Being a shepherd is quite an amazing experience. I confess that I don't have any personal experience with the job, but I've read a lot about the devotion that the shepherd has for the flock over which he cares, and about the devotion that the sheep return to the shepherd who cares for them. Today's passage from John's Gospel, of course, uses that image of the relationship between shepherd and sheep as a way of portraying the type of relationship that Jesus has with those who call themselves His followers. We often in the church refer to ourselves as the family of God. That's appropriate and very biblical, but it's also both appropriate and biblical for us to think of ourselves as the flock of God. The phrase has entered the vocabulary and it's usually not meant as a compliment. When you refer to people as a “flock of sheep” you're suggesting that they've been taken is as a group by someone and that they're just going to blindly follow wherever they're led without asking questions, developing a greater and greater dependence on them so that it becomes difficult to pull away. The phrase is often used in politics to refer to what are known as “backbenchers” who are just expected to vote the party line without question; sometimes the phrase can be used in religious discussions, because there are religious charlatans out there who ask for that kind of blind, unquestioning obedience to whatever they teach. That really isn't how the image should be understood, though. Follow Jesus we do, but Jesus doesn't restrict us, or stop us from asking questions or even prevent us from wandering off and condemn us if we do so. The image used in the Gospel is a more heartwarming image that speaks of the love and care of the shepherd for the sheep and not of manipulative and absolute control over their lives. It uses the image of sheep who know their shepherd's voice, and it is true that sheep – like dogs, for example – come to know the people who care for them, develop a strong devotion to them and respond when they're called. When I served in Sundridge I actually had parishioners who kept sheep and I asked them once about this image, and they confirmed it for me. Yes, indeed, sheep come to know the voice of their shepherd and they respond to it. By using this image, John is drawing a picture of Jesus calling us and drawing us to Him not out of blind and unquestioning obedience but because of the mutual devotion that exists in our relationship with Him. For  John, to say of Christians that we “know His voice” means a lot more than that we just recognize it; it's speaking about a deep bond between Jesus and His disciples - an attachment and a connection that transcends any other. Why is there that connection? What creates it?

 

     You have to read this passage carefully to really get the idea that John is speaking of. I've read John 10 with its wonderful shepherd and sheep imagery countless times over the years and I've preached on the passage and on the imagery in it a number of times over the years, and yet – and this is really the remarkable thing about Scripture – for all the times I've read and preached on this passage and image, something new leaped out at me as I read it to prepare this message. There's an anomaly in the passage that's really quite startling and unexpected. It's also rather subtle – which is probably why I've never noticed it before. You have to get the picture in your mind. The sheep are in the sheep pen. They're there. They're not wandering and they're not lost and they're quite safe – they're exactly where you'd expect sheep to be. But then, as you read the passage carefully, you get the puzzle: the sheep aren’t the ones entering the pen because they're already there – the shepherd is entering the pen. And then – what does the shepherd do?  He calls His sheep by name and He leads them out. You have to hear that again, because it's important – the shepherd leads the sheep out. Not in. He doesn't take the sheep into the pen. The shepherd enters and He leads them out. That's the image. Jesus is leading us out, which, of course, begs a couple of questions: if Jesus is leading us out, what is He leading us out from? And, of course, where is he leading us to?

 

     There's this image of Christian faith and Christian life that exists out in the world, and it's not a very flattering one. Sometimes even very faithful and devoted Christians fall into this trap and it's those folk actually who are so public and vocal about their faith who probably help to reinforce the stereotype that the Christian life is meant to be narrow, limited, and certainly without any fun. There is the lie – because that's exactly what it is - that says that the ideal Christian life is supposed to be bland, reserved, dull and staid -  a caricature of a vanilla flavoured life that says that if you're a Christian and you start to take your faith really seriously then you can’t do the fun things you used to do, or say the things we used to say, or drink the things we used to drink, or attend the parties we used to attend. A historian once said about William McKinley – a former U.S. President – that he was a strict Methodist whose idea of a good time was sitting with a group of friends, sipping water and reading Bible verses to each other. And that's kind of the image that's out there. That's the pen the world sees us confined in, with the doors locked behind us so that we have no way of escape; no freedom to enjoy and experience life. But then comes Jesus, Who actually comes to lead us out!

 

     It seems to me that Jesus perhaps is saying that the old way of life - the world’s way of living, with all it’s excesses and addictions - is actually the constrained, fenced in existence that holds us back and takes away our freedom. And it's so true that in so many ways and for so many people life is a series of addictions. That's not the case for everyone. We all probably indulge in excesses from time to time that don't end up in addictions, but when you have the chance to talk to people who are addicted - to alcohol, to drugs, to shopping, to food, to sex, to their work, to their looks, to their computers, or whatever else it might be - they don’t talk about how “free” they are because of all they can eat, buy, smoke, or do. They talk about how they just can’t stop. They talk about it in terms of bondage. And then Jesus comes and opens the gates and offers us freedom. He breaks us out of the pen. In fact, if you read John 10 in Greek, you discover that He literally throws us out. And then where does He takes us?The whole passage today leads up to that destination: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” This is abundant life. A life to be lived in freedom from the things that constrain us and hold us back. 

 

     “Abundant life” doesn't mean having a lot of stuff. Stuff doesn't lead to happiness. Stuff locks us up and prevents us from living. As Jesus offers it, “abundant life” refers to the quality of life that comes by knowing Jesus' voice well enough to be able to follow Him. Jesus gives us freedom. There are no fences and no boundaries – there's only the reality of following Jesus. It's best to keep Him in sight, because He is the shepherd Who protects us, but there are no restrictions. Jesus takes away those things that prevent us from truly enjoying life. Jesus comes to free us from the world of bondage, sin, excesses, addictions, and constraints and leads us out through the gates and past the fences erected by those things that bottled us up and into a new life where not even death can hold us captive.

 

     The world doesn't do that. It's the world and its ways that hold us captive, not the way of Jesus. That's why so many have found true life by following Jesus. Jesus wants us to know His voice so that we don't fall into the trap of following someone else who may not have the same concern for us. A few weeks ago Steele Street Public School sent home a letter to parents saying that the Niagara Regional Police were warning us about what was called an incident of “stranger danger.” I don't know what the details were, but obviously something had happened that raised alarm bells. Most strangers, of course, are very nice people, and we shouldn't be afraid of the world around us. We need to live in the world in order to reach the world. But we're a lot safer as we do that if we know the voice of Jesus – Who leads us out of captivity and into the freedom of God.