Other Sheep

In the gospel of John, Jesus says that there are "other sheep who do not belong to this sheep pen," and that they will also hear his voice, so that there will be "one flock and one shepherd." What in the world is Jesustalking about? Who are these "other sheep"? And how do they relate to us? Are we "in" the sheepfold while they are "out"? This is a question that we must face as we encounter people of other traditions, other cultures, and other faiths. This sermon explores just a few of the aspects of the situation that exists as we consider the "other sheep."

One of the many things that I encountered in seminary was the commentary. A commentary is a verse-by-verse and section-by-section discussion of a book of the Bible. A commentary tries to help the reader understand what is behind the text. For example, a commentary on Paul’s letter to the Galatians might explain the structure of an ancient letter. It might discuss the social conditions in the church to which Paul was writing; or it might explain the early church controversy that caused Paul to write in the first place. Commentaries help us to interpret Biblical texts so that when we read them, our brains as well as our hearts are in gear!

The trouble with commentaries, though, is that they were all written long after the Bible that they are discussing! All the opinions in commentaries – educated though they are – are really just educated guesses. What we really need to understand the Bible thoroughly is a commentary that was written by the authors of the biblical texts – and, of course, no such commentary exists. We don’t have any explanation of Bible texts by the people who wrote them. But wouldn’t it be great if we did have something like that? The gospel of John, for example, is so deep, with so many layers of meaning, that it would really clear up some mysteries if we could hear from the author himself.

Let me give you an example. In John 10:16, Jesus mentions “other sheep.” “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold,” he says. “I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice; so there will be one flock, one shepherd.” What “other sheep” is he talking about?

Today, we can only guess at what he meant. Most New Testament scholars believe that Jesus is talking about the gentiles – those people who did not belong to the ethnic group of the Jews. They say that because the Jews frequently referred to themselves as God’s sheep. God is the shepherd who watches over them and protects them, just like in the 23^rd Psalm. So if “the flock” is the Jewish nation, then the “other sheep” must be referring to non-Jewish gentiles. But there are other possibilities. Some folks believe that Jesus was referring to the non-human part of creation. After all, the Bible is clear that the Messiah will one day reconcile all creation to God. Maybe the “other sheep” are just that – sheep and cows and birds and dogs and fish and even all the creepy-crawlies! I’ve even heard this verse used to support the notion that there is life on other planets! What if the “other sheep” live on Mars? While I don’t think that this is what John meant, it’s an interesting possibility,

What we can’t argue is that there are “other sheep” out there. Today, we Christians think of ourselves as Jesus’ flock; and the “other sheep” are the billions of non-Christians in the world. So – what about them? Is Jesus going to bring them into the fold, too? Will they one day listen to his voice? Will we all be “one flock” some day; or will there be some folks who will forever be “outside the sheepfold”?

There are lots of opinions on this question. Most conservative Christians believe that, yes, some people will be permanently excluded from Jesus’ flock. They believe that each one of us needs to accept Jesus’ offer of salvation for ourselves; and many people – even many church members – will never do that. Some people even believe that there are certain words that we need to say in order to be in the sheepfold – “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior,” for example. One of the most radical beliefs is that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Based on the book of Revelation, they are convinced that Jesus will ultimately accept only 144,000 people. (Of course, they will all be Jehovah’s Witnesses!)

At the other end of the spectrum is the position that is called “universalist.” According to universalism, everyone is in the sheepfold, regardless of whether they have even heard of Jesus! That’s because Jesus died for everyone, everywhere, and in every time. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the sheepfold includes everyone. Jesus chose all of us, the fence around the sheepfold no longer exists, and there’s nothing that we have to do to get into the flock.

Most of us, though, are somewhere in the middle between these two extremes. We believe that some people are in the sheepfold, while others are still outside. And that begs the question – How do we know which is which? The traditional answer to that question is that if you’re not a Christian, you’re not in the sheepfold. Church members are “in,” while the unchurched are “out.” But that’s a very simple answer; probably too simple. For example, what do we do with all the people in our country today who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious”? Many are convinced that they have an authentic connection with God, but they are turned off by church rules that they see as unnecessary at best, and destructive at worst. Many of them have been hurt by judgmental congregations, and they aren’t about to risk being hurt again! They are eager to help in the work of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, but they aren’t going to join a church to do it. Have they heard the voice of Jesus? Are they in the sheepfold, or are they grazing right outside the fence?

And what about people of other religions? Surely we can say that they’re outside the sheepfold? After all, you can’t be a Buddhist and believe in Jesus – can you? Technically, probably you can’t. Each one of us lives by only one set of beliefs (unless you have a split personality). But what about someone like the Dali Lama? Surely he lives his life in agreement with the principles that Jesus taught? He respects all people… he loves God’s creation… and he urges peaceful solutions to disagreements wherever he goes. I have to admit that where behavior is concerned, he’s a better Christian than I am! I say that I follow Jesus’ teachings, but he does a better job living them than I do.

Maybe a way out of our dilemma is to admit that we’re not giving enough credit to the power of the Shepherd. Is it possible that the Spirit of Christ works even where we don’t see it working? Might Jesus be at work in other religions as well as our own? Doesn’t it seem to be a little arrogant of us to assume that Christians are the only ones who can hear Jesus’ voice calling us into the sheepfold?

A wise Greek Orthodox priest once said to me, “I know where God’s grace is; but I am not willing to say where it isn’t.” He had experienced God’s grace for himself; and he knew that God’s Spirit was working in his congregation. But he was not willing to exclude the possibility that God’s grace was at work anywhere else. After all, God is… well… God; and we all affirm that God’s grace is the greatest power in the universe.

Maybe my priest friend is on to something. I have experienced God’s grace in my own life. I know that there are no limits on Jesus’ love. I know that the Spirit works in places and in ways that I cannot even begin to imagine. So, instead of trying to decide who’s “in” and who’s “out,” I intend to love all the “other sheep” and to pray for them, whoever and wherever they may be. And I will trust Jesus’ promise that in the end, there will indeed be one flock, and one shepherd, however God will bring that about.

We know where grace is! Who knows how – and where – Jesus is calling his other sheep!

Immovable Stones

The goal of this sermon is to focus on God's ability to change things that we can't. The stone being rolled away from Jesus' tomb is an example of this. We usually focus on the stone and on our inability to move it, just like the women who went to the tomb on Easter morning. Although I chose to use the continuing decline in church attendance as an example of a stone, I could have used many other examples. Some are global, some are national, some are personal. Where have you seen God rolling away a stone in your life?

Preachers on Easter Sunday (and on the Sundays following Easter) have a wealth of scriptural texts to choose from. After all, there are four different Easter stories in the gospels; and each one has unique details that would make a great sermon!

·   Luke, for example, repeats the angels’ question to the women at the tomb – “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” That’s a great question to preach on!
·   Matthew offers the Great Commission – “Go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” We can’t be reminded of that often enough.
·  John shows us Mary Magdalene, weeping at the tomb and searching for Jesus’ body, when all the time the risen Christ is standing right in front of her! That story is impossible to resist.
And then – there’s Mark. Mark’s version of the Easter story is almost never chosen for an Easter Sunday sermon. Poor Mark! His story is like the uncoordinated teenager who always gets chosen last for a game of dodge ball!

But there’s a good reason for that. The ending of Mark’s Easter story just isn’t very satisfying. Mark doesn’t show us any appearances of the resurrected Jesus at all. There aren’t any meetings with joyful disciples; no instructions for us as Jesus’ followers; not even a couple of last words for us to use as a tagline on our worship bulletin. No, Mark ends his gospel with the women who had come to the tomb running away in fear and confusion. See what I mean by an unsatisfying ending? His ending apparently wasn’t satisfying to the early church, either. Someone in the first century of the church – a scribe, perhaps, who was making a copy of Mark’s gospel – tried to fix his ending by adding a few more lines. Those extra lines are in our Bibles today as verses 9-20 of chapter 16. There’s nothing wrong with those lines; but Mark didn’t write them. His gospel ends on a note of confusion and fear. No wonder Mark’s gospel isn’t preached very often on Easter Sunday!

But there is one important detail in Mark’s Easter story that the other gospels have left out. Mark tells us about the concern of the women who go to Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning. They’re worried about how they’re going to get the stone rolled away from the tomb. This is the way Mark puts it: “As they went to the tomb, they kept asking each other, ‘Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb?’” It appears to have been their only subject of conversation on that morning. “How are we going to get that stone pushed away?”

Now, that’s a very reasonable worry. The stone that sealed the entrance of a tomb was actually a huge stone wheel that rolled in a groove cut into the floor of the tomb entrance. A stone like that was 4-5 feet in diameter, and would have weighed several hundred pounds. How would a few women roll it away? How, indeed! Of course, we know that when they got to the tomb, the stone had already been rolled away. And the readers of Mark’s story would have known it, too. The same God who raised Jesus from the dead had also rolled back the stone. Isn’t it a wonderful bit of irony? The women wasted all that time worrying about how they would get the stone out of the way, when all the time, God was taking care of the problem.

I wonder if Mark isn’t giving his readers a message by including the women’s worry in his story. Of course, we aren’t sure who Mark’s readers really were; but our best guess is that they were a small community of Christians who were in the midst of persecution. An audience like that would have identified with the confused, frightened women who ran away from the tomb on that first Easter morning. They must have wondered why they were so hated. Where was the risen Lord whose name they confessed? It must have been so easy for them to focus on their problems instead of looking for the possibilities that Christ offered them! They were just like those women on their way to the tomb, worrying about how they would roll away the stone; when all the time, God had taken care of the problem.

It sounds like some of us today, doesn’t it? We fuss and fret; we moan and groan; we stew and swear; and all about things that God has promised to take care of for us! When we actually get to the problem we're concerned about, oftentimes it is no longer a problem!

Now, let me be clear. God only helps us move immovable stones. God doesn’t dump pebbles out of our shoes. There are lots of things that we can – and should – do for ourselves. We can’t expect God to feed a hungry world, for example, when we’re not willing to share what we have. But we can expect God to intervene in a situation in which we have no power. The trouble is that we never expect God to actually do it.

I’m reminded of that fact every time that I attend a gathering of the wider church. Someone – usually one of my clergy colleagues -- will start bemoaning the fact that our churches aren’t as full as they were 60 years ago. Someone else will join in, and pretty soon, everyone is singing the refrain: “Oh, what will happen to the church? It’s dying off. Pretty soon there won’t be anybody left…” Have you heard that refrain? I sure have! Now, it’s true that many churches have a long way to go in learning how to be truly welcoming congregations. Many church buildings, for example, are old; and because of the way they were built, they are inaccessible to people who use wheelchairs or walkers. But there are plenty of people who can get into church buildings, regardless of whether a church is old or new. The trouble is that 7-day-a-week businesses, Sunday morning soccer, and plain old fatigue keep many people away from church week after week after week. And there’s absolutely nothing that we can do about that!

But if Easter tells us anything, it tells us that God moves in unexpected ways to overcome obstacles that we could never dream of overcoming by ourselves! Kind of like raising Jesus from the dead… And the church of Jesus Christ isn’t dead, either. I am convinced that God is rolling away the stone from its tomb, too, and raising it up in a brand new way. I frequently read in news magazines that people in America describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” Lots of pastors are very discouraged by that. They think that it means that the church has become irrelevant. But what if all these “spiritual but not religious” people are just looking for Jesus Christ in new ways? What if they’re ready to listen to the story we have to tell them? What if they want to hear about a savior whose message is love and grace, not judgment and condemnation? What if they’re ready for us to connect with them?

It sounds to me as though God has rolled away the stone from the tomb once again. There’s nothing to keep us from seeing the face of the risen Christ in the world. Maybe we should go out into the world and expect to meet him!