The Shepherd and Guardian of Our Souls

Scripture Lessons: 1 Peter 2: 19-25 and John 10: 1-10 Sermon Title: The Shepherd and Guardian of Our Souls Preached on April 30, 2023 We always say the same thing on Sunday mornings after Scripture is read. We read the first and second Scripture lesson, then I say, “The Word of the Lord,” and you say, “Thanks be to God,” but sometimes I wonder if what I should ask after reading Scripture is, “Did you get all that?” and you all respond, “Well, it was a little confusing.” What does our second Scripture lesson mean? What is Jesus trying to tell us? This passage from the Gospel of John isn’t the only confusing passage of Scripture in the Bible. Many passages in the Bible are so hard to understand that faithful people have been wrestling with them for thousands of years, but this one that we read today from the Gospel of John is one those that owns it. In verse 6 we read, “Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.” Even those who heard it straight from the Savior’s mouth didn’t get it. You might ask, “If they didn’t understand, what hope do we have?” Well, I’m not sure I have it perfectly or completely, but I want to share with you a few things that I’ve learned after thinking about this passage all week and reading what different scholars have to say about it. First, in this passage from John, Jesus, as he often does, uses a metaphor to try and help us understand who He is. In John’s Gospel, Jesus uses around 10 different metaphors to help us understand who He is. He said, “I am the vine,” or “I am the resurrection and the life.” Cassie and I preached a sermon series on all of these “I am” sayings a couple years ago. We paid special attention to them because cracking the code on these metaphors is helpful in our journey to understand who Jesus is and what a relationship with Him means for our lives. I’m sure you remember from English class that a simile and a metaphor are both figures of speech that compare two unlike things. A simile uses the words “like” or “as.” A metaphor does not. Jesus uses metaphors to describe Himself, but in our second Scripture lesson for today, He is using two of them at the same time. Here in the Gospel of John, chapter 10, He is saying that He is the shepherd and the gate. He is both. What does that mean? How can that be? Let me try to tell you, using some more metaphors. Last week I went to the hospital, as your pastors often do. I went to visit a member of our church who is there. Because we go often, the hospital provides us with special ID cards that we present to the parking lot attendants. With these cards, pastors and clergy are granted special access into the hospital. The thinking is that we’ll be more likely to go and visit people if we don’t have to pay for parking, which is good for the hospital because it’s good for the patients. However, mine expired, and I’ve yet to locate the office where I can get it renewed. The office used to be in the basement down a long hallway. Now that they’ve renovated the hospital, I haven’t been able to find it after looking for more than a year, and this morning I ask you: What good is a special privilege if you can’t find your way to it? It’s no good, but this is the way life often seems. We are like sheep on one side of a fence or a wall. Maybe we know that there is a whole other world on the other side of that wall. Maybe we know that just on the other side there are special privileges, green pastures, and still waters, only where is the gate to get through? Where is the office to get my special card renewed? I need a gate to walk through, and I need a shepherd to show me the way. It’s been this way for most of my life. My life would be so much less were it not for kind people who showed me the way to the gates. Do you know what I mean by that? Have you ever felt boxed in or stuck? When you felt that feeling, did God send someone into your life to help you get from one side of a wall to the other? I was 8 years old, and we had just moved into Charlton Ford subdivision off Powder Springs Road. We moved there from Virginia Highlands like so many others who left Atlanta to come out here. For us, Marietta was the other side of a wall. Living inside the perimeter, we heard that on the other side of 285 were green lawns and swimming pools. My parents knew that if we moved out here, I’d have quiet streets on which to ride my bike. Behind our new house, there was a creek for me to play in. Only just days after moving in, there I was, the new kid in town, standing on the edge of the neighborhood swimming pool, watching a group of boys swimming together, feeling far too intimidated to try and break into their group. I had a giant pool float, shaped like an alligator. The minute I put it into the water, these boys commandeered it, so I just sat on the edge, as though there were an invisible wall between them and me that I couldn’t get over. There was no gate that I could see. I was stuck, and I needed a shepherd to show me the way. My mom, noticing my predicament, tried to help me find the way. She came over and made it sound so easy: “Just go play with them,” which I knew was never going to work. What does a mother know about breaking into a group of boys? She couldn’t help me. No one could. I was stuck on the side of the pool. Thanks be to God, up swam this blond-headed boy with a crew cut, who invited me to come swim. His name was Matt Buchanan. He became my best friend, and I’ll forever be grateful because he showed me the gate. He walked me through it. Later, his family even invited us to this church, so in more than one way, he was the gate and the shepherd. Have there been people in your life who did the same thing? Matt is just the first one I can remember. He wasn’t the first person who helped me get from one side of a wall to another, nor was he the last. You may be able to remember the name of one who did the same for you, and you may have even become such a person for someone else. In Alcoholics Anonymous, that’s part of recovery. The one who has found the way beyond his addiction is charged to go back and tell others where the gate is. He is supposed to tell someone that “there is a life beyond addiction, and I can show you the way.” That’s what Jesus does. However, the world is full of people who are not like Jesus. The world is full of people who were born on third base and think they’ve hit a triple. Do you know what I mean by that? That’s an expression from Columbia, Tennessee that I picked up while I was there, and I’m not sure it translates. What the expression means is that the world is full of people who have been led through the gate by the shepherd, but act like they made it from home plate to third all on their own. They’ve forgotten what it means to be stuck on the other side. They don’t remember that they were ever left outside in the cold, longing to be let in. They don’t remember how difficult it is to make it from the front doors to the sanctuary and down to the adult Sunday school rooms. Did you know that it’s hard to get around in this church? Our church has five different buildings, connected by winding hallways. Despite all the beautiful signage, it’s not always easy to get from one end to the other, and it’s hard when it seems like everyone else knows where she’s going. There are some of us who can make their way through this place blindfolded. I know the stairwells by their smell. I even know how to get up on the roof. I’ve been all around this place because I’ve been coming here since Matt Buchanan’s family invited us when I was 8 years old, but I needed him to show me around back then. We all need a shepherd to show us around, so that we know where all the gates are and where all the hallways lead, but have you been a good shepherd? Have you been showing people where the gate is so that they can get in here to become a part of this family of faith? That might sound like a small request, though, the more I read, the more I understand that finding a place in a congregation like this one may be a matter of life and death. Harvard University recently published the results of a study on loneliness in America, suggesting that 36% of all Americans, including 61% of young adults and 51% of mothers with young children, feel “serious loneliness,” which leads to a wide array of serious physical and emotional problems including depression, anxiety, heart disease, substance abuse, and domestic violence. Other reports on the subject have concluded that spending all day alone is as bad for your body as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and that seniors who suffer from loneliness have a 64% higher risk of dementia, making loneliness the pandemic that still rages waiting for a vaccine. However, we already have the antidote. The church has always had the cure to isolation, but how well are we showing people the gate into this community? Every one of us has needed a shepherd to show her the way to the gate, but as soon as we learn the way, it’s easy to forget that there are others left on the other side of the wall just hoping to find their way in. Will you go back to show them the way? The way through our halls? The way into this church? With a little help, it’s so easy that some can’t even believe it. They’ll ask me, “What does it take to become a member?” It’s like they’re wondering if they’ll have to give over their social security number or something. What does it take to become a member of this family of faith? All it takes is the acknowledgement that you can’t find your way on your own. That you’ve never been able to. That without Him, you’d be lost and alone on the other side of some high wall that seems to have no gate. All it takes to become a member of this church is to acknowledge that you are a sheep in need of a shepherd to show you the way because that’s all any of us is. We are simply a group of lost people who have been found. We are simply a herd of sheep who have a shepherd. We were once on the other side of a high wall, but the Shepherd led us to the gate, and we walked through. That’s all of who we are. We are simply those who have been led through the gate. All that is required is that we say “Thank you” by going back to let others through so that they might be here with us. We live in this world full of lonely people, so help someone find his way home. Show others the way, that they might enjoy the green pastures and the still waters of Abundant Life. Amen.