NewCreation

Homily for Fourth Sunday of Easter Year B

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this the homily for the fourth Sunday of Easter. This Sunday we move on from the Easter Sunday evening meetings in the different gospels, and we start to look at some of the great Johannine texts, the "I AM" texts. And what these enable us to do is to get some sense, to dwell in the shape, the form, the feeling of the resurrection life — the risen one here in our midst. What does he feel like? What is it to be moved by him? What are we undergoing? In what way is the sap rising, as it were, amongst us? These images which Jesus used in his teaching are images by which we can detect the presence of his risen life in us. That's the purpose of these texts being given us in this Easter season. So he starts: "I am the good shepherd." Of course it's an "I AM" — he's indicating that he is the Son, equal with the Father. "I am the one who has come into the world." And then: the good shepherd. Now this is a slightly misleading image for us, since we tend to think of shepherds principally as to do with people in the countryside looking after sheep. There are good reasons why we think that, because that's actually what shepherds are. But for anyone attuned to Israel's texts, a shepherd had a far greater significance than that. It referred to a royal leader, a king figure, a promised king-leader who would keep people safe. This is the great promise of Ezekiel. But it's particularly the link with keeping people safe — someone who is very free, very powerful, and creates spaces of safety. That's the first thing that I want to bring out. We're talking about power and safety here. One of the things about the presence of the Good Shepherd in our midst is to enable us to feel that he has great power, and this power is designed to make us very safe. That's absolutely central to what we're going on. And he compares the Good Shepherd — the model shepherd, the ideal shepherd, as it were — with the hireling, that's to say someone who's only in it for themselves, someone who, whether as a mercenary king, is only interested in using people for his own ends, perfectly happy to have them killed, or perfectly happy to have them scattered. Divide and rule. Or the priestly equivalent of the same: someone who creates sacrifice which does good for the priest, but of course calls a lot of people to be thrown out, throws other people out. It's the same mechanism — it's the sacrificial mechanism. And he shows that these people work with fear of the wolf. The wolf is what comes down on the prey. It's the threat, the fear, that which is going to attack us, that which wants to destroy us, to scatter us, to render us powerless, feeble, hopeless, lost. And the whole purpose of the good shepherd is that the good shepherd sees off the wolf. The wolf is not able to come close to the sheep. The hireling runs away or makes a deal with the wolf. The good shepherd sees the wolf off. There is no risk, there's no danger to the sheep. "I am the good shepherd, I know my own and my own know me." And here — this is one of the things I think that is difficult for us to dwell in — what is this quality of being known by the risen Jesus? Knowing Jesus, being known by one who has gone through death, and therefore is able to look at us without being frightened of what's going to become of us, because he knows that he holds us in his hand and he's able to take us to where is good for us. And our sense that we needn't be frightened of him, because he's not a bully, he's not someone who's going to make us do impossible things to make him look good. There's no ulterior motive, if you like, in his knowing us and us knowing him — which is one of the reasons why the Holy Spirit is not frightening. It enables us to relax into this very safe being known and being led. He says, "I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father." He's saying, actually, yes — that love with which I'm going to love you, that sense of being together with you, that's the same as the Father has with me. It's this shared love which includes therefore an immense fondness, an actual liking you as you are, wanting to take you somewhere good. And I'm not doing that out of some moralistic commandment — actually, later on I will refer to it as a command — but it's merely the fact that that's what my Father is, and that's what the love between us looks like: the tenderness of active bringing into being. "And I lay down my life for the sheep" — saying, I'm perfectly prepared to lay down my life. This is part of what demonstrates the love of the Father for me, and my love for you. "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice." In other words, it's not your particular cultural limits, including all this sheep imagery, that is actually going to define who is being brought in. I'm going to take my bringing people together, bringing people into my love, bringing people into the chance of being one as humans — I'm going to take that far afield. This is a project which I'm leading. I'm leading it very strongly, very freely, very triumphantly. Don't be surprised by it. It'll look odd to you. You'll find yourself marvelling and… grazing alongside an awful lot of sheep that you didn't really think were sheep. You may even have thought some of them were wolves. But they'll know my voice, and I'll know them, and I'll be bringing them alongside you, and you will know us, and you will know each other. It says so thus: there will be one flock, one shepherd. Yes, because the one who has undone the sacrificial mechanism by which togetherness is created enables it to be possible for a new togetherness to be brought into being that is not over against anyone at all. So anyone can be summoned into this new belonging. And it says: "For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again." The grammar is difficult here. "For this reason" – this is a manifesting in this way. This is the kind of way the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. So "in order to take it up again" – it's consecutive. It's not: he makes me do this, and because he makes me do this I do that. It's: this is what it looks like, that he and I are doing this, and this is its consequence in you. If you like, it's an unfolding of an inner act of love, and it's this that we're invited into. "So I can lay down my life in order to take it up again" – that's what my Father's love empowers me to do, and that's how I show my Father's love. It empowers me, and I manifest it. "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord." So he's showing us, actually, yes, that awful business of him being crucified, being murdered, being lynched – that looked awfully like other people doing something to him. But in the middle of it all there was this sovereign peace. It's that sovereign peace that he's sharing with us. It's that sovereign peace he wants us to know. You don't need to be frightened. There will be all these wolves, there'll be all these attacks. But I've opened up this space for you to be able to live without fear of that – not to be run by it, not to be scattered by it, not to be grabbed by it. "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord." This, if you like, is the quiet and sensational power of the risen life. This is what we are being asked to allow to penetrate us during this Easter season. So sit in the space the world doesn't even know exists, a quiet powerful space following one who is powerfully and actively leading us beyond ourselves, taking us into new pastures, into new ways of living with other people who at first we might not even think are like us, who is making it possible for there to be new forms of unity — and all out of this huge sovereign peacefulness. "I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father." And here he uses the word entolē, which is the word for the commandment, as with Moses' commandment. But notice: the commandment is not a word — the commandment is a gesture, which includes the gesture of laying down his life and taking it up again, thus demonstrating the power of his Father's love, and inviting us into doing exactly the same thing, saying, "This power is now available to you; therefore you will be able to do my commandment, which is to love each other as I have loved you" — in a later speech. But it's this making present of this coming-alongside gesture of sovereign power, and asking ourselves — praying, I think, during this Easter season, during this week — how is this coming through to me? How is this penetrating me? How am I being lifted up, enabled to receive the being taken up from the one who was able to lay down, understanding how gentle and yet how powerful this is? In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.