In this Easter season, the scripture texts take us back to the words of Jesus, words that the disciples recalled as they pondered the mystery of the resurrection, and what Jesus wanted them to do next.

Here Jesus speaks about himself as the shepherd, the guide and guard of those who love him.

[Read John 10:11-18]

I’m a city person. Too much open space makes me nervous, so when I started thinking about sheep, I had to call my brother, who lives on a farm in Wisconsin. I asked him what he knows about sheep, and the first thing he said was: “Sheep are stupid.”

 “Hmmm,” I thought. All over the Bible, the people of God are compared to sheep. The familiar and beloved words of Psalm 23 proclaim right away that God is our shepherd, making us, by definition, sheep. Psalm 100 proclaims that we are the sheep of God’s pasture, the flock of God’s hand.

Every place we look, the biblical writers find comfort in the fact that God is our shepherd, and we shall not lack anything. Every need is met and every danger taken care of. There were plenty of dangers for shepherds in ancient Palestine. In that world, the shepherd was absolutely responsible for the lives of the sheep. Fighting off bears and wolves, along with thieves, was part of the job description. If an animal were eaten by a wolf or bear, the shepherd had to bring in part of the sheep’s body to prove that the animal had eaten it.

The shepherd’s staff mentioned in Psalm 23 is a weapon for such battles. The rod used there is the shepherd’s crook, used to rescue lost lambs and guide the others over rocky hills. I love that the “rod” mentioned in “spare the rod, spoil the child” is the same Hebrew word as the shepherd’s crook. Sparing the rod isn’t about punishment — it’s about guiding and helping, like the shepherd does with his crook.

In ancient Palestine sheep roamed without fences or strict boundary lines, and shepherds spent their days wandering with the sheep. They walked along as the sheep grazed, and at night they slept with the sheep. In the passage before this one, Jesus proclaimed that he was the gate. Sheep often slept in open enclosures, and the shepherd slept at the opening, to guard the sheep. With the shepherd there, the door is safe.

All along the way, the shepherd got to know the flock, and often gave each sheep a name. The shepherd knew which sheep was fearful and which one was likely to wander off, which one was irritable and which one was sweet.

In the Christian scriptures, the New Testament, Jesus picked up this same idea. And when Jesus proclaimed that, as the good shepherd, he knew his flock and they knew him, he was doing no more than any other shepherd.

But Jesus called himself not just a shepherd, but the good shepherd. The Greek word translated as “good” is the strongest possible word for good — not the ordinary everyday word. It really means noble, beautiful, worthy, and exemplary. Jesus was telling his flock that he was the best possible shepherd — the ideal shepherd, one willing to lay down his life for the sheep. The shepherd beyond all others — the great shepherd. In all of these “I am” sayings from John’s gospel, Jesus compared himself with the most ordinary things — light, bread, water, and in this passage, a shepherd. He never said that he’s the good king, or the new high priest, or the scholar who knew the truth. And, when he chose a shepherd, he chose a lowly, smelly job. He chose a job done by the children of the family or a hired hand.

It’s true that at that time, “shepherd” was a frequent metaphor for the ruler of a country …but no one actually wanted to be a shepherd. Jesus was turning the image of the king on its head — using the metaphor but reminding his friends that he was the shepherd who knew the sheep, who lived with the sheep, who provided for the sheep. Seeing his friends, knowing their need for guidance and protection, he offered them the ancient image of the shepherd.

In our world, we don’t see a lot of shepherds, but the image still tells us what kind of God we have. Maybe you’re a city person, too, and the only sheep we see at are petting zoos and at a distance on road trips.

But we know enough to know that the shepherd can’t lead the sheep anywhere, really, can’t cajole them, yell at them, or expect them to follow. There is no planning ahead with sheep. The shepherd only gets anything done by being with the sheep — in the middle of the flock. In this, we understand something about our God. God insists on being in the middle of us, mixed into our lives, right in the midst of our stupid choices, our confusion, our tendency to wander off where we shouldn’t be and our constant need to be called back.

I once preached on this text with a high-school-aged friend, and I loved what she said so much that she gave me permission to quote her. Now a graduate student, Megan said:

“This passage exemplifies Jesus’ relationship with God and his relationship with us. Jesus says that he “knows his own sheep, and his own sheep know him.” However, as Christians this is what we strive to do our whole life. Jesus confidently says “the sheep will recognize my voice.” Jesus is crazy! I am always looking for his word and guidance in my life… and I’m sure that most of the time I fail to see it. It is hard to distinguish what he is telling us from everything else we hear. I am not like the sheep in this passage. It is so easy for them to hear Jesus because there are no outside influences pulling them astray. For us the media is telling us how we should look, how we should dress, what we should buy. School and jobs influence how we spend our money. Our friends influence our choices.”

She helped me understand how hard it is to hear the voice of Jesus, and how hard we have to work to listen.

There are plenty of dangers for us, too.

The danger of being seduced by our stuff or thinking that we’re worth no more and no less than our title or salary, or forgetting the things that feed the soul, or living with our addiction, or being too busy. Our preoccupations with work, our screens, shopping, or easy anger lead us away from Jesus. We’re constantly getting off the path and needing to be called back.

But, Megan said in that same sermon: “Nonetheless, Jesus is confident we will be able to distinguish him from all the other influences. The fact that Jesus is so sure we will be able to do it gives me hope. If Jesus is certain I will hear his voice, who am I to say I won’t. As sheep we are all important to him. Jesus has told us it is possible to know him and it is possible to have a relationship with him.”

Because he says that, we can have confidence.

But we are invited to be more than sheep.

As we follow Jesus, we are invited to live lives of faith like the exemplary shepherd. We’re invited to follow where the good shepherd leads us and to lead and serve like he did. We can’t get anything done in God’s world by charging off, hoping God’s people will follow our powerful vision or our ten-point plan. We have to hang around with other sheep. The place where we communicate the grace of God is right in the middle of other sheep, mixing in with the world we hope to make better.

We follow the God revealed as the good shepherd, the shepherd who cares for the sheep, and he invites us to love in the same way. As sheep, we are stupid. We miss the grace of God over and over, miss seeing signs of love and forgiveness every day, and miss chances to take care of each other. And yet there is the good shepherd, always calling us back to the good water and the abundant grass, giving all that we need, never letting us wander too far. No matter how far we think we’ve wandered away, the good shepherd is there, watching out, ready to bring us back to the pasture. No matter how stupid we think we’ve been, the good shepherd awaits, and we belong to the flock. The shepherd knows the sheep, and our God knows us.

We are sheep, but also followers of the great shepherd. He invites us to care for the flock alongside him. The strength for that comes from the shepherd himself, right in the midst of us, the flock.

We, the sheep, may be stupid — but we are smart enough to know our shepherd, and to know where we belong. Amen.