Last week Tom Hanks was in Patagonia – or at least he was on the nature programme ‘The Americas’. There again, he may never have been to Patagonia: he probably just provided a voice over for the programme from a studio somewhere in the Californian foothills. Wherever Tom Hanks was, last week I learned about rockhopper penguins’ breeding habits and the paternal instincts of Darwin’s Rea. Rockhopper penguins mate for life. They do so in one of the most inhospitable places in the world and their eggs, when produced, are watched over by ‘Dad’. Mom, who you might have thought has already done more than enough, waddles off the rock shelve, slides or dives into the horrendously rough seas of the South Atlantic, catches a tummy full of fish and then brings it back to the nest, running the gauntlet of the sea lions who want to have her for breakfast, climbing a ludicrously steep rockface by clinging on with her claws and then discerning where her partner might be amongst hundreds of thousands of other rockhopper ‘dad’s, all cawing and crying at the same time as they see dinner coming over the brow of the hill. How do they find their chick and partner? Voice recognition: staggering.
Having produced a clutch of a dozen or more eggs, the Darwin’s Rea ‘Mom’ decides she’s had enough and leaves the scene. ‘Dad’ is left with the task of shepherding his unruly family through it’s first months, keeping the brood close lest the eagles up above attempt to swoop down to take a chick out for lunch. Not all Dads are successful and not all gangly chicks stay close to home: some get lost and cry out. And then….cue suitably sentimental music: their cries are heard by a neighbouring adult who adopts them into his family, no questions asked.
‘My sheep hear my voice’. ‘Nothing can snatch us from his hand.’
Come the summer, as the harvest begins, our readings from John’s gospel will focus on wheat and bread. But for now, we are out in the fields with sheep and shepherds. Lambing has almost come to an end (you’ll know that from your farming contacts…or from watching Countryfile last week) – and in church we have declared a feast because the Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us. John’s Gospel chapter 10 is where we find Jesus describing himself as the gate of the sheep but also the good shepherd who will lay down his life for his sheep. The context of our few gospel verses this morning is important. Why?
From chapter 7 (so a considerable way back in John’s gospel), the setting for Jesus’ ministry has been the temple in Jerusalem and his actions have brought him into discussion (and then fierce conflict) with the Jews (John’s catch all phrase for the Jewish authorities). The setting is continuous: the temple, but the timeline is confused. Different festivals are mentioned (just as the Festival of Dedication is mentioned in this morning’s passage) – but these festivals are months apart – so we seem to have a conflation of many visits that Jesus made to the temple. By chapter 9 a full-scale row has broken out after Jesus heals a blindman on the sabbath. Some argue that no-one who claims to be ‘from God’ could possibly break the sabbath rule of not working. Others say that only someone from God could possibly give a blind man his sight. We’re stuck.
With the arguments about ‘who he is’ in full flow, Jesus tells the crowd that he is ‘the good shepherd’. More than this, he says that he will ‘lay down his life for the sheep.’ He makes clear that he will voluntarily give his life for his sheep: no one will take his life from him, he will give it and by doing so he will fulfil his Father’s will and purpose.
The Jews don’t understand. This sacrificial ministry doesn’t compute with their understanding of the Messiah so they gather round him (vs 24) and ask that he make himself clear: ‘If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’ But Jesus presses them again to make a choice: ‘you’ve heard me speak, you’ve seen what I have done, now you must choose. My sheep hear my voice..’
The choice that we make as Christians is about where we see the work of God: how that work is revealed and what it looks like. Our choice is about seeing God in gift and giving, in loving and forgiving. Our choice is about faithfulness and commitment, about suffering and death and finding life beyond death and dying. Our choice is about the importance of relationships over systems, processes and programmes. Our choice is about the one person, not just the crowd. The choice we make will honour the small and insignificant- the widow’s mite, the mustard seed of faith. It will embrace the weak and walk alongside the poor. It will listen much more than it speaks and bring healing through community and fellowship. Those who hear his voice find room and love for all people not a narrow few. This choice exalts the humble and meek, it defends and pursues righteousness and goodness, it has no place for the abuse of power, for self aggrandisement. This choice risks being hurt. It holds the doors of our hearts open to God and to one another, to God and to His world.
‘My sheep hear my voice’: the call to this way of living is not obvious, not everyone responds. The call asks everything of us, nothing held back. That is hard: hard to understand if you see the world through a lens of acquisition or through the anxiety of needing or wanting more, fearful that others might take what could be yours, jealous and resentful. If your identity lies in what you have; your status in how much you can get over your neighbour (whether personally or internationally) then this call will not make sense. The Jews (those religious leaders back then) wanted a Messiah to crack heads, to make their enemies eat dust and their friends to follow Torah – they didn’t want or see Him in the man on the cross.
And yet, says Jesus, in this way ‘there is eternal life’. Not to be understood as heaven after we die in this context, rather, to be heard as Life now. This giving and gift, this loving and dying, this serving and healing and sharing and weeping – here is God’s presence, coursing through our veins, moving between us as we care for one another, as we laugh and cry together, as we share our gifts (rather than holding onto them), as we learn to see God’s presence in the people next to us but also in those who at times seem far from us because they look and think differently from us. This is God’s Life. Not held tightly within just one person but in the movement and engagement of that person with another and another…in the possibilities and opportunities that this movement of God’s Spirit creates between us. This God bridges the gaps between us and shows Himself through us: here and now, in this place, in you, the people of God who have heard his voice and who can never be snatched from His hand.
Back on the rock-shelf of Patagonia one voice is heard above the many that cry out. In the grasslands, the chick cries out to be heard and ‘Dad’ comes to the rescue.
Some words from a hymn:
O let me hear thee speaking
in accents clear and still,
above the storms of passion,
the murmurs of self-will;
O speak to reassure me,
to hasten or control;
O speak, and make me listen,
thou guardian of my soul.