A sermon shared at First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, May 7,
2017.
Old and New Testament readings:
The beauty and complexity of the language
of this passage in John fascinates me. Its language has a beauty and
complexity. If it were in English, I would call it, “High English.” It shapes concrete
everyday things into literary devices such as symbols, metaphors, and images of
more complex and divine things to communicate a message that says among other
things, “Listen to me! God is speaking!”
Symbolic language such as gates, doors
and shepherds have contradictory meanings (I always remember the part of
the lyrics of
Stairway to Heaven by Led Zepplin,
“...There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh ooh and she's buying a stairway to heaven.
There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings..."
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh ooh and she's buying a stairway to heaven.
There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings..."
Symbolic language challenges the
listener or reader to figure out its meaning. Symbolic language allows us to
interpret an old message for today’s issues.
The world is a complicated place and often at times, making the right decision is not always easy. I suspect that Jesus uses symbolic
language, such as this parable in John, intentionally to make us think about
what he means. Developing the thinking skill to figure out a passage full of symbolic
language sharpens our ability to apply the message captured in the symbolic
language to new situations. After all, a good “Easter person” is a thinking
Christian. (See post Day
752 – The only theology worth practicing for more on this idea.)
Since you are reading this blog
post, you should realize the gate is symbol I like. (“Knock at the Narrow Gate”).
I took it from Matthew 7:
13-14: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction,
and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow
and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Jesus uses doors, gates, sheep,
shepherds and watchmen as symbols but we should not forget these symbols are
used throughout the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels. Exploring the symbols Jesus
uses in John’s gospel lets us see more clearly the message through John’s eyes
and, to understand the meaning of the words of Jesus for our own lives.
If you want an example, take “children.”
When Jesus says, “Let
the children come to me,” is he being literal or does “children” symbolize
all of us who are reborn into new life? If it the latter, we should interpret
the symbolic message as a lesson that we should act with compassion towards
other Christians, and the same way towards our young people. So, let’s look at
these symbols in John 10:1-10.
Doors and gates: We are not supposed to read this use of gates
literally. Doors and gates often are symbols of choices for living, as a path
or entrance to the good news, to salvation and redemption, to refuge and safety
in the Lord, and to the time after death (gates of Heaven, of Zion, etc). In
the gospels, the desired gate opens or leads to a challenging path of good life.
Hence, Matthew writes of the narrow gate leading to a hard but certain road to
life; and the wide gate that leads to an easy road but to ruin. The subtle
message is being a Christian is hard work.
The gate of the
town or city is often the site of healing and of lament. Elijah brought back to
life the dead son of a widow at the gates of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:1-24). Jesus healed
lepers and blind people, and raised the dead at city gates.
Psalm 118, that I’ve used as a
call to worship, uses the gate as a symbol for the entry to the Temple: “This
is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter
through it (and by implication the unrighteous may not). Similarly Psalm 24:7-10 says, “Lift up your heads, O you
gates, that the King of Glory may come in.” On its face, both passages are
about the door to the Temple but the message is that righteous people who
follow the Law worship God, and that God comes to those who worship him. So, “gate” connects human kindness and righteousness
to divine action.
What about gatekeepers? A
gatekeeper can have positive and negative meaning. We find a negative example
in 2 Chronicles 23:19. After
the new King of Judah had taken back the temple from the old sinful king and
then his mother who encouraged Baal worshippers, he stationed gatekeepers to prevent
anyone who was unclean from entering the Temple.
Alternatively, we find a
positive example in Isaiah 60. The gatekeeper to the Temple (priest) was there
to welcome all nations (v11).
“Your gates shall always be open; day and night they shall not be
shut, so that nations shall bring you their wealth, with their kings led in
procession.” Isaiah isn’t talking
literally about aliens bringing money the Temple, but about the welcoming arms
of God that welcome all who worship him and therefore enrich our lives, not
with money but fellowship and community.
Now we come to Shepherds, Sheep,
watchmen and hirelings. Shepherds
and watchmen have positive attributes. They refer broadly to caretakers,
leaders, God and Jesus Christ. But look more closely at shepherds.
Shepherds spent so much time with
their flock that the sheep can recognize their whistle or voice when called. When
several shepherds pool their flocks in a common corral for the night they don’t
get so mixed up they cannot be separated the next morning. The next day each
Shepherd whistles or calls and his sheep come to him. Shepherds don't drive their sheep like a
cattleman drives a herd of cows, the shepherd leads the sheep to safety. The
butcher, thieves and robbers chase the sheep in order to steal, sell or kill.
We may or may not get the irony of
the negative attribute of “Shepherd” as it applies here. Sheep herding
was a dirty, lonely job - not a highly-regarded vocation. Shepherds are as smelly as their sheep.
Shepherds spent most of their time out in the fields watching their sheep and
facing dangerous predators and thieves but little time at home with
family. When Jesus says, “I am the
Shepherd,” it implies he has taken a dirty, perilous job for us, even to the
cross.
What about hired hands? Shepherds protect their sheep, obviously, because
they are valuable to them. There are times when one might hire a watchman for
the flock. A hired watchman was responsible for one thing, getting paid to watch
the flock. He was not responsible to endanger himself by defending the sheep
against predators. If a wolf or mountain lion approached, no one (except the sheep)
held it against the hireling if he abandoned them for town leaving the flock
behind to be ravaged. The message is “don’t trust the safety of your sheep to a
hireling. Jesus was referring to the Pharisees as hirelings then, who would
they be today, I wonder?
This brings us to Sheep. Sheep
are a symbol of God’s people. They are
helpless against predators and also quite dumb. Jesus uses sheep as a symbol
of God’s people because he sees us helpless and susceptible to robbers,
thieves, human predators, and sin. And, yes, sheep are smelly and helpless,
just like so many of God’s children.
And so, when we hear the words of
Jesus in John saying he is both the
gate and the shepherd or gatekeeper we ought not to be surprised, or miss
what he is talking about. We are in dire need of a Good Shepherd.
Jesus is carrying over from the
Old Testament (Ezek. 34)
the symbols of God’s people being his sheep and God as the Good Shepherd to the
gospel. The Good Shepherd of Israel protects them from harm. Jesus is saying he
is God, the Good Shepherd for all who come to his gate.
Have you thought about the big
question floating in the air when Jesus says he is the gate and the gatekeeper?
In Greek mythology, Charon is the ferryman
who carries souls across the river Styx to the safety of the Land of the Dead
if the family left a penny for the toll. Is Jesus the Shepherd standing in the gate
keeping people out or letting people in, as Charon did? If we apply the
symbolism in 2 Chronicles 23:19,
where the gatekeeper prevents the unclean from entering the Temple, we might
think so. Do you think that is right? Should we seek to keep out of worship
those folks we feel are “unclean?”
Certainly
throughout John Jesus says he is the truth and Light, but his charge to Peter we
listened to a few weeks ago was, “Feed my sheep,” and to the disciples,
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you…” If you forgive
the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they
are retained.” So perhaps we need to think more about the image of the welcoming
gage in Isaiah 60?
This gatekeeper Jesus, unlike the
thieves and robbers who prey on sheep to steal and kill, is whistling and
calling to the sheep so that at the sound of his voice they come to the safety
of the Good News.
All this flowery language makes a simple point. We
are not robbers, thieves and butchers, or judges. Our job is to keep the door
open and provide Christian love and safety to all God’s children as
Christ has done for us Easter People. The door is open, maybe they will hear us
and the call and come in? That is what we remember as we celebrate at the
Lord’s Table today.
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