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 good shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and runs away – and the wolf snatches and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because the hired hand does not care about 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. I lay down my life for the sheep. There are other sheep who are not part of this fold. I must bring them along also and they will listen to my voice. So that there will be one flock, one shepherd.

“For this reason the Father loves me, because I am willing to lay down my life and take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own accord. I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it up again. I have received this command from my father.”

In addition to it being the Fourth Sunday of Easter, today is also, often called, in many places “Good Shepherd Sunday,” where churches all over the world hear some bit of this portion of John’s Gospel where Jesus waxes poetic about his identity as “the Good Shepherd.”

It’s a popular image, I suspect most of us have seen or heard of before: Jesus, with livestock draped over his shoulders. There are paintings and stained glass windows showing as much. There are a few “Good Shepherd” and “Our Shepherd” Lutheran Churches right here in Indianapolis. I was baptized at a Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, in Vickery, Ohio. But I often struggle with what to say about it – or what new thing to say about it – I guess. On one hand it seems like such an obvious cliché. On the other hand, I’ve never met a shepherd, so…

So, today might seem like a stretch. It’s not the first time you’ve heard that from me, and it won’t be the last, but I found myself wondering about “the hired hand” that Jesus mentions in this morning’s Gospel, this time around, as a way of wondering differently about “the Good Shepherd,” too.

Well, here’s “the stretch.” Jesus’ mention of how “the hired hand” doesn’t know or care about the sheep…? How the “hired hand” sees the wolf coming and runs away – leaving the sheep to be snatched and scattered because the “hired hand” doesn’t care about the sheep, in the same way the Good Shepherd does…?

All of that reminded me of George Costanza. (I told you it was a stretch, but after last week – with Jeannie’s fall and all of my waterworks about my Father-in-Law – I thought we could use a laugh this morning, so I’m going with it.) Jesus’ talk about the “hired hand” made me think of this ridiculous bit of Seinfeld, where George Costanza is at a child’s birthday party.

In the show, George smells fire, sees smoke in the kitchen, and runs out of the party, knocking over a clown, an elderly woman with a walker, and pushes several children out of his way, trying to get to the door and escape to safety. He gets accosted by the clown, the party’s host, and emergency workers afterward where he tries, shamefully, to explain himself and defend his actions.

“The hired hand, who is not the good shepherd … sees the wolf coming and runs away…” “The hired hand runs away because the hired hand does not care about the sheep.” Okay. Funny stuff aside.

Part of what Jesus is saying – and had been trying to prove throughout his ministry – is that the world was and is filled with too many “George Costanzas.” I mean, too many “hired hands.” There were and are, it seems to me, too many pretending to share grace, to do God’s bidding, to be Messiah, Savior, GOD … but too many who can’t… who won’t… who don’t… none who could ever measure up to the fullness of love we know in Jesus, the one and only, real, Good Shepherd – which Good Friday’s cross and Easter’s empty tomb prove to be true. The Good Shepherd lays down his life, of his own accord, and takes it back up again, at the Father’s command – all to bring the whole wide world into the flock.

And it’s always helpful to notice where we are in the Bible (John, Chapter 10, remember) in relation to where we are in the church calendar on a day like today. I mean, we’re a few weeks after the resurrection – on the other side of that empty tomb – with the cross and crucifixion in the review mirror and the good news of Easter, hopefully, still ringing in our ears. But today’s Gospel reading takes us back a bit in the life and times of Jesus, just about halfway through John’s version of the story.

When Jesus was talking about the Good Shepherd, he was in the thick of things, but hadn’t made it to Calvary and the cross, just yet. At this point he was still pointing ahead to all of that, and the resurrection was just a pipe dream. Nevertheless, he had been busy…

He’d reluctantly turned water into wine at that wedding in Cana. He’d met secretly with Nicodemus and tried to answer all kinds of questions and curiosities about his status as the Son of Man, sent to save, not condemn, the world. He’d been baptizing like crazy, even more prolifically than John the Baptist, and attracted the suspicious attention of the Pharisees because of it. He’d had that conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well – the one who’d been married five times? – which raised a lot of eyebrows, in and of itself.

He’d saved the life of a royal official’s son, helped a lame man walk out of the healing pool in Jerusalem, fed 5,000 people on the side of a hill, saved the life of that woman who’d been caught in adultery, given sight back to a blind beggar, and, of course, there was all sorts of preaching and teaching and more in the meantime.

And THEN, today, he gets to this talk about sheep and hired hands and what it means to be a – to be THE – Good Shepherd.

All of this is to say, I think that – in the midst of his very prolific life and ministry but long before his death and resurrection – Jesus is still trying to prove who he is and how he came to be in the world. And he’s still trying to convince people – in advance of the crucifixion and long before the resurrection – that he was different … better … up to the challenge … faithful … the one they were waiting for, whether they knew it or not.

He was no hired hand. He was the real deal. He would not leave them orphaned, or scattered, or snatched from the grip of God’s grace. He wasn’t in this for himself. He was following God’s lead. He would answer God’s call. He was the one and only, Good Shepherd who could be trusted above all else.

And what was supposed to be their hope in advance of the resurrection is our hope, still, on the other side of the empty tomb. Jesus stands over and above the politicians, the pundits, the pastors, the powers-that-be – and even Tay Tay and all of her tortured poets.

What we have in this good and gracious shepherd is one who comes down, into our world and down into our lives with a love and a loyalty like the world doesn’t offer – a love and a loyalty none of us deserves. When we let that love guide us and when we follow where it leads, we’ll find ourselves never lost, but found; never scattered but gathered together; never snatched away or trampled underfoot, but lifted up, welcomed back, carried home to safety, joy, hope and peace in the very presence of God – no matter what tries to snatch us or scatter us along the way.

Amen

Luke 24:36b-48

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’

They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’

We all like mercy, just not too much of it. Lindsay Holifield is a singer/songwriter and artist in Alabama, who struggled severely with anorexia for 14 years. She tells a story of being in a treatment facility for her sixteenth birthday. While other girls gathered for dinners and parties,

Lindsay remembers her charge nurse Lupe bringing her a piece of cake and she sobbed at the thought of such high calorie food entering her body. That was the first birthday she’d spend inpatient at a treatment facility, but not her last.

For nearly a decade and a half, Lindsay couldn’t subdue this self-destructive drive that had taken hold of her. She writes, “I desperately wanted to wake up each day without having to submit afresh to the hellish existence of self-starvation and running till my lungs felt on the verge of collapse. But I felt chained to this destructive cycle deep into my bones, despite my best intentions.”

Many treatment providers, likely friends and family too, lambasted Lindsay for not having enough motivation or courage or strength to overcome the voice inside her that demanded self-destruction. Everyone, from doctors to mental health clinicians, told her that if she wanted to get better, really wanted it, she’d have to try harder, pull herself up by her bootstraps and will her way into recovery. But, as Lindsay explains, “After each attempt under this approach, I would fall flat on my face. The despair of my situation began to swallow me whole: there was no way out, because I could not yell at myself enough to make myself well.”

We are all too familiar with the work harder advice, the tough love attitude, the “you just have to want it more” approach. You’ve likely said and received similar sentiments as Lindsay had. When folks are struggling, sad, or scared for any number of reasons, we find it much easier to say “just get over it”, “work harder”, “stop being so weak, or afraid, or fill in the blank”.To the person with anxiety or mental health problems we say deal with it. Or the one grieving we say “how long”? Or the person in an abusive relationship we say “just leave”. That’s the way of our culture. And sometimes it works, sometimes this does the job we hoped it would and we see results. I’m not discounting that. But many times, like with Lindsay, this strategy fails.

At twenty six, Lindsay sat in a green folding chair on a farm in Nashville, TN. In the folding chair across from her sat a woman who fiercely supported her recovery; but there was no yelling or giving a firm lecture. Alternatively, with tenderness unknown to Lindsay, the woman explained how her struggles made sense in light of her own experiences. “Perhaps,” the woman said gently, “your brain was trying to survive great pain. Perhaps you were simply trying to make the ache go away the best way you knew how.”

And that’s all Lindsay ever needed to hear. The compassion shown her by this woman “broke something open within her”. Everyone else was far too afraid that such softness, such mercy would further enable Lindsay’s self-harm. “But they were wrong” Lindsay wrote, “It is precisely this compassion, [this mercy] that softened my armored heart”.

We all like mercy, just not too much. Too much mercy is a hand out, it’s enabling, it’s embracing excuses. If we are too extravagant with mercy or compassion or understanding,

we think not only do we make people who are weak, weaker, but that the one extending such mercy is weak also. And if there is one thing in our strength obsessed, confidence driven, power hungry world we can’t tolerate, it’s weakness. But here is where Jesus and the Gospel confront us.

The disciples are huddled together at some house in Jerusalem, likely where they’ve been hiding since the crucifixion. Cleopas and an unnamed disciple (maybe his wife) had just arrived telling all the other disciples about their encounter with the risen Jesus on their way to a town called Emmaus. Suddenly, Jesus stands among the disciples, who are startled and terrified, unsure of what’s happening.

And notice what Jesus doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, “why are you hiding in this house? Get it together! You should be strong and courageous, not sitting here as terrified cowards!”

He doesn’t say “I told you this would happen, why didn’t you listen to me?!”

Instead, he offers them peace. He shows them his hands and his side. He invites them to touch and see that it's truly him. And then just to go the extra step, to show more mercy, to instill just a bit more peace in their troubled hearts, he eats for them, with them (something he had done with them, likely every day for nearly three years). The disciples were told no less than three times that Jesus must suffer, die, and be resurrected.

If there was ever an instance in which Jesus could have berated them, grown impatient with them, it was at this encounter! But he didn’t. He encourages them, helps them understand what all is said in Scripture, and tells them they are still the people who will share with the whole world the repentance and forgiveness that comes only from Jesus.

Throughout this gospel, Jesus does berate and grow impatient with folks, just not the ones you'd expect. Think of the woman who is a sinner and Simon the Pharisee, who couldn’t believe Jesus allowed this woman to touch him. And who does Jesus rebuke? It wasn’t the sinful woman.

I think of Martha who thought she was in the right and wanted Jesus to correct Mary.Or the older brother in the prodigal son and the lavish love, (not a stern rebuke) by the father to the son who squandered his life away.

Jesus is impatient, correcting, condemning even, not to those who are weak, suffering, and longing for relief or forgiveness or to be better. But rather to those who are certain, self-assured, and assume they are right. He rebukes those who are too strict with the law and too stingy with mercy.

So take this gospel as a defense of weakness and mercy. After all, Jesus himself chose to be weak and extended so much mercy for you and for me that it put him to death on a cross.

It's in our weakness that Christ's power is made perfect, demonstrating that true strength is found not in willpower or self assurance or tough love,

but in dependence on a savior crucified and risen.

Recovery for Lindsay did not come quickly. But she attributes the lavish compassion extended to her by that woman on the farm in Nashville for radically changing her life.

It was mercy that quieted the voice of condemnation and slowly turned her from self-destruction to life.

So for our worry about too much mercy, Lindsay proclaims,

“I am a living testament that compassion is what softens hearts of stone, armored up by self-protection... I would have died many times over save for the compassion that chased me down and embraced me, and being held in such tender kindness was the only thing that could have changed my fate. I believe this for mental health, yes, but more importantly, I believe this for the rescue of all of humanity. The grace of God is the sole agent of resurrection and change.”

This post resurrection appearance reveals that Christ stands among the weak and brokenhearted, the joyful yet doubting, the hurting and fearful offering mercy, comfort, and hope just as he did with his first disciples.

To be clear, the goal is to not remain weak or hurting; doubting or afraid. Jesus visited the disciples not to perpetuate their fears and doubts but to help them grow in fearlessness and faith. And he did this through mercy and grace, just as he does today for you and me.

May we embody this Gospel and never be afraid of too much mercy. For in our weakness God’s strength and mercy shines through. Amen.

Good Shepherds and Hired Hands

In Defense of Too Much Mercy