Sermon: "The Shepherd's Voice"

O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words that we read and in the thoughts that we form.

Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.

In the Middle East at the time of Jesus, sheep did indeed know the voice of their shepherds, they did then and more than likely still do now, flee away from the voice of other shepherds. They fled from the voices of people that they did not know, and they did – and probably still do now – follow the voice of the one they do know: the one who tends to them carefully, the one who truly would lay down his life for them.

Sheep in the middle-east were not raised up to be slaughtered at a year old, rather they were raised primarily for their wool and so they remained in the flock all their lives.

They had a relationship with their shepherd that spanned a number of years, a relationship in which they had time to become familiar with the shepherd and with the places that the shepherd would lead them. Those still waters and green pastures that the 23rd Psalm speaks of where our souls can be revived as well as the places of danger that one often needs to travel through to arrive at a good place, those places where the shepherd’s crook and rod protect us from natural hazards and from the hazards spoken of in the gospel reading – the thieves and robbers who steal, kill, or destroy.

Jesus in speaking of himself says: “The sheep know the voice of their shepherd – and they follow him, but they will never follow a stranger – in fact they will run away from him because they do not recognise the stranger’s voice.”

The problem that we have today, and indeed it has always been a problem: is in coming to recognize and know the voice of Christ our Shepherd in the midst of all the voices that speak around us and how to recognize and know the voice of Christ our Shepherd in the midst of the all different voices that speak within us – within our own hearts and minds.

And this is never so crucial when it comes to those in our midst, those who are our Christian brothers and sisters who speak to us about critical social and political issues and make suggestions to us about how we must think and what we might do in response to those issues.

Because of our trust for these people, we sometimes uncritically accept all that they have to tell us as being the voice of Christ speaking to us. Or – as is more often the case – because of our lack of trust in these people, because of our conviction that they are always too liberal, or too radical, or too out of touch of reality, we end up regarding them – who are our brothers and sisters in the faith – as “them” – as the enemy as it were.

And all that they have to say, when we don’t like what they say, we see as not being anything at all like the voice of Christ and so we flee away as sheep flee from the voice of one who is not their shepherd.

It is a problem. And the problem is – how do we decide what it is that the Lord is telling us? How do we know that what we are hearing either around us, or within us, is right or wrong, good or bad?

It is not enough to say to oneself “Well our Shepherd will never say anything to us about how we do politics or how we run our business affairs – that Jesus was and is only concerned about our souls.”

It is not enough to say that because that quite simply is untrue.

Much of what Jesus had to say concerned our attitudes and actions regarding money and most of what he said and did – even when all he was doing was healing people and casting out demons and telling folk to love and forgive one another – was regarded as political enough to get him into deep, deep, trouble; so deep that ultimately the decision was made to silence him by hanging him from a cross.

One person’s politics is another person’s religion and one person’s religion often turns out to be someone else’s politics.

How else do we explain why Christians are being persecuted in our world today simply because they bear the name of Christ?

It is not enough for us to say – uncritically and unreflectively – that what some people say to us in the name of the Lord about this or that matter is wrong.

Nor is it enough for us to say – uncritically and unreflectively – that what some people say to us in the name of the Lord about this or that matter is right.

What it is, is for us is to listen to the various voices around us and those within us (not that we always have much choice about it) and then – in prayerful reflection – in diligent study of the word – and in quiet and peaceable dialogue with others whose wisdom we know to be Christ like is to ask ourselves – “What is it that Jesus would do? What is it that the Spirit is placing on my heart?”

What is it that Jesus would do? Such questions can only be answered by us – and for us – as individuals and as a congregation if we enter into a continuous relationship with the Lord and with one another, a relationship like that of the sheep to the shepherd and the sheep to the rest of the flock, a relationship in which we spend time with one another, eating, resting together in silence, supporting one another in times of danger – praying – listening – and listening some more.

And even then the answers that we receive in our hearts may not be the same one that comes into the heart of another, though I think you would be surprised about how often in fact the answers we get are the same when we try in all earnestness to listen for Christ – and to follow his voice.

The important thing is not that we come up with “THE ANSWER” but that in listening and struggling with the issues in our lives and in the life our community that we live the answers that we already have been given by our Shepherd:

Live in peace with each other…encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. Be joyful always; pray continually; and give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Our Shepherd’s voice is clear about how we should live and act, it is clear about what our attitude should be to those who are both our friends and those who we might regard as our enemies.

And if we have trouble figuring out just what the Shepherd is trying to tell us about the big issues within our families – and our society and our world – we cannot go wrong by doing those things that the Shepherd has already told us to do in a clear and obvious way – and trusting that no matter what dangers surround us – that if we keep on following the voice we already know – the voice we have already heard – that our shepherd will keep us safe and bring us to God’s house where we will be able to dwell forevermore.

If we persist in listening to and following the voice of our Shepherd in the little things, the things that relate to how we ought to love God and how we ought to love one another and if we devote ourselves to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer, then we will discover an ever increasing clarity within us about what God is saying and about what God wants us to do; and we will discover too an ever increasing sense of peace among us and within us, a peace that endures – even when thieves and robbers try to steal it away, a peace that brings praise and glory to our God because of what others see in us.

And that my friends is no small potatoes in a world in which peace between nations and peoples and peace in the inner heart of men and women everywhere is a rare commodity.

Praise be to God for his goodness and his love – day by day.

For God is good all the time and all the time God is good. Amen.

Revd Kevin Charles Priest at St.Wilfrids and St.Thomas

Let us pray….

O God, your goodness and mercy follows us all the days of our life. You have made Jesus, whom you raised from the dead, the gate through which we, the sheep of your flock, may come and go in safety and in peace.