Word to the Wise
Sunday, April 30, 2023 - 4th Sunday of Easter - A
[Acts 2:14a, 36-41; 1 Pet 2:20b-25; John 10:1-10]Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out... Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. [John]
One of the striking features of the Gospel According to John is the absence of parables. The image of the shepherd and the sheep and the sheepfold (corral) is one of the few (although the images of the seed falling into the ground and dying [John 12:24] and the Vine and the Branches [John 15:5 et seq] are at least metaphorical. In today's passage, Jesus takes a well-known scene in Palestinian agricultural life and looks at it from two different perspectives. The first perspective calls attention to the procedure followed by shepherds from the same village with separate flocks which are all gathered in the same corral ("sheepfold" - usually a wall of branches and stones) at night. In the morning each shepherd comes and makes a distinctive call which only his own sheep respond to. Those who believe in Jesus hear his voice and respond with faith in him.
The second image, taken from the same agricultural scene, emphasizes the gate as the only true access to and from the corral. Jesus identifies himself with the gate. The image involves not only the gate gap but the gatekeeper who literally spends the night sleeping across that gap - laying down his life, as it were, for the sheep. [cf. John 15:13]. Scripture scholars point out that the shepherd/sheep image follows the story of the man born blind and the blindness of the religious leadership. So, Jesus may have been contrasting himself with them. What is clear from this image is summed up in the last line (a familiar biblical verse): "I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly."
An additional thought that I have in responding to this rich image is the challenge we have in maintaining the corral (the church?) without forgetting the importance of its purpose - i.e. to enable the shepherd and the sheep without taking the place of either one! For all the rich liturgical and theological tradition of Christianity, we should not disregard the relationship of sheep to shepherd. Without that relationship, the corral makes no sense at all! AMEN