John 10:22-30   "22 At that time the festival of Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, 'How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.' 25 Jesus answered, 'I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; 26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. 30 The Father and I are one.'" 

In this week's reading from John, Jesus claims his followers as his sheep, and himself as their shepherd. In the church calendar, this week, the Fourth Week of Easter, is also known as "Good Shepherd Sunday." Every year at this time the readings include the famous 23rd Psalm - the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want - as well as a section of John 10, in which, prior to the passage we have heard today, Jesus says of himself "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me" (10:14). The shepherd is the ultimate provider for his charges, the sheep. The shepherd protects the sheep from dangerous wild animals, finds any that are lost, and leads them to grazing pastures and still waters.  No one, Jesus says, can snatch his sheep out of his hand.

This passage in John, though, is not only about a good shepherd taking care of his sheep. It is also a story about claiming identity.

The story opens with Jesus in Jerusalem, walking in the temple during the Feast of Dedication, or Hanukkah. A group the gospel writer calls "the Jews" comes to him. To explain this group a little more, the gospel writer is not referring here to all Jews, but a faction of Jews that we see in other gospels, especially around the passion narrative. They are Jewish leaders, most likely Pharisees, who are very concerned with the law, and expect certain things from a Jewish messiah. A group of these leaders, then, comes to Jesus and begins questioning him.  "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." It seems like an understandable question at first. "How long will you keep us in suspense" makes it sound like these people want to hear a yes answer, they want to hear that the Messiah they have waited for has arrived. Jesus has been speaking to them in metaphors and symbols, calling himself the Good Shepherd, but from their point of view, he has never said "I am the Messiah."  What we don't see in these verses, though, are the questions that this group of Jews has been asking others. A chapter earlier, they had descended upon a blind man whom Jesus had healed. Who healed you, they asked, and how did he do it. The man told them, but they didn't believe him. They went to the man's mother and father, who affirmed that yes, their son had been blind since birth. That was all they would say though, because, as the gospel writer tells us, they were afraid of this group - "for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue."  You see, they'd already made up their mind about who this Jesus person was and who he was not. The Jews went back to the healed man, asking him the same questions again - What did Jesus do? How did he open your eyes? The man responds this time by saying - "I have told you already, but you did not listen," and then testifies to Jesus' identity: "If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."

This group of Jewish leaders is not waiting in suspense in hopes that Jesus really is the Messiah. They want him to say that he is so that they may have reason to arrest and to kill him. In fact, the Greek text of their question - how long will you keep us in suspense? - is more appropriately rendered, according to one commentator, "How long will you continue to annoy us?"   These Jews don't want to know the true answer; they want a reason to kill this annoyance.

Jesus' answer does not give them this satisfaction, but echoes the response of the healed man - "I have told you," he says, "but you did not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep."

And so we get into questions of Identity.

They did not believe because they had preconceived notions of who the Messiah was to be, and who this Jesus person was. They wanted the Messiah to be a powerful king who would deliver Israel from the Romans - a king similar to David, a warrior who would conquer their enemies. They did not expect a carpenter's son, a nomadic teacher who taught servanthood instead of power.  When Jesus came, spending his time with fishermen, tax collectors, and prostitutes, they thought they knew exactly what kind of person he was.

How many of us can relate to that? It's always interesting to me to see how stories from Jesus' life connect to things in our own stories today. Just last Sunday, Rev. Claude led a college-age group on this very theme of identity, and what other people think of us. A group of us sat around the table in Rm. 420, ate pizza, and talked about our unique identities. Claude had a documentary ready to show us clips from, as he always does, but this week we spent more time talking. Claude asked each of the 5 or so of us gathered, "How would you describe yourself?" Not how do other people describe you, but how do you describe yourself. It was more difficult to answer than I expected. I realized how much of what I think of me is shaped by what others have said they see in me, or how others react to me. To try to delete all of their preconceived notions, and bring out only me and my perceptions of myself, was not easy. We each found our adjectives after a bit, though, and continued to the next question, "What do other people say about you?" I'm not sure if we did it on purpose, but our answers seem to lean towards saying the wrong perceptions that people have of us. We seemed to realize how much other people think things that we don't claim for ourselves, and we are often influenced negatively by their labels of us.

By this time, we only had about 10 minutes left to watch a clip from this week's documentary, Tyson, telling the story of boxer Mike Tyson. Despite the short time that we had left, we got right to the point in the introduction. We watched Mike Tyson tell about himself and his background, and we saw how his early experiences as a child and the labels that people had put on him shaped him into who he was as a boxer. But we also saw that that wasn't his total identity.

We all thought of the stories we had just told, and how we related to Mike Tyson. Each of us had a story of who we are, and who other people shaped us to be. Sometimes people think that they know exactly who we are, but we know that we are so much more than how they label us.

Christ, too, had an identity - a story that he told of himself, and a story that others told of him. They were not always the same, and he had to constantly claim his identity, refusing to be boxed into what others wanted to believe of him.  The Jewish group questioning Jesus thought they already knew what kind of person he was.  But they didn't understand when Jesus' works seemed to say something different about him. They couldn't understand how he could heal a blind man, and they interrogated the man's family, thinking they would catch Jesus in a trick.  They didn't want to be wrong.  By not giving them a straight yes or no answer, Jesus was refusing to play their game. He knew that he was not the Messiah they were expecting - he knew that he was more than they would ever guess.  He tries again, though, to tell them, saying - "The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me." All of Jesus' works - his miracles, his teachings, his leadership by servanthood - they all point to God working within him. As the blind man had told them, if he were not from God, he could do nothing. He is from God, though, and his works show that he and the Father are united.

Jesus is not the only one in this story who has an identity to claim. There is the shepherd, and then there are the sheep. We today, as Christians, as followers of Christ, are followers of the shepherd - we are the sheep.  The shepherd and the sheep have a special bond.  The sheep know their own shepherd's voice, and will not follow any other. The shepherd, in return, knows each of them by name. The shepherd, though, knows each of these sheep personally, fondly. They are his livelihood, but they are also often his only companions. He spends all of his time with them, watching them, caring for them. When the shepherd is away from them, and returns and calls his sheep to him, they come, because they know him intimately, and know he is trustworthy to be followed.

Christ knows each of us by name. Christ knows us personally, fondly, and we know his voice, and we follow him.

There's a problem here, though. Christ knows us, but we do not always know him. We're humans, and not actually sheep.  We are imperfect; we are busy; we forget to learn our shepherd's voice so that we know him when he calls; sometimes, even when we do hear him calling, we ignore him; and, other times, we let others tell us who we are and what shepherd we should follow. We are led by our society and peers, by media and politicians, everyone who pigeon-holes us into stereotypes, and tell us that if we live in this part of Chicago, we must be poor and violent, or, if we live in this part of the city, we must be rich and snobby. They tell us that if we care about certain issues we are too intense, or if our interests lie somewhere other than theirs that we aren't good enough, don't care enough. Then we have these "-isms" in our world - Racism, Sexism, Classism, Agism. We know that we are not these things that people label us as, though. We know that we have our own identity. We have an identity as followers of Christ.

But what does it mean to follow Christ as a sheep, to claim our identity as Christ's followers? How do we learn to recognize the voice of God? How do we learn to follow? 

For us, following God, being a sheep, means becoming servant. It means being both sheep and shepherd - sheep by following God and Christ, and shepherd by leading others in Christ's works. Sometimes we have to separate ourselves from our busy, entangling world in order to hear Christ's voice, and then come back into it in order to follow him. We can leave for 5 minutes of prayer and calm, or a weekend at a retreat center, or a vacation we are able to take with our families, or an hour at church on Sunday morning. Psalm 23 gives us a compelling image for this practice of getting away - God the shepherd makes us lie down in green pastures, leads us beside still waters, and restores our souls. God calls us to quieter places so that we can hear him when he calls.

We read Scripture to hear God's voice - we find the peaceful calm in it, as well as the call to continue Christ's work on earth. We learn of Christ's life, and we read the stories and poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures, and we find guidance, admonishment, and inspiration in Paul's letters to the early churches.

We learn from others who have done God's work before us - the prophets and shepherds of our time - the Martin Luther Kings, Gandhis, Dorothy Days, our teachers, pastors, and those in our lives uncelebrated or unrecognized for their leadership and their example of doing God's work.

We all shepherd, and we all care for those who are close to us, and those who are far away. We testify to Christ through the works we do in his name. We take care of God's creation. We love his people. We recognize each person we meet as human, and as a child of God. We find God in each person we meet, and find strength in relationship. We trust in God's promise of eternal life, and that no one will snatch us from God's hand. 

When we are at our best, we are both sheep and shepherds.  Jesus follows God's will, and we are called to do likewise, doing works that signify that our goals are one with God's and with Christ's.  What do our works say about who we are, and who our shepherd is? In this Easter season, we are given a chance to hear God's calling in our lives, to find our ministries in the body of Christ, and to claim our identity as sheep and people of God.