Fourth Sunday of Easter, 2010

John 10: 27-30

‘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.’

In a Manna reflection quite awhile ago, I wrote about sheep hearing the shepherd’s voice so I’ll just remind you of the significance of Jesus using this particular analogy. In Jesus’ time, shepherds would bring their flocks to a walled enclosure to keep them safe at night. In any one enclosure there would be several flocks belonging to different shepherds and there was no effort to keep each flock separate from the others. One would think there would be complete chaos in the morning as the shepherds tried to sort out their own sheep from all the others. Not so. Each flock intimately knew the voice of its own shepherd. All each shepherd had to do was call the sheep by their names and his sheep would hear his voice and follow him. Sheep are not particularly bright animals so this voice recognition was not due to their high intelligence; rather, it was due to the fact that shepherds spent so much time with their flocks and spoke to them by name so often that the sheep learned to distinguish his unique voice from other voices.

Jesus said,  “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.”  The Shepherd knew his sheep. This indicated a shepherd who interacted daily with each individual sheep. From the moment a lamb was born, the shepherd became intimately involved with it. He named that sheep and called it by name from then on. He came to know that sheep’s character in the same way we know our own children’s natures and proclivities.

In John 10: 3-5, Jesus says, “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

It’s important to establish how much individual care and attention a shepherd lavished on one of his sheep in order for us to really appreciate what Jesus is saying in this week’s Gospel. It’s not always easy to hear the passionate voice of Jesus in the Gospels; it often sounds like he’s just giving a short, dry religious dissertation because the writers were simply trying to record important events and get the words of Jesus written out so they would not be forgotten or distorted. They weren’t writing an exciting novel full of descriptive prose that could give others an idea of the depth of Jesus’ spiritual determination and his fiery love for his people. But when I read the words, “No one will snatch them out of my hand,” I want to add an exclamation point in there. “No one will snatch them out of my hand! Just let them try. I would die rather than let my sheep be led away by a stranger.” Any mother reading this will understand the intensity of what Jesus is saying. “Don’t you touch my child! Don’t even think about it!”

And then Jesus says something incredibly wonderful. “What my Father has given me is greater than all else…” Greater than all else. What is he referring to? What’s greater than all else?

You.

To Jesus, his people are more precious than anything else in the universe. Greater than all else…worth more to him than we can imagine. 

We know this. Intellectually we know it because it’s the basis of our faith. If he didn’t particularly care about us, he wouldn’t have gone to the cross for us. But it’s difficult sometimes to let that knowledge filter down to the heart level to the degree that we walk in continual love and gratitude that we have such a Shepherd. When the knowledge remains head knowledge, it’s easy to abandon relationship little by little. We start to forget that Jesus has a voice and that we can listen for that voice and come to recognize it and wait for it with anticipation. We forget that our first relationship with Jesus is not a relationship between the boss and the servant but a relationship between the caregiver and the cared for: the lover and the beloved. It becomes easier to lose sight of the truth that he is always coming to us and calling us by name. We can become forgetful of his immediate and tender concern for every aspect of our lives. 

"The voice of my beloved, lo, he comes leaping upon the mountain and skipping over the hills..." (Song of Solomon)

How do we know when we are hearing the voice of the Lord? That is, unfortunately, a complex question because we are all vulnerable to and influenced by many inner voices that can be hard to sort out. A partial and helpful answer would be to determine some of the things that are NOT the voice of the Shepherd:

1. The voice of the Lord does not condemn.  If there is something unbalanced or wrong in your attitudes and life directions that he wants you to address, his voice brings conviction, which is much different than condemnation. Conviction allows you to see what’s wrong and gives you the desire, courage and grace to change. Condemnation puts chains around you and keeps you in a mode of anxious self-loathing and shame. (So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. Romans 8: 1+2)
2. The voice of the Lord is a Voice of Love. It is a voice that creates in you the knowledge that you and others are loved unconditionally by the Shepherd. This in turn creates a great respect for your own value - and the value of other people. It is a voice that urges action born of love.
3. The voice of the Lord is not impatient. We have critical timetables and schedules; God does not. If you’re not sure if God is saying something to you or directing you somehow, wait. Wait, pray and stay open to clarification. Very often, it’s our own preferences, attitudes and perceptions or the pressures from others that cause us to think, “I have to do this RIGHT NOW or all will be lost!!”
4. The voice of the Lord is full of wisdom. This is wisdom that is beyond our natural wisdom based on past experiences. The Lord can use our past experiences but very often that experience is so tainted by fear, mistrust and wounds that it’s not wisdom at all; it is self protection.
5. The voice of the Lord is quiet. God does not batter his people with noisy clamor. We do that to ourselves. The world and the media does that to everyone. If our lives are totally filled 24/7 with busyness, chaos, madness and noise, it will be difficult to come to know the sane, quiet but gently authoritative voice of God within. He will not harangue you into obedience. He will not mercilessly drive you to action. In Jesus’ time, the Shepherd led his sheep; it was the butcher who drove the sheep.

This certainly is not a comprehensive look at what the voice of the Lord is like but it’s enough to give us all a great head start in untangling all the broken voices in our heads to see if we can find the long strong silver strand that is the Shepherd’s living and life giving voice. If Jesus said, “My sheep know my voice…”, then it is certain that he wants us to discover his unique voice and learn to be able to distinguish it from all others.

The Shepherd is calling your name right now. Are you listening?