JOHN 10: 11-18

Jottings on John…Easter 4…Revised 2018.  

When is a gate not a gate? When it’s a shepherd! Our passage is alive with nuances of the stories of Israel of old. Over time I’ve come to think of Jesus, the gate of the sheep & at the same time their Good Shepherd, as One with Attitude. An Attitude flowing  from the heart of God & expressing itself in aptitude. Do we sometimes expect the reverse in our flock; aptitude finding expression as attitude? Does that work?

What started me off down this track long ago was a painting of Jesus the Good Shepherd above the altar of the parish I joined when I was a teenager. The Jesus of that painting has no attitude. I began to question, even then, whether a Jesus with no attitude has any aptitude for dealing with His sheep? My case firmed up just a few years ago, when a magazine published on its cover a photo of an OZ shepherd in oilskin coat & with a waterproofed bushman’s hat jammed down on his head, carrying a bedraggled lamb to shelter in his arms during a storm. This time, a portrait of a shepherd full of attitude; demonstrating his aptitude for the job! On many of our vast sheep runs the situation is of course much changed today. Shepherds ride trail-bikes, quad-bikes, & fly helicopters for round-ups! The quality of shepherding, though, even the mass-production kind, still depends on these modern driving / flying shepherds having the right attitude to their sheep. (Or, more likely, someone else’s sheep; or some big company’s sheep!)

How do we translate Jesus' Middle Eastern imagery (still alive & well, & still hard-going, in some parts of the world) into shepherding the sheep of today’s congregations? How to turn Jesus’ imagery into relevance for the many sheep astray & lost in the world’s wildernesses, shying clear of being corralled within organised religion? I’ve no specific answers. But let’s have Faith to expect & find some. When we & our flock are given the Grace to be shepherds with a Jesus-like Attitude & a Jesus-like Aptitude we will reach out to each other, & beyond our closed ranks. Making not just Jesus' imagery, but Jesus Himself a reality. 

The H.B. with its host of references to shepherds, sheep, & shepherding, & the often great if flawed figures involved, is a sound basis for the new understanding of shepherding Jesus Himself personifies & spells out. Is that Attitude of Love that flows between Father, Son, & Spirit flowing on & into us, & our relationships with God & each other? That One-ness of the Trinity embodying the Attitude & Aptitude we need to minister to today’s sheep inside & outside our churches? So there is more & more redeeming love for more & more ‘sheep’?

Be confident God’s Grace will point a way to counter the over-supply of ‘cowboys' we often seem to be lamenting! When we preach this passage let’s work positively with Attitude towards the building up of a greater supply of shepherds with godly Aptitude!