The Voice of the Good Shepherd: John 10:22-30

I am a cat person. Some of you know that in October, I added a cat to my home. She’s a mackerel tabby named Emery...and some of you have helped outfit her need for toys and scratching posts and snuggles, and she is grateful. Now, before I brought her home, I was mulling over the proper name for a cat. Since I love Harry Potter, I thought I might call her Minerva, after Minerva McGonagall, who is a registered “Animagus” someone who can turn into an animal at will. I thought about other sweetly human names like “Josephine” and “Sophia.” I did all this thinking and planning about the name of my pet while somehow knowing in the back of my mind that I’d wind up calling her “Miss Kitten” anyway!And really, some people wonder, what is the importance of a name for cats? They’re not like dogs, who know their names and come running to you eagerly. But a recent study proved that cats indeed DO know their name...they just might not care! And so, whether Emery responds to her given name or “Miss Kitten” or “kitty cat” or “sweet baby angel fluff ball” as my friend Hannah dubbed her...at least she knows my voice and recognizes me calling to her.The quote at the top of your bulletin is from Neil Gaiman’s famous youth fiction book, Coraline. In this passage, Coraline is trying to figure out the name of the cat and she gives an example of how things are named...she says, “see, I’m Coraline. That’s what people call me. Now what do people name you?” And the cat says, “you people have names. That’s because you don’t know who you are. We know who we are, so we don’t need names.”I can imagine Coraline getting impatient with the cat, who is often rude and unhelpful (the verisimilitude in the cat’s character is striking!) and saying, “How long will you test my patience? If you have a name, tell me plainly!”My intention is not to compare Jesus to a cat, though I have an affinity for both things. You see, I relate to Coraline and the temple leaders who didn’t care for Jesus...sometimes I want to cry out at a situation, at the world, at God, “Tell me plainly! How long will you keep me guessing? What’s wrong with just admitting what I am asking?” Our Scripture today says that there were Jerusalem leaders who opposed Jesus who were “circling around him,” recalling the other passages in John’s gospel that unfairly paint “the Jews” with a broad brush as they try to entrap Jesus. Indeed, one of those passages comes right before this section of Scripture, where Jesus heals a person on the sabbath and the leaders were trying to figure out if it was acceptable or not. And Jesus answered them by telling the Parable of the Good Shepherd, describing how Jesus as the Shepherd cares for the sheep, knowing each one individually as well as keeping the group together. For those who were here on Youth Sunday last November, you got quite the treat of the children of this congregation acting out the Good Shepherd story...and now we get to see what comes after it.So here we are: the religious establishment is trying to get Jesus to drop all pretense and games and parables and say in plain speech who he is and what he’s up to. However, the problem is that they don’t really want to know who Jesus is...they want to know what to call him. They are obsessively concerned about titles, and when that is the case, we must ask, “Who is doing the naming, and why?” Naming can show an intimacy, a depth of knowing that divulges secrets of power and privilege. Naming can be colonizing, as indigenous words for homelands and animals and bodies of water are steamrolled by weighty, bland, European names. Often those who are so caught up in titles for things are seeking control. And John’s gospel tells us that’s what is happening here. The leaders want to know which title Jesus claims so that they know what Jesus means, if he’s any threat to them or to the Empire that keeps the status quo. It is almost as if they are goading him in to telling them he’s the Christ, just so they can offer a rebuttal and say “no you’re not and here’s why.” This is a loaded question they are asking him. But our titles are not our identities. They are not the only way we are known. Who we are on the inside of our hearts and in the fabric of our souls cannot be summed up in a few words. For example, we know that not all teachers teach. Not all pastors are pastoral. Not all CEOs are good at business. Not all presidents are presidential. Not all mothers mother and not all fathers father. Not all judges are just. Not all people who call themselves “allies” practice good allyship. Sometimes the actions of people who are not given titles shows more about their true character and capabilities than people who are given these titles.  Knowing what to call someone is very different from knowing that person as an individual, knowing their true nature, becoming familiar with their heart. Jesus understands this. Jesus knows that the opposition he faces is searching for a way to discount his voice, to ensnare him in a trap, to make a lot of this title “Messiah” that is so important--and so politically volatile at that time and place within the Roman Empire. And, the leaders just might be asking the wrong question...not only because it is rooted in a desire to control, but they are seeking a plain, direct answer about the nature of Jesus’ relationship to God. And the trouble with asking someone to speak plainly about God’s identity is that it’s not so simple as that. As heard in our gathering words, names do not capture God’s nature or identity or the true relationship we have with the Divine...that’s why we call God “Life, Love, Mother, Father, Shepherd…” and so many more names. Gary D. Jones, in the Feasting on the Word commentary, says, “The trouble with talking plainly about the things of God is that the things of God are anything but plain. When a person begins speaking with unequivocal certainty about God, this is a sure sign that the person is no longer speaking about God. we can speak with unequivocal certainty about things our minds can grasp, but God is not one of those things. God grasps us; we do not grasp God.”And really, this is where Jesus is going. As the crowd of learned leaders around Jesus exasperatedly says, “For heaven’s sakes, just tell us who you are already! Are you the Messiah or not?!” Jesus says...“I have told you, but you don’t believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me.” Jesus is making it clear that he’s not going to answer the loaded question. He’s made it clear already, and saying the title plainly will not tell them anything more about his identity when they’ve already dismissed his actions in the world. Jesus, perhaps much like the cat from Coraline, does not need to accept any external title to know who he is...and even so that others will recognize who he is. By this time in Jesus’ ministry, the leaders should have heard that he’d been walking around teaching and preaching, healing people and performing great signs of power. He’d done plenty of things testifying to his presence in the world, the unity of his will with God’s will, and his care for the people of God. At every turn, Jesus was intentional about letting people know his identity and purpose. Jesus prefers to be known not by some high-fallutin’ title by the works he does in the world. No, it’s more than that--Jesus IS known by his actions...no loaded questions can change the fact that he’s been teaching and preaching and healing and doing miracles and describing all the different ways that people can get in touch with God. By reminding these leaders that his actions in the world testify to his identity, he is resisting their desire to put him in a box. I am reminded of whenever I’m on a plane or strike up a conversation with a stranger and they ask me what I do. I have to make a split-second decision: do I tell them I am a pastor, or do I say something like “I work with children and youth at a nonprofit”? If I tell them I am a pastor, usually one of two things happens: either they shut down completely or they want to tell me their whole life story and ask advice. There’s not usually a middle ground, just one or the other. See, they are operating out of their idea of what a pastor is, informed by their life experiences. They are assuming things about me just because of my title. They are lumping me in with other pastors they have met, and what do you know, in their mind I just become an “idea.” In our Scripture today, Jesus is asking his conversation partners to let go of operating from places of privilege and status, concerned with being told what title Jesus uses so that they can verify their ideas and assumptions about him. Jesus’ identity cannot be grasped through “rational intellectual discernment,”(Gary D. Jones) but by the trust and experience of relationship with God. So Jesus sidesteps their loaded question, offering more observations of his identity, saying, “My sheep know my voice. I know them and they follow me.” This knowing of which Jesus speaks is not the knowing of letters strung into words...this knowing is relational, is mutual, is occurring at an embodied level. “My sheep know my voice.” If we think back to the story of the Good Shepherd, where the shepherd is attentive and loving and knows each sheep individually, there is a deep intimacy in the kind of knowing going on. Rev. Dr. Paul Duke, a co-pastor of First Baptist Ann Arbor, observes, “Repeatedly in the Good Shepherd discourse, Jesus says that the sheep know him, recognize his voice, hear him call their name, and therefore follow him...belonging to the shepherd, in other words, is chiefly and deeply relational. It is about knowing and being known, about mutual recognition...a personal responsiveness, a shared understanding.”Beloved church, we have many ways to talk about God, many names we bring to attempt to capture our experience of witnessing everyday miracles and our hopes for justice for all people and for our planet. But do you know the voice of the Good Shepherd--not just understanding the concept of God but at a deeper, embodied level? Is this voice as clear in your mind as the voice of a beloved family member or lover or dear friend? Is this voice of the Good Shepherd one that you can tune in to, almost like an old-fashioned radio dial where you have to twiddle the knob back and forth so you can clearly receive the station? That is something we can’t get right the first time, we have to pay attention to the actions of God in the world, we must have experience twiddling that dial to the right station, so we can receive it just so...Gary Jones says, “Our minds must be engaged in the discernment of faith and the way of God, but many of us are still trying to exorcise the ghost of Descartes (“I think, therefore I am”) by recognizing that we have relied overly much on the intellect as the primary faculty in the Christian life.” Today, I invite you to tune in. To pay attention to what God is doing in the world...to the small, everyday graces like the blossoming flowers and the gentle squeeze of a loved one’s hand and the food on your table. To the vibrations of all our voices singing together in harmony. To the abundance of opportunities to share your gifts with the world, and to accept the shared gifts of others. Your title, your status, your privilege do not make you more or less worthy of God’s love. How you respond to the voice of the Good Shepherd is what matters. Your identity before God is not contingent on that job promotion, on your family ties, on your earning level, on your debt level, on who or how you love, on what you do for a living. Your identity before God is something that can never be changed...God will accompany you throughout your times of trial and triumph, through your victories and your pains. God will hold you in the palm of the Sacred, embrace you in the arms of Love, gift you with the grace of knowing and being known in ways you never thought possible. So listen, this day, to the Voice of the Good Shepherd that is calling you. The Voice of the Good Shepherd “is a voice that liberates rather than oppresses. It does not say ‘do this, and then maybe you will be good enough to be one of my sheep.’ it says, ‘you belong to me already. No one can snatch you out of my hand.’...amidst all the other voices that evoke fear, make demands, or give advice, the voice of the good shepherd is a voice of promise--a voice that calls us by name and claims us as God’s own.” (Elisabeth Johnson, Working Preacher)Friends, my prayer for you this day is that all may have abundant life as each of us claims our identity as Beloved children of God, made in God’s image, held in the hand of Love that will never let us go. May it ever be so.  This sermon originally preached on May 12, 2019 at Seattle First Baptist Church.