Prop: visual of Solomon’s Porch on the east side of the Jerusalem Temple / visual of David’s threshing floor

The Infiltrator is a 2016 movie about the true-life take-down of Pablo Escobar’s drug trafficking ring. The hero is federal agent Robert Mazur. The movie tells the story of Mazur’s infiltration of the famous money laundering crime family in-order-to expose them and tumble them down from their impenetrable perch. That meant it had to be an inside job. Beautifully symbolic, the big reveal happens at a “wedding,” at which those who are corrupt are arrested and “cast out.”

The one question throughout the movie is a haunting one: Who are the infiltrators? The American agents who infiltrated the unknowing world of drug kingpins? Or the bank officials and international corporate bigwigs who pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes for years laundering dirty money through some of the largest and most respected global banks.

The same question comes up in John’s scripture for today. We see Jesus and the Temple officials throwing verbal spears at each other during the Festival of Dedication. As in the time of the Maccabean revolts that the holiday represents, the atmosphere in Jerusalem is confused, and divided.

Some in the crowds say Jesus must be the Messiah. No one could do the miracles he is doing if he wasn’t. No one but from God could speak the way he does with such wisdom and in truth.

Others think just the opposite. No Messiah comes from Galilee, they sneer. No Messiah acts like he does. He breaks Sabbath laws constantly. He opposes the authorities unashamedly. He has revolutionary ideas. He’s a heretic. He’s a false prophet.

So who really is the false prophet? Is it Jesus? The one infiltrating the Temple, who calls himself the Son of God? Or is it the leaders of the Temple establishment –those who are Israel’s authorities whom Jesus accuses of “money laundering,” greed, corruption, racial profiling, and unethical practices that go against the will of God and betray the trust of those they are deemed to care for?

Who are the real criminals? Who are the true outsiders? Who is the real Infiltrator?

The answer lies perhaps in Solomon’s Porch.

Situated on the eastern side of Herod’s Temple, the elegant colonnade with its awe-inspiring view from the eastern cliff of Mt. Moriah was named after King Solomon and was built upon the sole remaining part of the original Temple from Solomon’s day. From the foundations of the Temple, Herod would build a new Temple –a larger, more expansive, more elaborate, and more Hellenized one.

In Solomon’s time, the porch would have been the entryway to the original Temple, as Solomon’s Temple faced east on Mt. Moriah. The entryway to Solomon’s Temple lay between two huge bronze pillars named Jachin and Boaz, which most say represented the two favored kings of Israel –the wise king whose physical Temple is established by God (Solomon) and the shepherd king who represents the strength and the royal --but also humble “shepherding”-- lineage of Israel (David).

Herod would construct his new and expansive covered porch with white marble Greek columns and precious stones. And he named it Solomon’s Porch. This vast space became a public place in the Temple, where rabbis and others would meet for Torah discussion and gatherings. You might even call Solomon’s Porch the Temple’s “front porch.”

In the words of Josephus: “There was a porch without the temple, overlooking a deep valley, supported by walls of four hundred cubits, made of four square stone, very white; the length of each stone was twenty cubits, and the breadth six; the work of king Solomon, who first founded the whole temple” (Josephus, Antiquities l. 20. c. 8. sect. 7).

But Wait a minute: the history or “provenance” of this eastern porch goes back even further than Solomon’s entryway. Solomon’s Temple was actually built upon the very site of David’s threshing floor.

This layering had huge symbolic meaning.

The threshing floor was God’s decision-making place, the place where chaff is separated from grain. The threshing floor signifies God’s final judgment of those who are true and faithful from those who only look like wheat on the outside. It was the gateway to either the table or the fireplace.

For David, this was a sacred place, an altering and altering place, and so it was the obvious place for Solomon to build God’s Temple. The Temple itself, facing east, became the “gateway” into the inner Temple, where the holy of holies stood. The gateway to the place of sacrifice. And the gateway to God’s presence.

We learn in the scripture for today that Jesus is in Solomon’s Porch during the last of his confrontations with the Pharisees over his identity and his mission. It’s no mistake that John tells us about this location. Jesus in these confrontations calls himself the Gate for the Sheepfold, and the Good Shepherd –all the while standing where the original “gateway” and “threshing floor” stood. For Jesus IS the gateway, the judge, the new Temple. Jesus IS the gateway to God’s kingdom. Jesus IS the king AND the Good Shepherd.

In the lineage of King David, and with the wisdom of Solomon, Jesus IS the Messiah and the Son of God, come to separate the “thieves and robbers” who have infiltrated the sheep pen. He has come to save and care for the sheep. And in God’s salvific role as described in the prophets, he separates sheep from goats, grain from chaff, those who want to know him and those who won’t, God’s people from the wolves who pose as shepherds.

Jesus knows the pure from the posers. The sheep’s reaction to his voice is their ultimate test.

Jesus recoils at the way the Pharisees, those who are in the authoritative position as “shepherds” to Israel, have led the people astray, have taken advantage of their position, have abused their power, and have misinterpreted God’s love for all of God’s people.

But Jesus has authority over all of them. He is the True Shepherd, the One True God come to the “threshing floor” to announce that the time of judgment and salvation has come! He is the gateway to the sheep fold, and now it’s time to call the sheep home.

The Pharisees may be the hired hands, the hirelings, but Jesus is the Holy One, the True Shepherd, to whom the sheep belong, and whose voice they will recognize!

“I and the Father are one,” he reminds them.

In biting criticisms, Jesus accuses the Pharisees of corrupting God’s Temple, even as the Festival of Dedication of the Temple to God goes on, that festival which celebrates the emerging of the light from the darkness, and true worship from false practices.

In a sense, Jesus is accusing the Pharisees of the same kinds of profane practices that the marauders of the Temple had committed prior to the Maccabean revolts. He is accusing them of using their power as shepherds to instead impose strictures like dictators and money launderers. For the Pharisees, who saw themselves as the saviors of the Temple, there is nothing worse that Jesus could accuse them of, particularly during the Feast of Dedication.

For them, only God is the Gate of the Sheep, the True Shepherd, the Savior of the People, the Judge of the Temple. For the Pharisees, Jesus’ claim is blasphemy. For Jesus, the Pharisees are the true Blasphemers.

God’s people were never meant to be “subjects” of an institution or “objects” of usefulness, but the flock of a loving Shepherd.

What’s the difference? --Solomon’s Porch vs Herod’s Imperial Palace (or perhaps the Temple of the Herodians!).

Michel Foucault is one of the most influential scholars of the 20^th century. He is best known for his philosophical treatises, such as “Security, Territory, Population” and “Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics.” In those nonfiction masterpieces in particular, Foucault argues that a shepherd differs from a king or ruler of a city state in three significant ways:

1. A shepherd’s power is over a flock, not a territory. A shepherd is not territorial, but wherever the flock goes, that is where the shepherd’s authority lies. This is the relational designation of the shepherd.
2. A shepherd’s power is a beneficent power directed at the well-being of the flock, not at the well-being of a state, city, or place. The shepherd occupies an “office” of caring with the flock as his/her primary end.
3. A shepherd’s power is an individualizing power. Even though the shepherd cares for an entire flock, each individual within the flock is important. The Shepherd will stop to look for one errant sheep and will care individually for each one within the flock as well as for the flock as a whole, in contrast to a secular government, in which the entity is the goal.

Because of this, a shepherd’s (or pastor’s) power is different from mere royal power in that the shepherd’s role is to feed and maintain the LIFE of the flock and therefore will sacrifice him/herself in order to save the life of the flock. This element of sacrifice is unique to the shepherd, and what makes the metaphor of the “shepherd” so unique and powerful.*

In a secular model, the people serve the state. In the shepherd king model, the shepherd serves WITH the people.

God’s role with Israel is as a Shepherd. God wants to be in relationship with His sheep. God goes with them wherever they may roam. God will follow each and every lamb to restore it to the flock. God will never leave a lamb behind.

God’s designated “shepherds” were chosen to care for the sheep, to feed them, to nourish them, to guide them, to love them. Just as God loves them.

When God’s shepherds go astray, all havoc breaks out in the sheep pen. And God is not happy.

In identifying himself as the Good Shepherd, Jesus not only identifies with David the humble and chosen Shepherd King, and with the history of Israel as God’s sheep-herder people. Jesus also claims the identity of the sacrificial “Shepherd/Lamb.” God as ultimate Shepherd will do anything, even sacrifice His own Son, to save the sheep from those who are leading them into harm.

Jesus’ naming the Pharisees as “thieves” and “robbers” identifies them in contrast as those “wolves” who will surreptitiously –or even outright—snare God’s sheep and plunder God’s flock so that many of God’s sheep become lost to God.

While the gatekeeper, who is Jesus, opens the gate to allow the sheep to come in, those who have come in by another way, will be identified, and judged upon the Final Threshing Floor –there on Solomon’s Porch—by the True Shepherd and Savior.

How many crime shows are on TV now? We all have our favorites. We’ve all seen episodes in which there are “bad cops” among the force that exists to serve and protect the community. Instead of protecting those they are called to serve, they take advantage, prey upon, persecute, double-cross, thwart the good being done by those who take their jobs seriously.

Sooner or later, the time comes when they are discovered, and rooted out. Those who are “crooked” cops are separated out from those who walk the “straight and narrow” path in law enforcement.

In a sense, Jesus is the Great Enforcer, as well as the Super Savior. For those who are “dirty” cops (or in this case dirty shepherds), Jesus will be their worst nightmare. For those who have been abused, compromised, persecuted, deceived, Jesus is their best dream, their blessed Savior!

The time has come. Jesus stands as/at the “gateway” to the sheepfold. He is the Enforcer, and he’s not backing down. In the voice of God, he stares down the dirty shepherds and declares….

“If you are my sheep, you will hear my voice and know me.”

“You do not believe because you are not my sheep.”

“I am the good Shepherd who lays down my life for my sheep.”

“There will be one flock, and one Shepherd.”

“I and the Father are One.”

The Living Temple of God has arrived at Solomon’s Porch. He cannot be clearer about who He is. He announces God’s mission at this pivotal time.

As the Gate of the Sheep, during the Festival of Dedication, Jesus re-dedicates God’s Temple as the Unending Living Temple of the Holy Spirit, a Temple that doesn’t require a place or a physical building, for a flock that requires only a Shepherd’s voice and a Savior’s love.

Jesus, the Eternal Light has come into the world, and God’s Light will not go out. God’s Kingdom will endure forever.

Jesus’ words are as strong as the pillars of the Temple. They reverberate with the past while they anticipate a time soon to come in which God’s voice is the only Temple we need in-order to gather as God’s people.

For wherever two or more are gathered together, there He will be.

Today, Jesus is our only Temple, the Temple of Truth, the tabernacle of God’s presence, and the Gate to the kingdom.

Wherever we are, no matter how far from each other we may be in economics or politics or ideology or geography, God’s flock remains One Flock under One God, loyal to One Shepherd, alive in One Voice.

Jesus’ stand that day is a call not to division but to unity. It’s a call to all of God’s people everywhere who don’t need a Temple built on a hill, don’t need to come from a particular heritage nor have a special pass. It’s a call to unite in love and response to the One and Only Voice of the One True God that holds everyone and everything together, who promises us eternal waters and green grasses and the abundance of the heavenly table.

No matter where you are from, no matter what your past or your mistakes, or your goofs, or your status –we are all God’s sheep when we listen to the sound of His voice.

Come all of you, God’s holy flock. Let’s say the words of Jesus’ prayer together…..as we hear His voice among us:

“Our Father, who lives and dwells in the heavenly realm.

May Your Name be made always Holy!

May Your Sovereign Kingdom be manifested here on earth just as it is in heaven.

May Your will be honored and respected among your human flock as among the heavenly host.

Nourish us daily with your abundant love and presence.

Forgive us our false witnesses to you, to the extent that we forgive others who bear false witness to us. Help us to take the higher road.

For Yours is the kingdom, the glory, the power, always and forever.”

*See Foucault, “Security, Territory, Population” ; “Beyond Structuralism and Hermaneutics”; C. Mayes in Journal for Cultural and Religious… jcrt.org

**The photo for this sermon is taken from the blog of the Association of Biblical Counselors.

Based on the Story Lectionary

Major Text

Jesus the Good Shepherd and the Infiltrators of God’s Sheep Gate: Jesus’ Disputes with the Pharisees According to John (John 10)

Minor Text

The Role of the Priests and the Prophet Among You (Deuteronomy 18)

David Son of Jesse, a Herder of Sheep, is Chosen to be King by God Through the Prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 16)

The Unpopular Prophet Who Speaks God’s Word, Micaiah (1 Kings 22)

Psalm 23: The Lord As Shepherd

Psalm 51: A Psalm of Confession and Plea for Absolution

Psalm 80: The Shepherd of Israel

Daniel’s Vision of Greece, a Ram, and a Goat (8)

God Pronounces Against False Prophets (Ezekiel 13)

The Lord Will Be Israel’s Shepherd (Ezekiel 34)

The Lord Will Raise Up A Righteous Shepherd (Jeremiah 23)

The Story of the Hellenization of the Jews Before the Revolts (1 Maccabees 1)

The Messianic Throne (Hebrews 1)

Jude Warns of False Shepherds (The Book of Jude)

Peter Warns of False Teachers Who Reject Jesus (2 Peter 2)

The Lord is the Temple in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21)

Jesus the Good Shepherd and the Infiltrators of God’s Sheep Gate: Jesus’ Disputes with the Pharisees According to John

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them. Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the fullest.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 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. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.

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.

The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

The Jews who heard these words were again divided. Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?” But others said, “These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”

Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade.

The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”

“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?

Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”

Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.

Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. There he stayed, and many people came to him. They said, “Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true.” And in that place many believed in Jesus.

Image Exegesis: Infiltrator / Solomon’s Porch

"Many shepherds have ruined My vineyard;
They have trampled down My field;
They have made My pleasant field A desolate wilderness.” (Jeremiah 12:10)

We open this scripture with Jesus still talking to the Pharisees, debating and disputing his identity. He has just healed a man born blind and has accused them of spiritual blindness. Then he continues his claims. The confrontation comes to a head at the Feast of Dedication, not one of the Torah’s designated festivals, but a commemorative Jewish festival, remembering the re-dedication of the Temple after the Maccabean revolts.

Jesus is walking on Solomon’s Porch (same place as had been David’s Threshing Floor) when they confront him again about his identity. Here, at the former “gate” to Solomon’s Temple, Jesus names himself the “Shepherd” whose voice God’s people hear and recognize as God’s. Jesus IS the sheep gate, the Temple gate, the gate to heaven, and the judge of the wheat and chaff. He is God’s designated Son.

The metaphors in these scriptures add depth and breadth to these disputes in ways that are all important.

Solomon’s Porch, thieves and robbers, sheep gate, shepherd, Good shepherd, sheep, voice, flock, winter, temple –all of these are important on their own and also spur multiple “invisible” metaphors as well, such as the threshing floor, wheat and chaff, snare, door, Spirit, darkness, light, and spiritual Temple.

In Jesus’ metaphorical explanations, which at first the Pharisees miss, Jesus is the Good Shepherd of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, God the Shepherd of Israel, come for holy judgment of the false shepherds who have led the sheep astray in Israel.

The Pharisees are described either as those who run away at the arrival of the wolves (those too cowardly to stand up to the corrupt of the Temple) OR the thieves and robbers themselves. They are also described as those who don’t truly belong to God’s flock, since they don’t recognize Jesus as God’s voice –the prophetic Son nor recognize him in scripture.

But here Jesus doesn’t just confront the Pharisees, but the crowds, who are divided about him. Some believe he is false. Others that he speaks the truth and is the Messiah. Jesus doesn’t mince words. Those who can’t recognize him, aren’t of his “flock.” God’s flock.

Although the Good Shepherd is kind and gentle with the meek and misled, he is tough and aggressive with those who would challenge his authority or mislead the sheep, sneak into the pen and abscond with God’s faithful. It is in these times that we see the powerful dynamism of confrontational Jesus. He is fearless in the face of insults, sneering, threats, and stoning. He comes back hard, turning the tables so to speak on his opponents.

He comes in the form of the “judge” and isn’t afraid to make God’s judgment known. In these scriptures, we see better than ever before Jesus the prophet in the line of John, but with a distinct apocalyptic flavor.

The season of “The Feast of Dedication” is perhaps the best metaphor of all, as this feast celebrates the Light coming back into the Temple that was “darkened” with disloyalty to God for many years.

Jesus, the Light, has come into the “house” (generational and physical) and reconstitutes the Temple to God by confirming his identity AS the Spiritual Temple that does not need brick and mortar.

The Shepherd Savior and the Light and the Gate are all references to the heavenly realm in which Jesus will lay down his life for the sheep and will call One Flock together in the end of times.

The Festival of Dedication happens in Winter and precedes spring. During the first re-dedication of the Temple, only one untouched jug of oil was found not destroyed. When the lamps of the Temple were lit with that one-day’s worth of oil, the light lasted for 8 days, until more could be prepared. Therefore, the festival is an 8 day festival of light.

The Light has returned to the Temple of God –God’s presence and people.

Jesus would go on to describe a new kind of Temple, one that doesn’t require a physical building and would run on eternal light.

It’s relevant that before these discussions, or rather in the midst of them, Jesus heals a man born blind and restores his darkness to light –spiritual light. After this discussion, Jesus will go back to the Jordan to baptize, only to be called at the death of Lazarus to raise him also from darkness back into the Light.

The Festival of Light will later be called Hanukkah.

The word thief and robber are interesting, because they reflect two shades of evil. Thieves comes quietly in the night undercover plundering God’s sheep so that they become lost to God. They snare and trip up. They create conflict in the “dark.” Robbers however come in broad daylight and viciously attack and take. Jesus’ reference to both thievery and robbery indicate that both of these are happening within the authority of the Temple (the hired hands).

In these scriptures, the dispute becomes about who are the true false prophets, false teachers, and false shepherds. And a dichotomy is set up between what it means to “rule over” as opposed to “guide as a shepherd with staff and rod.”

It is no mistake that Jesus has this conversation in Solomon’s Porch, where not only David, the shepherd King established the threshing floor, but also where two columns once stood –the bronze pillars, Jachin and Boaz (for Solomon and David so it is said).

God’s shepherds called to watch over God’s people were not to be like secular rulers, but like shepherd kings.

Foucault describes the difference best in his Security Territory and Population treatise, in which he describes the Shepherd’s power as non territorial, beneficient, and individualizing. The sacrificial shepherd in particular distinguishes the shepherd from the ruler, whose end goal is to satisfy himself and the state, rather than the people.

God’s shepherds, the Pharisees have become thieves, robbers, and cowards in the face of the fold. Jesus, the True Shepherd, has now come to bring them home and to bestow judgment upon Jerusalem. He is the only one who can.