Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10
There’s power in a Name. If you doubt this, think about how it feels when somebody gets your name wrong. Or ask a child what it’s like to hear their full, Christian name spoken by an unsmiling parent with crossed arms. Names are powerful because something about your core identity, your unique and substantial presence in the world, is communicated by your name. In fact, you may know that an early Jewish tradition forbade speaking or writing God’s name – it’s why God is always called “The LORD” in the Old Testament, because that’s a more respectful substitute. For the Hebrew people, God’s identity was bound up in God’s name, and wasn’t something to be handled, or grasped at by humans. It was something only God had the power to reveal. So, for example, when God confronts Moses in the burning bush and Moses asks, “Who should I say you are? What’s your name?” God says, “I am who I am. I will be who I will be.”
Given all that, isn’t it interesting that Jesus has a name? A real, human name that can be spelled and spoken, and recorded on a census in Bethlehem. Just by virtue of having this kind of a name, we get a sense of what Jesus is about: here’s a guy who wants to share his identity with us. Jesus is in the world because he wants the world to know who he really is. His proper name itself – Yeshua, like the name Joshua – sheds light on this. It means “God saves.” “God rescues.” But Jesus gives himself another name today. He makes his own burning-bush-“I Am”- statement, and gets specific about what it means. First, he says “I am the gate,” which makes sense. Jesus is the way to the Father; Jesus opens onto the Father. So if we were standing around, listening to him say this, we might think that he’s a special person; somebody like a prophet, somebody who has an extraordinary relationship with God. He doesn’t stop there, though. Jesus says “I am the gate,” then he says, “I am the Good Shepherd.” And this is where he crosses a line.
We hear “Good Shepherd,” and think very romantic, pastel sorts of things about meadows and kindness and sparkling brooks, none of which has anything to do with actual shepherding. Shepherding is tough work, and shepherds are tough people. But if they’re good at what they do, then they’re totally wedded to the welfare of the sheep – they have a complete stake in what happens to each one, and they’re skilled at keeping them together, keeping them safe, feeding them and protecting them. When we talk about Jesus being our shepherd, friendliness and leniency isn’t what’s going on – a good shepherd is fiercely and decisively devoted to the sheep, come what may. Shepherding means being tenacious and judicious. It’s something weighty, something authoritative.
And authority is the problem here – it’s the line that Jesus crosses. Where his flock is concerned, a good shepherd has implicit authority. And the people Jesus is talking to definitely understand that fact – because they already have a good shepherd … somebody else was called the Good Shepherd way before Jesus, and that somebody was God. Yahweh was the Good Shepherd. Right there in the writings of the prophets, it says, “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down.” It’s in the famous words of this morning’s Psalm. So when Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd,” he’s naming himself with the name of God; he’s naming God with his own name, and he’s claiming a power and an authority that belong to God alone. Because of this, Jesus provokes the people around him to grumble a question – an awful, destructive, yet very familiar question about identity, “Who in the world does he think he is?” “Jesus, you just called yourself the Good Shepherd … who do you think you are?”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have to ask anybody what it feels like to hear those words. “Who do you think you are?” This is the pernicious little question that lies at the bottom of all of our shakiest feelings about ourselves. It’s the question everybody has to face and conquer, in some way, if they’re going to do anything that God put them on this planet to do. We hear this question – our kids hear this question – in so many places and so many ways, spoken and unspoken. Think about people like Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mother Teresa who heard “Who do you think you are?” hurled at them, and uttered in their silent thoughts again and again as they worked for justice and cared for the dying. Think about the nameless numbers of people for whom racism, sexism, homophobia, or poverty has taken root in that question, put to them by the world: “Who do you think you are?” But think about yourself. Even if your own life feels pretty normal, how often have you thought about what you’d like to do with it – some change you’d like to make or some dream you want to fulfill – and heard that question, aloud or silent: “Who do you think you are?” How often has there been a person you’d like to get to know better, and before you could talk to them you had to answer that question in the back of your head, “Who do you think you are?” How many of you think about the church, and what you want from it, and what you need from it, or about God and what you’re wondering or seeking, even what you’re angry with God about, and ask yourself, “Well who do I think I am?”
The good news, the Gospel truth, is that we know who we are. There’s this strange, breathtaking sentence buried in the book of Revelation, where Jesus is speaking to John in a vision, and he says, “To everyone who conquers … I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.” This is your true name, your most authentic identity. When Jesus was being audacious, and calling himself the Good Shepherd, provoking confusion and anger for some people, those who were really listening to him would have heard him say that a good shepherd calls his own sheep by name. This name, the name that the Shepherd knows you by and that he uses to speak into your heart and into your life is your true name, known only to God, untouched by any entity who would seek to undermine you with that question, “Who do you think you are?”
Who you are is a child of God, a sheep of Jesus the Good Shepherd whose identity is God and whose authority is real because he is God’s revelation, he is God’s “I Am who I am.” He is God’s name in the flesh and he shows us that God’s identity is self-giving love, the kind of totally invested love that causes a shepherd to lay down his life for the flock. Who you are is a person who has been named, by God, to work for justice and care for others. Who has been named, by God, to live unharmed, free from any ‘ism’ that would hem you in. Who you are is a person who has been named, by God, to be in community with other people and with the very God who created you – to live and love and pray without fear, and without limit. All you need to be that person is a shepherd – and you’ve got him. All you need to do is listen for him to call you by name … and there you will find the power of God.
(Sermon preached by the Reverend Danielle Thompson on Sunday, May 15, 2011 at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL at 8:00 AM, 11:00 AM, and 5:15 PM - the above version reflects changes made before the evening service.)
(Sermon preached by the Reverend Danielle Thompson on Sunday, May 15, 2011 at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL at 8:00 AM, 11:00 AM, and 5:15 PM - the above version reflects changes made before the evening service.)
