Jesus makes us good enough!

The Rev. Deon K. Johnson

Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Brighton MI April 29, 2012

John 10:11-18

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."

West Indian Blackbelly Sheep

I have to begin with a confession.  My brother and I actually grew up with sheep. Not the cute white woolly wads of fleece that you see on TV but dark brown, non-woolly black bellied sheep native to the West Indies. They are not the sheep of TV, movies or Serta mattress commercials.  


They were plain, boring ole sheep that we had to take out in the morning and bring back home at night. The way we spelt sheep was C-H-O-R-E! 

The thing about the sheep that I grew up with was that they were in a word dumb! If I had a choice between the sheep, rabbits and goats that I had to take care of as a child I would go with the goats. They were at least somewhat smart. But not the sheep.

They were noisy four legged creatures that would follow you everywhere, get loose and wonder off or even worse raid the garden and eat everything green in sight, and of course I got blamed. I often wondered if the care of sheep wasn’t some unique punishment created by God specifically for my brother and I to atone for sins yet committed. 

The thing about sheep is that they have a tendency, if you’re not careful, to wonder off and get themselves hurt or worse killed. But if there is one thing that sheep know it is this: with someone to care for them there will always be enough grass and greenery to eat and that someone will always be there, loving them and taking care of them no matter how stupid they may sometimes be.  

I suspect that that is why Jesus said to his followers “I am the Good shepherd” that image of tender loving care that a shepherd has for the sheep is a timeless image. It speaks to our need to belong, to be loved and to know that someone cares deeply for us.

[Description and history of the image the image of Jesus in the catacombs from the 2^nd Century -the very first image of Jesus from the early church.]

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." And "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."

But why? Why does Jesus the good shepherd lay down his life? To tell us that we are, in fact, good enough. Jesus, especially in John's gospel, doesn't die in order to make some kind of payment to God or to satisfy God's wrath or to pay the penalty for sin. Jesus, in John's Gospel, is the Revealer, the One who comes to make the invisible God visible and the unapproachable God accessible. Jesus comes to reveal that God loves the whole world, no exceptions. Jesus comes, that is, to tell us that we are already beloved, that we are good enough, that we need no shoes or book or car or reputation or lover or high status job or big bank account or list of achievements or anything else to be deserving of God's love. That we've already got God's unconditional and unending love.

But that can be hard to believe. So many messages, so much money is devoted to trying to tell us that we are not good enough, that we are not worthy of love, that we need to earn acceptance, that we need something else, something more to be acceptable. Think of all the commercials on TV that tell us in subtle terms of course, that if we just got this one product, this one special thing, we would be perfect and all our friends, family and even our pets would love us! Get it, buy it, wear it, show it, give it, share it, spend it and you to will be good enough, but only with my product. (And of course two weeks later the come out with the platinum edition of whatever it is we just bought.)

But what  Jesus reminds us that we are good enough, that nothing in this world could make us any less in the eyes of God.  But it is hard to believe at times. Let's make no mistake about that. Which is why we should listen to even more of Jesus' message: "I lay down my life for the sheep," he says. "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." Jesus, in other words, didn't come just for the original group of disciples. He came also for us, and we are now invited to hear and believe this message of grace and acceptance and to share it with each other and all those we meet.

It means that in our loves we have to live like someone loves us. It means that we have to treat others as if someone loves them and loves them deeply. It means that we can't just do the motions of faith on Sundays and then live like we don't know that a Good Shepherd loves us the rest of the week.

It means reminding ourselves and others that:

"You are a beloved child of God, and you are good enough."

Lets practice that now. Turn to someone next to you and remind them. 

Feels good doesn't? We need to hear that more often. We need to tell others that more often.  That is what our faith is about, reminding ourselves that we are good enough. 

What we say in baptizing Joshua today is that he is good enough for God's love. That nothing and no one can't separate him from God not matter who he becomes in life. The challenge for us is to make sure that he knows that he is always good enough. It isn't enough for us to tell him that he is loved and cared for by the Good Shepherd we must live as if we know that we are loved and cared for as well. It means that we must work for a world where all of God's children know that they are loved and gently cared for by the creator of the vast universe.

There is a reason why the early church saw Jesus not as a king, or a ruler but as a gentle herder of sheep. They like we know that we need to be reminded that in Jesus Christ God's love is made real and tangible. That the almighty creator of the world is not some distant figure on a cloud or something far away but a real living, breathing, loving prison revealed in a man named Jesus.

In Jesus the Good Shepherd God reminds us that we are beloved and that we are good enough. May we have the courage to live our lives as though we really, truly believed it. Amen.