John 10:1-10 (NRSV)
“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not
enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a
bandit. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the
sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear
his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When
he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him
because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but
they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6
Jesus used this figure of speech
with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7 So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the
gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and
bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate.
Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find
pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I
came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Year A
Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 7, 2017
Cross~Wind
Title: 3 Signs of Abundant Life
Introducing the passage
This section is a figurative attack
on the Pharisees. Thus, the theme of
attacking Jewish authorities continues from Chapter 9. In verses 1-5, we have a
parable. In referring to the thief and bandit, who sneak into the sheep by
another gate, the parable refers to the Pharisees. It refers to the morning
task of the shepherd, who in the morning will lead the sheep to pasture. It refers
to the bond between shepherd and sheep. In fact, it exaggerates the bond by
saying that this shepherd has a name for each of the sheep. In verse 6, they do
not understand the meaning of the parable. In verses 7-10, we have an
explanation of the parable. The gate is Jesus. The point is that anyone else
who claims to lead the people and does enter through Jesus is someone to whom
the sheep must not listen. We can think of the false messiahs of the first
century, even as we might think of false leaders throughout history. The warning
offered is to leaders; for they must be sure they lead because they have
listened to Jesus. Yet, the warning is also for the sheep, who need to discern
the voice of the Good Shepherd. We can think of modern Pharisees who may be
quite “spiritual” but seek to lead the people of God down a wrong path. However,
the passage challenges us with an implied question. Do we accept the revelation
of God in Jesus? Do we turn aside to another supposed revelation? As we become
increasingly knowledgeable of ways to live that are not consistent with that of
Jesus, this question becomes a struggle for us at some point. If we say Yes to
Jesus, we will receive pasture and abundant life. Yet, our Yes is not a
one-time matter. As the challenges of various stages of our lives come toward
us, we will need to keep saying Yes. Thieves and robbers will lead to death,
while Jesus has come to bring life.
Introduction
I am thankful that God has blessed
me with a job, a calling, and a vocation that I genuinely enjoy. If you have
had such a job, I hope you are thankful as well. Many people have jobs they do
not like.
In fact, have you ever had a
miserable job? You know the one I mean. A soul-sucking employment situation
that makes you feel like an empty suit.
If so, you are not alone. A recent Gallup Gallup
These figures intrigued author
Patrick Lencioni because they reminded him of his dad trudging off to work in a
job he did not like. It made him wonder about job misery. He slowly realized
that people spend so much of their time on a job they find unfulfilling. He
realized that job misery has a devastating impact on individuals and therefore
society. He wanted to study causes and solutions, all of which led to a book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.
You would think that the barometers
of job satisfaction would depend on things like salary, job responsibilities
and the possibility for advancement. Those are significant factors. Yet, it
will take more to find satisfaction in the job. For example, a professional
basketball player can be miserable in his job while a janitor cleaning the
locker behind him can find fulfillment in his job. A marketing executive can be
miserable making a quarter of million dollars while the server of the lunch for
the executive derives meaning and satisfaction. It should not surprise us that
the difference is the relationships one has with those in authority, fellow
employees, and customers. Relationships are the key between a dream job and a
soul-sucking nightmare.
Lencioni points to three critical
signs that, when put together, form the perfect storm of vocational hell. I hope
none of these signs applies to you.
The first and most telling
indicator of job misery is anonymity.
People need to have a sense that someone understands and appreciates them for their
unique personality and gifts, and that feedback needs to come from someone in a
position of authority. If people feel invisible or anonymous in the workplace,
particularly to their supervisor, they cannot love their job no matter what it
is or what it pays.
The second sign is irrelevance — not knowing that your job
matters to someone, to anyone. We want to see a connection between the work we
do and a positive influence upon the lives of others. We all want to feel that
what we do matters and that someone will miss us if we are gone.
Lencioni invented the word “immeasurement” to describe the third
sign, which refers to the inability to gauge their progress. Employees do not
want the opinions of others to be the subjective judgement of their jobs, which
can lead to politics and posturing in the workplace. They want to know how they
measure up based on a set of agreed-upon criteria. Measurements do not
necessarily have to be numerical, but they do have to be tangible. Take a
bagger at a grocery store, for example. How many bags he fills on an hourly
basis is one measurement, but there are others, such as how many times he makes
a customer smile or the time it takes the bagger to move customers through the
line.[1]
The signs make sense when I hear
them. It should be a given that leaders know their people well and care about
them, help them see how their place on the team matters and give them markers
to assess their progress. Unfortunately, it does not seem to work that way. It
is little wonder, then, that job misery more often than not spills over into
the other aspects of the life of a person, such as poor health, addictions, and
broken relationships.
Application
We want satisfaction in something
as important as our jobs. However, if you have decided to follow Jesus, your
primary vocation is to learn what it means to be a Christian. We may wrestle at
various stages of our lives with what that means. I want to offer some signs of
living your life abundantly as a follower of Jesus.
First, being known.
We are not anonymous when we are
disciples. The abundant life has everything to do with the relationship of the
shepherd to the sheep. For Jesus, the primary sign of an abundant life has to
do with knowing Christ and with Christ knowing us intimately.
“He
calls his own sheep by name and leads them out and the sheep follow him because
they know his voice” (vv. 3-4).
As a disciple, Jesus is the
authority who values you. In Christ, God
knows us by name, values us, and cares for us.[2]
Jesus offers an abundance of love, grace and hope.
The church has also seen the
importance of recognizing the value of each other as part of the Body of
Christ. Hospitality and welcome are important expressions of our life together
in Christ. We do not know the name of everyone, but we know that certain ones
and groups recognize and value us. They know us, and love us anyway.
Second, Relevance:
Such love is not just a sentimental
thought.[3]
I
am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out
and find pasture. (v. 9).
The love and care of the Good Shepherd has a purpose. We are
people who can make a difference! Christ does not just save us from the dangers
of life apart from God; he also saves us for the mission of sharing the
abundant life in Christ with others. Jesus comes to bring an abundant life and
says to us,
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21).
Our relevance in the world does not
have its basis on our job title, on what we produce or how much we make. Our jobs
are not the purpose of our lives, but they enable us to fulfill that purpose.[4]
An abundant life embraces a larger vision of life and our place in the world.
As Paul put it,
“For
we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10, NIV).
No matter what job, family or life situation we find
ourselves in, we find relevance when we see our connectedness to the purposes
of God for the whole world.
Third, Ministry, not measurement:
At the end of his book, Lencioni
encourages his readers to engage in what he calls “the ministry of management.”
“I have come to the realization, that
all managers can — and really should — view their work as a ministry. A service
to others.”
Whether you manage workers or just your own life, viewing
your work as a ministry is a step toward understanding your relevance.
Measuring the abundant life
involves a different kind of math than the rest of the world uses.[5]
The abundant life has an outward focus. We measure ourselves by asking if we
represented Jesus well in this world. If we are the Body of Christ, have we
helped people see Jesus in our families and places of work?
Conclusion
Being a disciple of Jesus may be a
tough job, but it is certainly not a miserable one. After all, we serve a
divine manager, a shepherd, who loves us enough to die for us — one who gives
us an abundant life that God designed for us to live with him and for him.
Going Deeper
John
10:1-21 is the aftermath of Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles with the theme of
Jesus as sheepgate and shepherd. It occurs between the Feast of Tabernacles in
September to October and the Feast of Dedication in December. The segment looks forward to the transition
to the Feast of Dedication in 10:26-27.
John envisions the same audience as that of Chapter 9, namely, the Pharisees.
Are we to assume a single parable
or several interplaying ones? Do allegorical features play a part right from
the start? To what extent does the discourse represent a development in line
with the writer’s purpose and his theological perspective? The elements of this
figurative discourse are: the shepherd, the sheep and the “own” sheep
respectively, the door, the doorkeeper, the thieves and robbers, the strangers.
Contrary to some scholars, we do
not need to reconstruct the text in order to give it a better chronological
sequence. Barth will discuss this chapter in the context of the glory of the
mediator, Jesus as the light of life. He is the shepherd who guides the sheep
and the voice the sheep hear.[6]
John 10:1-10 (NRSV)
[Verses 1-5 contain a parable.] “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does
not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and
a bandit. [Pannenberg says the Council of Trent (DS, 1769) used this verse
for the notion that only bishops had the right of confirmation and ordination,
thereby making Luther and those appointed by him thieves and robbers.[7]]
2 The one who enters by the
gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate
for him, and the sheep hear his voice. [There is a proper way to approach
the sheep, namely through the gate opened by the keeper. The emphasis is on the Pharisees being
thieves and robbers. Pannenberg says that in the witness of John, his claim to
unity with the Father, and to a present inbreaking of the divine rule for those
who receive his message, met with the response of an accusation of blasphemy.[8]] He
calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has
brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him
because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but
they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” [There
is a close relationship between sheep and shepherd. The proceedings such as the text presents in
the narrative take place in the morning, when shepherds lead the sheep out to
pasture. It explains local conditions in a variety of ways, which in essence
can be resolved into two. One, what we are dealing with is a sheepfold, such as
one erects at pasture-time out in the open, outside the village. The shepherds
have their camp nearby, and a man adjoins, a house, and a wall protects it.
People knowledgeable in Palestinian conditions divide in their judgments. To go
by linguistic usage, the door more likely signifies a yard, one that is really
so and abuts on another building. What may well lend support to this view is
the apparent fact that the writer here has in mind several owners of small
flocks who jointly pen their sheep in a secure yard, having first engaged
someone to watch over them. One cannot rule out the joint penning of several
small flocks in a large fold situated out in the open. The gate can equally
well denote a simple entrance to a fold as the door set in a solid wall.
However, one might prefer the second possibility inasmuch as the gatekeeper
fits in better thereby. The shepherd comes early in the morning to the entrance
to the fold and the gatekeeper admits him. He calls and attracts his own sheep
but he must assist some so that all come out. Having left the fold, the
shepherd positions himself at the head of the column. He leads his sheep, and
they follow him because they know his voice. Along with the polemical emphases
in v. 1-2, and v. 5, one can discern another tendency. One is to underline the
bond between the shepherd and the sheep. In this connection, there comes to our
attention a feature that does not altogether square with reality. The shepherd
calls his own sheep. Now the shepherd certainly used to give names to some
sheep as suggested by physical traits, hardly, however to all of them. Even in
the case of small flocks, this would be scarcely conceivable. The subject
matter itself brings this exaggeration home to us. Noteworthy is the fact that
both these tendencies dominate the subsequent Christological imagery as well.
The polemical resistance evinced towards those others who represent a threat to
the well-being of the flock and the positive elaboration of the factors making
for the welfare of the sheep evidently decides its arrangement. In respect of
the I am words, their repetition marks on both occasions the transition from a
harmful aspect to one of well-being.]
6
Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand
what he was saying to them. [Here is a reaction to the parable.]
[Verses 7-10 explain the meaning of "gate," Jesus
is the gate.] 7 So again Jesus
said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. [The
door-word shows at the same time that, because of the self-revelation of Jesus,
all other claimants are usurpers through their conviction of a false claim to
being saviors. So long as Jesus, the shepherd, has his function as door, every
illegitimate claim in respect of revelation, leadership and the bringing of
salvation falls to pieces when it encounters him. There is but one entrance to
the sheep, and Jesus occupies it.] 8 All who came before me are
thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. [Jesus is the
gate whereby the shepherd approaches the sheep.
The bandits are Pharisees, rather than false messiahs. It has to do with
people claiming leadership on false messianic or religious grounds.] 9 I
am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out
and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and
destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. [Jesus now
offers pasture, just as before he offered water and bread. This is opposed to the slaughter the bandits
will bring. He reaffirms that the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.
In contrast, Jesus has come that people may have abundant life.]
[1] Humans
like to feel a healthy sense of competition, seeing it as an opportunity not
only to measure performance but also to improve it.
[2] In a
world that seems always to operate out of a sense of scarcity, where the
operative principle is always wanting, doing or being more.
[3] Jesus
would “lay down [his] life.”
[4] As Lenconi put it:
“No one
gets out of bed in the morning to program software or assemble furniture or do
whatever it is that accountants do. They get out of bed to live their lives,
and their work tasks are merely part of their lives.”
[5] Not all
the things that typically mark success in the world add up to a hill of beans
in the eyes of Jesus .
[6]
Church Dogmatics IV.3 [96.2] 95.
[7]
Systematic Theology Volume 3, 400.
[8]
Systematic Theology Volume 2, 337.
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