John 10:11-16

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen

John 10:11-16

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it.

13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—

15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.

16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 

(New International Version)

Dear congregation, 

The evangelist John sees Jesus Christ as a good shepherd. The image has long been familiar to John and the people of his time. It is an image from the Old Testament.

We humans cannot help but speak of God in images and at the same time we should not form an image of God. That is why the Old Testament does not speak in one image, but recognises a variety of images: God is there castle and shield, God is midwife and rock, God is a strong friend and a fighter, God is judge and king. God is all that, but never just that.

What characterises the images is that they make something resonate in people. Everyone has their own ideas. Let's take the image of the castle: a German reader will think of the beautiful castles on the Rhine or the Wartburg where Luther found refuge. That is what God is like, a place of refuge, and at the same time everyone knows that God is not like that, because the Wartburg is much younger. So, God is not a monument from the Reformation era. I emphasise this in order to sensitise our understanding of the meaning of certain images and the function of imagery.

It is the same with the image of the shepherd: the image triggers something in the listener and takes up experiences and yet God is much more than in this image. 

At the same time, there is hardly any image of God that people cling to as much as the image of the good shepherd - most people can hardly allow in their minds that there were also good shepherdesses and that it is precisely here in the image of the good shepherd that typically female, feminine characteristics are associated with God, which in everyday life belong to women. Psalm 23 describes the typical tasks of a house mother.

This is perhaps just an aside, but it is interesting because this insight makes us a little more humble: images want to open up a space for experience. Images want to capture the vastness and greatness of God and not reduce God to one of these images. 

In the Old and New Testaments, all these images are taken from the everyday world of the time so that people can experience their God better and closer.

Some images have then taken on a life of their own - they have become religious images that are almost untouchable. This includes the image of the good shepherd. 

God is expressed in human images - after all, we cannot help but speak of God in human terms.

Especially when it comes to the image of the good shepherd, it is necessary and good to dust off the old image and ask what it means in today's world, in which we have long since ceased to live in the biblical world.

And here it can help, among other things, to realise that in ancient times women and men practised the profession of shepherd as a matter of course. There is evidence of this as far back as Plato and other ancient historians. To remember just one woman: Rachel, the daughter of Laban, who later became Jacob's wife, was a shepherdess. (Gen 29:9). She cared for the flock independently.

At the same time, and this must not be forgotten, the shepherd or shepherdess in ancient times was not only a very nature-loving, strenuous, simple profession of ordinary people. The word ‘shepherd’ was known in the world at that time, from the Tigris to the Nile, as a term for the power of rulers. 

A colleague says: Shepherd was a title of world domination.

This is why the profession of shepherd can be found as the original profession in many lists of kings. Also, the Assyrian kings as ‘king of the world and reverent shepherds’.

So, it also makes sense that King David was originally a shepherd. He, the King of Israel, can keep up with the other kings.

The evangelist John now takes this multi-layered image of God, the image of the good shepherd, and relates it not only to God, but also to Jesus Christ.

In doing so, John expresses once again what he says in many places in his Gospel: God and Jesus Christ are one. God and Jesus Christ are one.

Jesus Christ follows in the footsteps of his Father. He takes on his task. The flock that God tends is enlarged and Jesus Christ cares for this great flock, in which not only Jewish creatures are protected and preserved, but also creatures from other cultures.

There is room for everyone in this flock - even the black sheep and, above all, they are no longer labelled as ‘black sheep’.

Jesus Christ follows in the footsteps of his Father in heaven. And John sees a worldly and a heavenly task in this.

I really want to emphasise that: We are so quick to divide heaven and earth. We act as if they were two separate spheres of rule, where one has hardly anything to do with the other. 

The Old Testament sees God as the ruler of heaven and earth. And if Jesus follows in his footsteps, then this also applies to him. His domain is not just somewhere and sometime in the hereafter, but his power changes this world. That is what is meant by dominion. Jesus is not a cruel ruler like the kings of Assyria or even the kings of Israel. He is not a cruel ruler like the emperor of Rome. No, Jesus Christ will not take on such a worldly office, but his power and his divine office will change the power relations in the world.

Everything that is described in Psalm 23 as the activity of a good shepherd becomes tasks that Jesus Christ fulfils.

There should no longer be a sense of lack. 

There should be hope that people will breathe a sigh of relief and be refreshed. There should be a guarantee that they will be led away from the desolation of a desert into the freedom of a fertile land.

When John has Jesus say: "I am the good shepherd! I know those who are mine. I care for them. I am ready to devote my whole life to them." In this way, John gives hope that something can change - not only after death, but already now.

An image that is associated with this good shepherd and which for me is one of the most beautiful images is the laid table in the face of the enemy.

Imagine what would happen if a long table were suddenly set up in the middle of the battlefield: white, festive, blank tablecloths - festive crockery - delicious food from nature: enough room for everyone. Plenty to eat and drink. Yes, the hostility would be over. We could lay down our weapons and no one would have to give up a spoon, but would be able to eat and drink together.

It touches me that people come up with such images and that they are given such images that immediately transform their world.

A table in the face of enemies.

This is a negotiating table in war.

This is a piece of bread shared with the soldier of the other troop.

Where such a table is laid, enmity ceases.

This image has taken on such an important, special place in our Christian tradition: Jesus himself the bread and the wine. Jesus, who invites people to such tables and brings them together.

John wrote his Gospel as a message of hope - as an encouragement to place new images next to the terrible images that the news of the time had created in people's minds and the fear that it generated: Images that inspire trust.

It is one of the special features of the Gospel of John that not only Jesus and his Father in heaven are one, but that the church also has a permanent place in this community.

Not only does Jesus follow in the footsteps of the Father in heaven, but he also invites his followers to follow in his footsteps. 

This means speaking of God in the world in such a way that people breathe a sigh of relief and become free - speaking of God in such a human way that people can feel his closeness and at the same time not secularising God.

This means setting tables, even in the face of difficult situations, in conflict, in quarrels, in enmity. They are not always enemies in the warlike sense; many people are hostile towards strangers: full of mistrust and fear.

Let us make room at our tables for people who have not yet had a place in our midst: at our communion tables and also at the tables of the church and at home.

Jesus says: ‘I have other sheep, but they are not of this fold.’