Cycling Among the Sheep!

Acts 9:36-43

Revelation 7:9-17

John 10:22-30

+ In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

I remember a couple of years ago during the annual Good Friday walk of witness as people made their way along St James’s Street towards the Old Steine, a guy going the opposite way on a bike just shouted as he went past, “Sheep, baaaa”. As far as off the cuff insults go it wasn’t especially original, and I know I have, and I’m sure others here today have been called much worse things. It may be that he thought he was being witty or clever, who knows? What I do know though is that he was a bit late in ascribing the attributes of sheep to those of us who were walking that day……..as we see in today’s gospel reading Jesus had got there first! “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they will follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.” Perhaps the guy on the bike was closer to the truth than he realised!

There are many different portrayals of Jesus throughout the New Testament, but the image of Jesus as the Great Shepherd of the sheep is perhaps one of the most enduring of those images. Those of a certain age will probably have memories of watching “One Man and His Dog”, and the TV image of Phil Drabble will be the closest many of us ever came to seeing a shepherd in action.

The gospel reading echoes also the most well-known of all the Psalms, Psalm 23, which we heard as we began our worship this morning. Both passages speak of a deep sense of belonging and protection. The sheep belong to the shepherd whose very life is dedicated to the nurture and well-being of those he is charged with the care of.

 At the beginning of the gospel reading Jesus is confronted by those demanding that he speak plainly of who he is. “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly”. They had heard Jesus' words and seen his works and still they did not know whether or not he was the promised Messiah or just another rabbi. They did not understand who Jesus was! Sometimes it can be just plain difficult to see the truth when it is literally staring you right in the face! The sincerity of his questioners was in doubt in any case. Most of the times on occasions like this, the questions, rather than being honest and open enquiries, were intended as a trap for Jesus to fall into and implicate himself, giving them the satisfaction of handing him over to the authorities.

So how does Jesus respond? “I have told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep”. Despite the plain evidence in front of their own eyes of Jesus’s ministry of healing and of all that pointed towards him indeed being the promised Messiah, they either could not or would not believe. Of course they actually lived when Jesus himself was around……..we have a span of 2000 years, and centuries of biblical scholarship separating us from these events.

While I was preparing for this sermon I came across a cartoon of a fairly human looking sheep relaxing on a sunbed in a field, iPod headphones on, TV blasting out in front of him, and surrounded by a laptop and mobile phone. Across the other side of the field there was the shepherd calling out to this completely oblivious figure on the sunbed. The caption in the cartoon had the sheep thinking “I wonder why I don’t hear from the shepherd anymore”.

How easy and tempting it is to become so caught up in our own little worlds that we don’t always hear the voice of the shepherd. Would we even recognise his voice? Our time is taken up with plenty of other things that need doing; we bury ourselves in our work or become just bogged down sometimes with lives that seem to get more complicated by the day. We are surrounded by computers, mobile phones and plenty of other things that promise to make our lives happier or easier. We distract ourselves by saying that if we buy the latest iPhone or upgrade the car then life will somehow be better.

 Even here in church it can become so easy to be busy constantly “doing things” that sometimes we can feel a bit like the sheep on the sunbed……..we just have different distractions!

 There are certainly plenty of things that need to be done to keep the work of St George’s moving forward. Whether it’s the clergy, the churchwardens, the PCC, cleaning the church, organising the flowers, helping on the coffee rota……..all important things in themselves. Yet while we are so busy making sure things run smoothly sometimes it can seem as though we don’t always hear the voice of the shepherd. Sometimes there is just too much noise around us to listen out for that call and respond.

When I last preached on Palm Sunday I spoke of taking time during Holy Week to pray, reflect and listen as we journey with Jesus through those few days. Yet, we are called to do just that as part of our everyday journey with him, not only during Lent or Easter, but constantly.

He is our shepherd and we are his sheep, he calls to us and draws us to him. Let us slow down, take time out and listen to what he has to say to us. He can speak to us in a whole variety of ways, through scripture, as we partake of him in the Eucharist or in a still, small voice. Always he calls to us out of his love for us, we simply need to step away for a while from whatever is distracting us, be still and listen.

+ In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

AMEN