Fourth Sunday of Easter, cycle C

John 10:27 - 30

When I grew up in Montana, we didn't have television until I was about fourteen, and we could only get two radio stations. There was a movie running at the local theater, but most of the time we sought out live entertainment. In addition to watching high school sports, we had rodeos, where cowboys would compete for prizes by riding bulls and horses trained to buck, and roping calves. And now and then shepherds would have contests as well. In fact, if you have the time and the money, the national “trail of the sheep” event takes place in October in Idaho.

Sheep that are raised for food are often raised like cattle, in pens, fed grain, and slaughtered as soon as they reach a certain weight. But sheep raised for wool need to hang around a long time to get a reasonable yield. And those are the sheep that are still looked after by a shepherd, when I was growing up and it's still true today, sheep ranchers would often hire shepherds from other countries – because they would work for food and shelter and a very small wage. And in the mountains around my home town these were Basques from Spain. I worked in a grocery store and they would come down every month or so to stock up on supplies and then go back to their sheep. When it came time to harvest wool, they relied on expert shearers – you can still see them at the Big E – so they would bring their sheep to a common area where the wool would be collected and baled and sent away to be turned into cloth. In addition to seeing which shearer could denude a sheep the fastest, another contest, still with the same rules today as then, required that a shepherd call his sheep to himself, walk the sheep over a predetermined course, and separate the sheep into two groups. He did this with his sheepdog. I'm sure glad they invented Netflix.

But the point is that the shepherd has to form a relationship with his sheep, and vice versa. If you are driving cattle to market, cowboys use dogs and whips and lots of yelling. This works for cows, because they have a very strong instinct to stay together. But sheep don't. If you beat a sheep or yell at it, it will probably leave the first chance it gets. We human beings are like that in a way. We don't like physical or mental abuse either. And in circumstances where this is what the voice is doing, we can be sure that it's not the voice of our shepherd. If I am being ordered or threatened or condemned, that's not my shepherd's voice.

Sheep have been hanging around with humans for 5000 years, and as a result are not very smart. They can't see very well, and rely on hearing, taste and smell. Left to their own devices, they tend to spend all their time eating or sleeping. We human beings are a little like this, especially some of my grandchildren, if you add in video games. It's hard to defer gratification. Politicians know this, because their approach to getting elected is to promise things that won't require sacrifice. Sheep have to understand, as far as sheep can, that it would be better to follow the shepherd than to follow their instincts. Even though we are always attracted to instant gratification, we all know that when we are being told to do whatever makes us feel good, we can be sure that is not the voice of our shepherd.

So how do you know when you are hearing your shepherd's voice? The same way sheep do. They have experienced the care of the shepherd. They've had the shepherd remove brambles and other irritants from their growing wool. They've been led to good grazing grounds and fresh water. They've seen the shepherd drive away predators. And the more they've been cared for, the more they associate that care with the voice of the one who leads them. In fact, older sheep even seem to enjoy being sheared; they've learned that losing 20 pounds of wool is liberating!.

A sheep that hangs around his shepherd is going to recognize the shepherd more when it faces a new or disturbing situation. We are like that as well. And we don't think about it sometimes, but that's the whole point of the church – it's the way our shepherd set up to care for his sheep. That's why we talk about the church being the body of Christ. The church exists to spread Christ's message, it is true, but it's most important task is to care for Jesus' sheep.

When you are baptized you become part of the good shepherd's flock. When you receive the Eucharist you are being fed by the shepherd. When you receive the sacrament of reconciliation you are being healed. When you come together in the assembly to hear the word of god you are being given what you need to form you conscience so that you can make the right choices in your life and better follow the will of the shepherd. When you come before the blessed sacrament to pray, to meditate, or even to rest, you are finding peace because your shepherd is there, making you lie down in green pastures.

Some sheep resist being shepherded. In that they are like humans; they all have different personalities and quirks. A sheep will leave the herd now and then, but a real shepherd does not leave his flock to go find the lost sheep; when Jesus told that parable about the lost sheep, the reason it was so radical is that everyone knew real shepherds wouldn't do that, it would be foolish. The lost sheep is likely to become dinner for a wolf pack. But some escape this fate. If they can find a few other wild sheep they might stand a chance – but even then its hard to survive, because sheep that aren't sheared periodically can grow so much wool that it becomes a liability, and to be caught in a rainstorm means that your wool coat may pick up a suffocating weight of rainwater. Sheep don't know it, but a sheep cannot survive without a shepherd, and some people don't know that we can't hope for eternal life without listening to our shepherd..

So let us go where we are cared for; let us submit ourselves to our shepherd's care, and we will increasingly hear his voice and more and more be the sheep of his flock.