I Hear Voices

John 10:22-30

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." Jesus answered, "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. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one."

Good Shepherd Sunday Does anybody really care about such designations? 

I do. 

But does anyone who is normal?

Will any people walk in to worship on Sunday morning having thought to themselves on the way; “I wonder what the preacher will say about the Good Shepherd”?

No.

Which, I guess, is fine. 

I don’t know why I started this way.

Let me say this. . . 

I like Good Shepherd Sunday. 

I think it is a chance to proclaim the abiding promise of God’s presence in our world and in our lives. 

I have found this exchange to be compelling 

"If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." 

Jesus answered, "I have told you . . . My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me."

What is compelling is that while the question of Jesus is essentially about terms and titles, a theological question; Jesus’ answer is about relationship.

His sheep hear his voice and he knows them.

A lot of the claims that we will make about Jesus are that WE know HIM. 

Yet Jesus proclaims that what matters is the he knows us. 

Interesting.

I ran across this;  by Duane Olson in a Word & World piece. “Our security is found not in what we have or who we are but in whose we are. It is located in the faithfulness of the shepherd.”

That’s pretty dang basic, but maybe that is what Good Shepherd Sunday is about. Basics.

While the Girardians can get pretty dang earnest - and they may border on a sort of gnosticism - I liked this from Preaching Peace:

Today we must ask: Is God like Jesus? This is what our text does and in so doing asks us to reconsider who we think God is and what God is like.

This was after complaining about GW Bush leading us to war. I think that the conclusion is that Jesus would vote Democrat.  (actually, it might not have concluded that)

I saw this:  

The word for 'one' is the neuter hen not the masculine heis: Jesus and his Father are not one person, as the masculine would suggest, ...Rather, Jesus and his Father are perfectly one in action, in what they do: what Jesus does the Father does and vice versa. D.A. Carson The Gospel According to John

This might visit with the Girardian rumination on what God is like.  Does God use power? Is omnipotence the primary attribute of God? Or does Jesus show forth different attributes that might be more definitive of who God is?

What was that bumper sticker?

“My Jesus thinks your Jesus isa greedy war monger” 

In many, many, contexts, I believe that there are important issues around the voices we are listening to.

I will ask people who are beating up on themselves for some perceived inadequacy: “Is God the author of that thought?” 

I think that can be a fitting way to unmask (sound Girardian?) some of the destructive voices that are out there. 

Well. This may be a start. 

May we listen to the Shepherd’s voice. 

Might we find that shepherd to be the slaughtered lamb, who loves us to the end.