Sermon – The Gated Community
Psalm 23; John 10:1-10
4/26/26
Welcome to what is perhaps one of the most interesting times of the church year. This is the period between Easter and Pentecost – the season of Easter. Before Easter, Lent is very useful but also very somber and serious. It can even feel like a weight as we ponder the coming death of Jesus. This time is much different. In fact, this time is downright fascinating. Pentecost is 50 days after Easter which is what the name of day means. According to Acts, Jesus was with the disciples for 40 of those days, and we know next to NOTHING of what happened. Sure, Jesus taught them things, gave them direction, and helped them to cope with what was to come. We do have a few important stories of this time but nowhere near 40 days’ worth. Oh, to be a fly on the wall.
That is part of what makes this time so incredibly interesting. Jesus was preparing those new Apostles to hit the road and take the gospel in whole new directions. The world was opening up before them. That is where we are as well. Here, today, we are also living in the excitement of a resurrected Lord but also in a wide world that needs a lot of love. To help us get ready to follow our Savior, we need to meet the Shepherd, also. Wait for his voice.
Today is even called “Shepherd Sunday,” but, honestly, I did not even know there was a day called that until researching for today. It does not surprise me, however, since shepherds were such a HUGE part of the biblical story. Moses, Jacob, and David were all famous shepherds. Even Able in the very, very beginning was a shepherd – the very first one in the Bible. Shepherds were some of the very first witnesses to Jesus’s birth, and Jesus himself identifies with being a shepherd, and he asks Peter to tend to his sheep – making him a shepherd, also. People understood this as part of their culture. Sheep and shepherds were ubiquitous. This side of the Atlantic, I would be surprised if many (let alone any) of us today have ever met an actual shepherd. We do have animal farmers, and there are probably overlaps here, but back then it was all sheep, and “shepherd” (the one who herds sheep) was one of the most important images for God’s leaders. And there were bad ones.
The appeal of Psalm 23 is the trust it invites in the Lord as a shepherd who provides in all kinds of situations, even in the most dire moments. That care is perfect and eternal. This song that is Psalm 23 provides a succinct, powerful, illustration of the kind of shepherd we really want and need from God. So many in positions of leadership have come to enlarge themselves, to take advantage of the people, and to ignore the demands of good, godly leadership. It happens all through Scripture and all the way to today. The abject suffering of God’s children that Jesus saw right in front of him due to the cruelty, idolatry, and selfishness of the rulers is really unimaginable. We truly cannot get what it means to have so little in a world without medicine, rights, or a say in government. This kind of poverty is staggering. Of course, they would not have realized the full extent of their difficulty as we might 2000 years later. And everything back then was not bad, of course. Nevertheless, Jesus felt the weight of their tremendous suffering. His heart was heavy as he tried to explain to the people that he was different from any leader they had ever had. They could trust him. He was not like anyone who had ever come before.
But what made him so different? It was the gate.
When the hearers did not understand what Jesus was trying to convey with his shepherd promise, he changed the image and adjusted the metaphor. Yes, sheep do know the voice of their true shepherd. They will not follow an imposter. The days after days of living together and trusting together and going together looking for food and water forges a bond between the sheep and the shepherd, and the good shepherd will go to great lengths to protect their sheep. Good shepherds will even serve as the door.
The sheep pen was not some nice, barbed wire, split rail, or picket fence. It was not electrified to keep predators out. That’s how those thieves and bandits are able to reign havoc upon the sheep so easily. Animal predators would have access. The walls might have been a few stones piled up, but this was not some massive wall. It would have been just high enough for the sheep to be gathered there. They do tend to wander. Now, that kind of fenced pen would need an access, but any kind of gate like we might build is out of the question. We are talking ancient Israel out in the country. Some sheep pen out in the wilderness would not have had posts and hinges with latches or springs, no wrought iron or treated wood. In fact, there was probably no gate at all. This is the heart of this story and the point. Maybe he could find a branch to lay across the hole, but there was really only one way that the shepherd could make sure the sheep were OK. BE the gate.
This is what Jesus is saying. When dealing with a simple, walled sheep pen, the shepherd could lay across the opening, literally giving his body as the door. The word here for gate is literally just that – a door. Jesus is the door. He is the gate. He is laying across the place where trouble would most likely come, and he is giving himself as the shield and alarm. Good shepherds are the gate, literally sleeping across the door of the pen so that the sheep do not wander off or wild animals invade. This is self-sacrifice, something only a truly good shepherd would even consider doing. So often, the shepherd did not own the sheep but was watching sheep for someone else. If you had the money to buy sheep, you yourself would have done something more distinguished that herding sheep which was the lowest job in the Jewish world. Jesus, however, is perfectly content to embrace this idea and underscores just how important it is for the people to see him as their Messiah, their protector, and their shepherd.
This gate will open to let the sheep in and out. It makes sure that the sheep are safe going and coming and points the way to good pastureland and a safe place to rest. Jesus is making the kind of promise that builds in our faith and our hearts this day. It is security and peace and love.
A door is only worth something if we use it, though. Jesus literally gave his life to be the shepherd gate. It is up to us to use it. We live in a world that is very self-serving. We love the idea of being able to do things for ourselves to excess, and it is often hard to think beyond the world we can see and feel. A fear of strangers has shaped how we view others on a wide scale. Because we move throughout our lives more and more often, we do not develop the kind of communities that would have existed in Jesus’ day. Thankfully, we have the gift of community here, but we are living in a sea of change and uncertainty. It makes all kinds of sense to try to take care of ourselves first.
But what if I told you that 1,000,000 will die this year from a disease that we can almost entirely treat and have been able to do so for decades? That is tuberculosis. And it is not the only problem of the world today that is out there causing suffering among God’s children. What does poverty mean just down the street? What does hunger mean just down the street? What does homelessness mean just down the street? What does access to healthcare mean just down the street?
A gate does no one any good unless we use it. It means trusting in the one who is the gate. It means there is something good and worth finding out there on the other side. It might be appealing to sit inside and never have to deal with what’s out there. That is more and more possible today than ever before, but what does Jesus mean for someone who never opens the door. There is a whole world out there that is full of God’s grace. Jesus does know where the pleasant pastures and still waters are, and they are never inside the pen.
I do have to say that our Mission Committee has stepped up its work in a big way and will continue to build on mission through the year. Last week, they were at Taste of Farmville giving folk a taste of our sheep fold with Presbyterian Brownies and pointing to our next fundraiser in May – a pancake supper to benefit Heifer International through which we could purchase, among other things, sheep for a family to grow their ability to sustain themselves. I for one am excited to see what comes next.
Granted, no one understood Jesus very well back then. It is not easy to think in ways that we are not used to. It is far easier just to mind our business and tend to our own needs, but there is a door leading out that opens an experience of God’s love that we will never know if we never use. Jesus is there waiting for us to follow.
To God be the glory. Amen.