I Wish You Bad Luck
John 10:11-18
‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own 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 do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’
So apparently Good Shepherd Sunday is a thing—it’s traditionally the fourth Sunday in the Easter season—I had no idea! I picked this passage for today, because I liked it the best out of the lectionary choices, and I hadn’t preached on it before. But it turns out, it’s kind of a perfect passage for a baptism Sunday.
We have a passage today about protection—about love and strength, protection and faith. We have a passage today about guarding against the mercenaries and wolves of the world, those who will suck you dry and leave you broke and heartbroken, and hopeless. And we also have a passage about sacrifice… about laying down one’s life for those we love. The good news is, at least in this passage, it doesn’t seem that Jesus is telling us to fully sacrifice our lives—his continued use of the two small words, “I am” is meant to be very authoritative—Jesus is the good shepherd. Jesus lays down his life. Jesus knows God like no one else can know God. So we can take a deep breath there. Jesus is the one is called to lay his life down.
But does this mean that we’re totally free pain, of danger, of sacrifice? That Jesus has us completely covered, we’ve got nothing to worry about as long as we’re baptized, as long as we repent, as long as we stay on the straight-and-narrow? Remember last week, Jesus came back to the disciples after he was resurrected, and he came back, alive and in the flesh, but he was still wounded. The scars on his hands and feet were still there, and always would be. What if Jesus had come back completely healed? What if Jesus had come back looking untouched, looking invincible? We could all breathe a sigh of relief—we can forget the pain, his final tortured breaths… but no, the scars remain so we don’t forget… so we don’t forget what this cruel world did, so we don’t forget the incredible change he was ushering in that scared those in power the point of brutally murdering him. The Jesus who was resurrected must be the same Jesus who died, scars and all—because our faith involves pain and suffering, as life involves pain and suffering. And that’s not to say I’m promoting self-flagellation here— suffering the sake of suffering is self-righteous and meaningless. But in a broken world, it is inevitable, and until we bring about an earth as it is in heaven, we will suffer; our hearts will be broken; we will experience grief and pain.
And so we need Jesus, The capital G-Good, capital S-Shepherd in our lives. And we need to be good shepherds ourselves.
Good in this context doesn’t simply mean the opposite of bad. It means model, the ideal. Jesus is the Good Shepherd we follow, do our best to model ourselves after. We are not Jesus, so we are not expected to do exactly as he did, that’s literally impossible. As I’ve quoted in multiple sermons before, from the late Rev. Peter Gomes—it’s not what would Jesus do… rather, it’s what would Jesus have us do?
Jesus leads us. Jesus protects us against. This quote from Jesus is inspired by one from Ezekiel, in which the prophet warns his people of false shepherds—false prophets who would not, in fact, lay down their lives for their sheep, who would run from their flock at the first sign of danger. These are the hired hands Jesus speaks of—those who take a job for the money and nothing else, those who couldn’t care less if one or two of their sheep, or the whole flock gets devoured by wolves.
Now, sheep tend to have a bad reputation today—calling someone a sheep is often used in a derogatory way, insinuating that someone who is a sheep can’t think for themselves, just follows the leader with no hesitations; someone that will walk head-first into their own destruction. But this is simply not the case. Sheep are deeply social creatures; they are attracted to and recognize one another in the same way humans do— by facial recognition; sheep can learn names, they can be trained, they can recognize emotions; it has even been shown that some sheep may have some problem solving skills. And when faced with a predator or some kind of danger, they will indeed panic and flee. This, to me, means that sheep, no matter how good a shepherd may be, will experience fear or anxiety; they will have bad days along with the good. They will be forced to learn new pastures when they’re run out of their former; they may even grieve when a mate or a parent has died.
And the same goes for us.
When Connie and I were discussing Frankie’s baptism, she told me a story about a couple whose baby was going to be baptized by her. Connie used the same analogy with them that she used with Frankie, about the M&Ms, and the couple, apparently became confused—they were under the impression that baptism would give their child some kind of invincibility. Connie gently let them know that… no, your child will inevitably experience pain, heartbreak, and difficult times in their life, but baptism is a way to give them unconditional love and support through the good times and the bad, both thanks to the Love of God and the solidarity with Jesus, as well as the faith community into which they’re being baptized. The couple chose not to have their baby baptized there.
In this life, we will experience pain. Every one of us. And some of that pain may simply be in the form of empathy. As a new parent, the pain I feel when I see Frankie upset, when I see her hurt, when I see her confused… it hurts my heart. I never knew how deep a love could be until I saw my child in pain. And I think this is a sacrifice in itself, right? Feeling that pain in order to take away pain for someone else—feeling that pain in order to do everything in our power to take away the pain of our loved ones. Because it doesn’t have to be your own child. It can be anyone, a family member, a friend, a spouse, a stranger we see crying on the street. When we see those people in pain, we tend to feel that pain in return, and doesn’t that empathy make you want to help to bring about a world in which no one will feel that kind of hurt, a world in which no one would feel any pain anymore?
Now, I’ve been here three and a half years at this point, I think you’ve probably all gotten a feel for what my politics are. So let me tell you, I’m just as shocked as you will all be about the person I’m about to quote— the conservative chief justice of the current Supreme Court, John Roberts— it’s from, of all things, a commencement speech to his son’s prestigious junior high:
From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.
As we think about our faith, as we think about what it means to do the work Jesus calls us to do, and to be shepherded in our faith, and shepherd people in our lives, we have to know that our faith will not protect us against the dangers of this world. Our faith will not make us immune to the cruelty of others, or to the unjust systems of this broken world. But it will guide us. It will show is right from wrong, even amidst the gray areas. Our faith will be there with the unconditional love of God, and the fact that Jesus, as the wounds on his hands and feet show, knows our every deepest pain and in the Holy Spirit, continuing to shepherd us along the right path in this strange world; and our faith communities will support us when things fall apart; they will be there for us with a meal, or a listening ear, or a hug.
And when we are there for each other, when we are there for someone going through a trying time, some of their pain, some of their sadness will rub off on us. We will feel it, and it won’t feel good. That’s a sacrifice we’re making in order to help someone else. That’s a way to take on some of their pain, to lighten their load as they grieve, as they vent, as they push and claw their way back. That’s how we lay our lives down.
In our passage today, the wolves and the hired hands, both from the Ezekiel passage John is borrowing from, and from today’s John scripture, are referring to the powerful. They’re referring to the political leaders of the day who take and destroy and pillage. They’re referring to the false prophets of the day who have no interest in actually protecting their followers, and instead just use them for their own gain. They are not people who will take on any pain of others. They have no interest in lightening the load, in lessening the burden. They have no interest in making a better world for all, only for themselves. These are the people who stood by and let Jesus die, who ordered the execution, who did the killing. And the fact that Jesus hasn’t yet come back means that those types of people still exist today—this is the world we live in—one of selfish and self-righteous people who lack empathy. They exist, and they are in power, and sometimes it feels there’s little we can do about that.
But we can guide one another. As a faith community, we can band together to guide the little ones— today, we pledged to give Frankie our love, support, and care, as she grows in this church, as she grows in her faith, as she inevitably sees the horrors and the brokenness of this world, the hard and cruel things that are impossible to avoid without completely sheltering ourselves from realty, and she will be a stronger, more compassion, and deeply caring person with that love, support, and care—with our shepherding—in today’s world, I am sure of that.
We may not be able to shield ourselves, the church, or even the most vulnerable among us from hurt, from pain, from the evils of this world—but we can guide each other through them. And we can learn from that pain, our own, and other people’s, to figure out how to make it so that in the future, no one has to feel pain like that again. But until that time, we will hurt, we will panic, we will cry, we will grieve. And thanks to the Love and guidance of Jesus; thanks to this faith community, we can be good shepherds to one another. We can lay down a bit of our lives, take on a little of someone else’s pain, and lighten the load. And we can learn from that pain—from ours, and from the pain of others, and bring about a world in which no one will feel pain again. Amen.
