I had a choice that some of you don’t have because I only have to think about myself in this scenario. Some of you have choices, but you can’t think just about yourself because you also have to think about the rest of the family. It took me a while to wrestle with my decision. Was the sacrifice of this income worth the reward? Is sacrificing a nice income going to be worth getting a graduate level education and going into even further financial debt? Many of you face similar decisions with your finances. The question becomes, is the choice that you make a responsible choice and at what cost are you willing to pay for that choice? Eventually I made the decision to leave the job even if it meant that my budget would be tight for the next few months before my student loans kicked in for school. Was the sacrifice going to be worth it? I decided it was and it was one of the best decisions I made. I had to start cutting things from my budget though. Interestingly enough, even though I am in a different financial position, I have never been happier. For me, to lay down my life was to make the choice to give up the extra stuff in my life, so that I may give more to others and experience life to its fullest. I have given more to relationships recently than I have in many years and it has been worth the sacrifice. Granted, I have experienced some of the life or joy of making the sacrifice I made, but I continually pay the cost. The cost has been worth it though. Where are you laying down your life?

Jesus calls us to be the good shepherd. To be a good shepherd comes with power, but it also comes with a burden. Whether we are home-owners, dog-owners, or car-owners, we may possess more and gain power, but to be the good shepherd with these possessions requires us to be responsible and sacrificial. So, if we are carowners that may mean that we need to give a ride to those who do not own a car. To be a good dog-owner, that might mean feeding your dog and indulging their desires even when you don’t feel like it. These are just a few examples, but to be a good shepherd, we have to pay the cost. We may be already paying the cost and we just don’t realize it. Where are you paying the cost? Jesus calls us to pay the cost for the gospel. How can we pay the cost and bear witness of the gospel?

Let me close with another story about Haiti. Danielle was born and raised in Cite Soleil. Cite Soleil, as some of you know, is the most dangerous sector of Port Au Prince. Danielle came to the U.S. and received an undergraduate education. After receiving his education, he had a choice to make. He could stay in the U.S. and make a great living with his education or he could return to Cite Soleil. It was tempting for him to stay in the U.S. and he had the choice to do so. His heart tugged though for the people he had known all of his life in Cite Soleil. His heart went out to all the impoverished people he knew and all the violence he was aware of. With his education, Danielle had the power to do something and he felt that because of his relationship and because of his power to make a difference, he needed to go back to Cite Soleil. Danielle then became sponsored by the Catholic Organization Pax Cristi. Danielle today has a compound deep into Cite Soleil where he organizes a traveling soccer team. This is not just any ordinary soccer team though because Danielle makes it a point to teach these soccer players how to play fairly and how to play with one another. Furthermore, instead of giving each player their individual name on the back of their jersey, he puts a name on the backs of jerseys that are people who have worked for peace in the world. Names like Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, and Mahatma Gandhi. So every time this team is in competition they can share their story and the peaceful ways of these people in the world. Danielle’s newest initiative is creating a compost garden within this compound. With all the trash that is in the streets, he is teaching the community how to garden with the resources that they have. Danielle gave up the opportunity to live a nice life in the U.S. and paid the cost for the sake of the gospel.