St Paul’s Cathedral
A Sermon by The Very Reverend Dr Trevor James
Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral
Text: John 10:22-30
Preached on ‘Good Shepherd’ Sunday 21 April 2013
Do you remember those bible texts that were printed together with some pious
illustration and were frequently given out at Sunday School? I can still remember
the ‘Good Shepherd’ ones. You know the sort of thing: you saw a really clean and
tidy Jesus, looking very spiritual, with a spotless and amazingly cooperative lamb
slung over his shoulders. I can’t recall what I thought of them at the time, but now I
think they were quite horrible and misleading. I think they helped foster some very
feeble and quite wrong ideas about God.
I met a sheep a few weeks ago: no meek lamb but a full grown hefty Romney cross
trotting down the centre of the highway near Ophir. I might have murmured ‘We all
like sheep have gone astray’, but I suspect I muttered something else, slowed to a
crawl and pondered how I might get the poor beast off the road to relative safety.
However, oblivious to my good intentions and concern for its welfare, it continued
on the highway for some time, frightened, wayward and in danger.
Which, come to think of it, is not a bad description of the human condition:
‘frightened, wayward and in danger’. We may come back to that.
In the gospel this morning Jesus is interacting with some Jewish leaders who seem
unable to make good decisions; and also seem unable to recognise what is essential
to their welfare. Rather like that sheep I mentioned, ‘frightened, wayward and in
danger’.
The time and setting of this gospel passage are clues to guide our reading. Jesus is
walking up and down in the only part remaining of the original temple, Solomon’s
portico. In this oldest part of the temple Jesus treads the stones that witnessed
God’s failed experiment with his chosen people. This is the place where leadership
has failed in the past and where, now, Jesus has encountered the most stubborn
opposition. This history of failure is underscored when we are told that this is the
Feast of Dedication. In Jesus’ day that was a fairly recent festival: it looked back to a
dark period in Jewish history when the temple priesthood had become corrupted,
the temple altar been built over, and the most appalling sacrilege occurred with
pagan sacrifices to Zeus being offered in the temple. The Maccabean revolt had
ejected the usurpers and purified the temple with a new altar and instituted the
Feast of Dedication as a way to remember these horrors and to proclaim ‘Never
again.’ This place and the time both point to a time when the people of God had lost
their way.
There is a dreadful irony that this confrontation is played out on Solomon’s portico.
At the time of the very festival that says ‘never again’ to denying their covenant with
God, the shepherds of Israel (the priesthood), the same class that originally led the
people astray and profaned the temple, once again fail their calling; they repeat
their error; they will lead the people astray again; they again fail to hear God’s call
on them and they will plot to kill Jesus. All of this waywardness, this wilfulness, will
trigger a series of events that eventually leads to the destruction of the temple.
It might be argued that Jesus is not being fair and that he is toying with these
Jewish leaders. After all, they have asked him to tell them plainly. One could say that
seems to be the problem with God – why should we all not be told plainly; why
should the creation not be so ordered that the presence and reality of God is utterly
unmistakeable? Against that complaint the Pharisees (and all of us) are answered ‘I
have told you and you have not believed.’
The truth about our condition is that we choose not to believe, not to listen, not to
respond. Like those Pharisees we tend to be set in our ways, seeing only what we
want to see; hearing only what we are prepared to hear. We find it hard to see in
the cross, in the absolute self-giving of Christ, the clue to our life and our wholeness,
freedom and joy.
This has been a hard week with the international news. It has been disturbing to
watch the news. And yet … each night when we get up from the TV news …
virtually smothered by blood, violence, unimaginable cruelty and grief … what
questions do we ask? When will we learn? When will we hear? When will we
change? We come with our questions. We come to this Eucharist with our
questions … Lord, what does it take for us to hear your voice?
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