My Sheep Hear My Voice
I have a Bible Study tip for you this morning. It is often important to ask who is being addressed in a particular passage.
In our passage from John’s gospel this morning we encounter two parties who are at odds. On the one hand we have the people John refers to as “the Jews” and on the other hand we have Jesus.
A word of course must be spoken here about what is meant by the term “the Jews.” Remember that Jesus and all of his close followers during his earthly ministry were Jews.
As this word occurs in John’s gospel, it means those Jews who have not been open to Jesus’ teaching and do not accept what he says and does as evidence of God’s fullness in him. They were not open to John the Baptizer’s preaching either. In the other gospels, these folks are generally referred to as “the scribes and the pharisees.” I.e., Jewish leaders.
Let’s be clear: It is wrong and dangerous to negatively identify Jewish people of today with Jesus’ adversaries as John tells this story about back then.
But to return to the Bible study tip, let’s ask the question of who this passage addresses. This passage describes a conversation. Jesus and 1the scribes and pharisees are talking to each other. But who is the gospel writer talking to?
The original hearers of John’s gospel were members of precarious communities spread across the Mediterranean. This storytelling is addressed to them.
These precarious communities had come together over time as followers of an executed man accused of blasphemy and sedition. As their number expanded their members included a variety of ethnic groups, both Jews and Gentiles. They included to some extent different social classes who were admonished to treat one another equally, regardless of economic status – and were even told that in Jesus there was neither male nor female and neither slave nor free.
We are told in John’s gospel that Jewish followers of Jesus were cast out of the synagogue, and so they no longer had their traditional connections with their religious community of origin.
Throughout John’s Gospel, John highlights the divisions between those of the darkness and those of the light and the writer emphasizes that as Jesus enters history a great division emerges between those who are drawn to him and those who reject him: Those who are his sheep and those who are not.
So, John’s gospel is written to the precarious communities who are trying to stay together despite social differences in uncharted territory. John emphasizes Jesus’ words to inspire confidence in the unity of those who DO hear his voice and see in his signs the revelation of the fullness of God that dwells in him.
One of the reasons they are precarious communities is that they are receiving a different message from the rulers, powers, and institutional systems around them.
John writes so that these precarious communities will overhear this conversation and take what Jesus says to their hearts, for their encouragement, to strengthen their confidence – despite their vulnerability.
Jesus is the shepherd of the way, the truth, and the life. “Hear my voice over the competing voices that urge you to greed, fear, and cruelty.” Jesus’ voice is not the only voice speaking. And it’s not the loudest voice. Then or now. And there are those who claim to speaking his message who are deceivers.
I’d like to linger on this notion of “precarious communities.” I want us to take that very seriously – not just in thinking about the first audience of John’s gospel, but of us.
I used to say that if you have health insurance, and Wegmans nearby, you pretty much don’t need God.
What I meant was that for most of us in Fairport, we could mainly take care of ourselves without any extraordinary help from God.
Around here we normally aren’t living precarious lives day to day. Of course, each of us have moments of coming to grips with our vulnerabilities, but, on the whole, most of us live relatively confident of our social and material position.
But be that as it may, as I think about it now, I’m not at all confident that this will continue.
When I think about the extraordinary economic and political uncertainty that we face today and as I think about the growing, unrelenting effects of climate change and all the other environmental threats that are challenging us and will increasingly challenge us, I invite us to seriously overhear Jesus’ words as one of those early precarious Christian communities.
Let’s hear this passage today with the ears of a precarious community so that we begin to prepare ourselves to have the confidence we will need in what are likely increasingly difficult days ahead. Let’s hear it with confidence that Jesus is the shepherd of the way, the truth, and the life. Let’s hear it over the competing voices that urge us to greed, fear, and cruelty.
Again, Jesus’ voice is not the only voice speaking. And it’s still not the loudest voice.. There are still those who claim to be speaking Jesus’ message who are lying.
In our passage this morning the text makes four important points as these precarious communities overhear again the words of Jesus through the Gospel. Let’s listen so that we hear them as well.
1. These precarious communities are reminded: You hear my voice.
I have not abandoned you. Through the HS you remain in touch with me as much as the original disciples were in touch with me. This is an ongoing relationship. Jesus’ voice is inviting these precarious communities to share their life with him and to take his life into their own.
John’s gospel is often said to be the most mystical of the Gospels. It speaks of a deep connectedness and transparency between God and the world through Jesus. To be in touch with Jesus is to be in touch with God.
Even when they cannot make out clearly just exactly what Jesus means, Jesus’ followers are continually invited into the conversation to listen more deeply, to cultivate the capacity to pay less attention to the distracting voices and noises of the world and be more deeply attuned to the voice that invites them more and more deeply into love. To conjoin their experience with the experience of Jesus and the conversation among Jesus’ followers so that they are more and more faithfully following the shepherd.
Today this passage gives us assurance that we can hear the shepherd’s voice. We can hear it. We can open ourselves to the fullness of Jesus’ guidance.
We can let go of excuses that it is somehow not yet clear enough. We can unplug ourselves from the ego-driven messages of consumer, comfort culture and ego-driven messages of status and ambition, regularly enough and long enough to hear the shepherd’s voice?
2. These precarious communities are reminded: You have eternal life.
Your life is no longer bound by time and space. Your life is in time and space, but no longer bound by it. Your life now extends/opens up beyond the limits of the time allotted in this world.
Moreover, the life we live now is continuous with that eternal life. So Jesus’ voice is inviting us to live into eternity not just in the future but in the now. Jesus’ voice calls them into eternal communion, eternal connection with the love that is the source and being of all that is. Jesus tells them: your life can never be called small, insignificant, meaningless, or worthless. It is eternal. It has no end. Your life is unbounded and precious to the Shepherd. No limits in God’s love.
We, too, can have the confidence to embrace eternal life. We can look at the particulars of our own lives in this world and discern how they fit into God’s purposes. Our decisions can fit into God’s larger call on our lives. Our priorities can line up with God’s priorities.
Or another way to put this: We can practice the eternal language of love in this life so that we will be fluent in love in the life to come.
First: You hear the shepherd’s voice.
Second: You have eternal life.
3. Thirdly, these precarious communities are reminded: You have been given to me by the Father and you will not be torn from me.
Yes, you have been disconnected from your original communities, religions, and fellow worshippers. You have no place to go back to. And you are not getting any encouragement from those around you who are following other paths, but do not focus on the tenuous worldly connections that bind you together.
What brought you together to be my followers is deeper than that. It is the very grace and love of God that has called you together. Despite all the difficulties and fragility you might encounter, I assure you that this call to follow me is bigger than you. Bigger than your desire or preference. Bigger than your past or your future. It is based on the breath of the Holy Spirit which is ultimately more stable than the mountains. It is based on the bond of love that is as firmly fixed as the roots of the sturdiest tree. This is why my new commandment is that you love one another.
We, too, are invited to be drawn more deeply into connection with Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and with one another. Our ability to hear more clearly the voice of the shepherd only depends on our attending to the relationship. We can intentionally spend time with the Shepherd – devoting ourselves to prayer and to worship and to paying attention to what Jesus says.
4. Fourthly, these precarious communities are reminded: I and the Father are one.
Just as you and I cannot be torn apart, I and the Father are not to be separated. To see me is to see the Father. To hear me is to hear the Father. I do everything according to the will of the Father. I do not blaspheme the Father in saying this, but those who say that I am insulting God are the ones who are opposed to God. To be caught up with me is to be caught up with the Father. To be drawn to me is to be drawn to God.
Have confidence: We do not live apart from God. We live embraced by God, always and everywhere. Like it or not, that is the truth of the cosmos revealed in Jesus, God has entered humanity in Jesus Christ, invited us to be a part of God’s loving and reconciling action in history, in our world, and blessed all of creation in that earthly, flesh and blood reality.
You hear my voice.
You have eternal life.
You have been given to me by the Father and you will not be torn from me.
I and the Father are one.
The precarious communities of Jesus’ followers needed to hear these words in the face of those who would deny or distort them. And the same is true for us.
The loudest voices around us may be those calling us to stray from the path of compassion, peace, and mercy.
As we in our time may face challenging circumstances, as a precarious community, let us live, serve, and love with confidence and courage, always attuned to the voice of the Good Shepherd.
Hear again the psalm of the shepherd. Hear it confidently as a reality that is always unfolding in your life. May its words be like noise-cancelling headphones that drown out the cacophony of distraction and distortion:
Psalm 23
1The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
In these moments of quiet, let other voices give way to the voice of peace, the voice of the Good Shepherd.