'Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for 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. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”'
--John 10: 11-18
As just about all of you know, I was educated for ministry at The General Theological Seminary in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. At the heart of campus stood the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, which was a place of deep prayer and healing for me. If you manage to go there today, you’ll still see it: the stained-glass windows weaving bible narratives, the prayer for the consecration of a priest written in Latin around the walls, and the seven virtues carved into on the floor. There was a profound sense of holiness in that place, and I knew the first time I saw it that I wanted to pray there every single day.
Behind the chapel’s altar is a reredos that has nine statues: the four gospel writers, Peter, Paul, Elijah, Moses, and, in the middle, Jesus. I called this reredos ‘Jesus and Pals.’ And because it’s the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, Jesus stands with a crosier, a shepherd’s staff, in one hand, and cradled in the other is a lamb. Now all of the other statues are looking around the chapel, some at Jesus, others out at the congregation. But Jesus’ gaze is fixed on that lamb. There is nothing more important to him as he looks into that lamb’s eyes and it into his.
I don’t know where you go to think and talk out loud to God, but while I was at General, that place, for me, was the chapel. I’d go in the middle of the night with my dog Casey, who would curl up on the broad step in front of the altar, and I would talk, yell, or cry with Jesus. And often I wondered what that lamb’s story was. What had it done? Where did Jesus find it? What was its name? And more than once I wished I were that lamb. I wished I were being cradled by Jesus, looking into his eyes and he into mine, as he tells me that all that is wrong in my life will be made well. That, brothers and sisters, is my permanent image of the Good Shepherd.
This week we hear Jesus speak those very familiar words in the Gospel of John: I am the good shepherd. I am the good shepherd. (He says it twice, so he must have meant it!) But what does that really mean? Odds are they had heard plenty of stories of thieves breaking in and stealing sheep, possibly due to the negligence of a hired hand. Maybe Jesus was telling this story while they watched a shepherd tending to and putting away the sheep into a pen or barn for the night. But what does it mean for us to say that Jesus is our good shepherd?
There are two words used for ‘good’ in biblical Greek: agathos and kalos. Agathos simply describes the moral quality of a thing, while kalos means that in the goodness there is a quality of winsomeness, which makes it lovely. When Jesus says he is the good shepherd, the word is kalos, which is to say that in him there is more than efficiency, more than fidelity. There is loveliness. There is sympathy, kindness, and graciousness. Jesus isn’t a good shepherd in the sense that he does his job well - making sure the sheep are where they need to be. He’s more than that. He is the shepherd who loves his sheep, so much so that, rather than run away when threatened he lays down his life for them. He knows each of them by name and calls them, and they know his voice, a familiar, sweet voice that excites and inspires them. That’s a pretty incredible amount of love, and I suspect that as that little lamb in my seminary chapel gazes into Jesus eyes, that lamb knows that kinda love.
But Jesus doesn’t just stop there. Being the good shepherd is about even more than caring for the sheep that are already in his fold. There are others, Jesus says, and they too will be loved, they too will be welcomed; for there will be one flock, one shepherd. A very hard thing, one of the hardest things, for us to unlearn in this life is exclusivity. Once we get this notion in our heads that we, and we alone, are entitled to something, it is extremely difficult to accept that that something might actually be extended to others. While living at General Seminary in my final year I witnessed a plan go into action that saw our oldest buildings sold to pay off debt. Walls were erected as scaffolding went up, and as our buildings were remodeled and turned into high-fallutin’ apartments, folks from outside our close, folks who had no connection at all to the Church, were moved in. The physical landscape of the seminary was changing, and we didn’t like it. It’s a symptom of the wider Church. We love our rules and regulations and the way we do things, but when we feel threatened, we get defensive and try to hang on to something that is not actually ours. We didn’t want new neighbors on the close of our seminary. But what we didn’t realize was that it wasn’t our seminary. It was God’s. And, church folk or not, God was bringing them into the flock, despite our exclusivity. It’s always God’s flock, not ours.
You are not called to be shepherds. I’m not a shepherd. Priests and pastors aren’t, either. At best, we’re sheepdogs, just trying to herd everyone together. Because there is only one shepherd, and that’s Jesus. And blessedly, he is not asking us to be him. He is, however, asking us to model our lives on his own life of sacrificial, all-encompassing love. Because the truth is that you and I ARE that lamb in his arms. The truth is that he DOES cradle us and looks into our eyes and call us by name because he DOES love us so much that he lays down his life; not to make some kind of payment for sin or to satisfy God’s wrath, but in order to reveal God to the world, to make the invisible God seen and the unapproachable God accessible, to reveal that God so loves the whole world, no exceptions.
And what’s more, the good shepherd is the one who cradles and comforts and loves through the worst of our hurts and pains. I thought, as many did, that the days of watching our historic buildings turned into apartments and outsiders coming onto our close would be the worst in the life of General Seminary, but I was wrong. Today, there are no on-campus students. Debts that had once been erased by those property sales have mounted again, and dysfunctional, toxic administrations have led to enrollment cratering. No bishops will send students there anymore. There are even whispers going around, especially after events of the past few weeks, that the once proud, original seminary of the Episcopal Church – founded by the General Convention itself - will end all programs, that the chapel – with its statues of Jesus and Pals – will be deconsecrated, and that holy space once called Chelsea Square will be no more. Even in the midst of that pain and sadness, I still see Jesus cradling that lamb. Still loving it, no exceptions.
The writer of First John says, ‘Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.’ That is my prayer for you and always has been. That you will love all whom the Good Shepherd draws into his flock, in truth and action; that you will know, even when you feel lost or hurt, that the Good Shepherd holds you, calls you by name, and loves you through it all. No exceptions.