Over My Dead Body

April 13, 2008     Easter 4 A

Acts 2:42-47             Psalm 23

1 Peter 2:19-25         St. John 10:1-10

"Over my dead body!" Have you ever heard that challenge? It seems to bang around in my brain as something I've surely heard a few times and maybe even said. These words push their way back into my consciousness when I see this Sunday's readings.

It is not so much the content of Peter's ringing sermon in the Acts of the Apostles that triggers the words. It is rather the First Letter of Peter, with its daunting description of Christ and the manner of his suffering that bring "over my dead body" to mind.

We are told that Christ's suffering is a path for us to follow. And yet it remains, for the most part, truly a "road not taken" by people and institutions that bear the name of Christ.  "He did no wrong; no deceit was found in his mouth. When he was insulted he returned no insult. When he was made to suffer, he did not counter with threats. No, he delivered himself up to the one who judges justly.

In his own body, he brought your sins to the cross, so that all of us, dead to sin, could live in accord with God's will. By his wounds you were healed."

This is hard bread to chew. We think that if we do no wrong and tell no lies, we have some justice due us. We might have the gumption to take insults without retaliation, but to undergo pain and suffering and offer no resistance?that is too much to expect.

Jesus, for his part, does not rely on his innocence or righteousness or the truth of his ideas. His sole security is the one who sent him.

More troubling still, Jesus takes our sin into his own body on the cross. Only by his wounds and death are we healed and given life. It is over his dead body that we are saved.

That is what this letter seems to be saying. How proper, then, that the next few words allude to the fact that we were like straying sheep who are now returned to our shepherd, the guardian of our souls.

The Good Shepherd, as we all know, is one of the abiding pictures of Christ in Christian imagination. Words like "pastor" and "pastoral care" draw their meaning and power from the image of Jesus as the kind and caring guide of the flock.

The sheep approach the protection of the sheepfold through the gate. Those who climb in by other ways, over the rocks and brambles, are either robbers or predators. The true shepherd enters and leaves first, calling their names; at the sound of his voice they follow.

The Gospel consists of the verses following immediately the confrontation with the Pharisees about the curing of the man who had been born blind. Jesus had agreed with them at the very end of the previous chapter that indeed, they were blind and had failed to see who he was, to and for them.

John presents Jesus' using a figure of speech. Jesus is the "Gate". Those who enter through that Gate will be "shepherds" for the flock. Those who pretended to be the leaders before Jesus, (namely these very same Pharisees), were self-serving destroyers of the flock.

What we hear is a stronger statement about them. He calls them thieves and robbers. Jesus declares himself to be the New Shepherd of the People of God and those who follow him will learn his voice as well as the voices of the "stranger." Jesus says that he, as shepherd, knows each of us by name and calls to us individually to the abundant life.

This passage is called a "figure" by the writer of the Fourth Gospel. And when the hearers seem not to grasp the figure fully, Jesus continues, offering them what many have thought a somewhat disconnected second metaphor. All of a sudden, he is no longer the shepherd. He is the gate itself. But this shift is not a mixing of metaphors. Like many devoted shepherds, Jesus is both the shepherd and the gate.

I once heard a description of Middle Eastern shepherding practices that ties these two images together. The sheepfold, especially one unattached to a larger settlement or dwelling, is a circular wall of stones, topped by barriers of briar. There is a small opening for the sheep to pass through. Once they are all in, instead of closing a hinged gate, the shepherd simply lies across the opening, so that nothing or no one can get through without going over his body first, without confronting or even killing him.

This particular kind of shepherd literally makes himself into a barrier gate, a role that requires not only care but courage. If any marauders or predators are to get to the sheep, they will only do so over the dead body of the shepherd.

When Jesus reveals that he is the gate of the sheepfold, he is not just suggesting that he is the unique way into safety or the only way out to pasture. He is saying that he will prevent our destruction by laying down his life. He has come to us that we may have life and have it abundantly.

In the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection narratives, Jesus came calling people by their names: Mary Magdalene in the garden of Resurrection and Thomas who had doubted. Jesus went out calling to his flock whether they were on the road to Emmaus or out fishing in the dark.

Somehow they came to recognize his voice, not so much by actual sound, but by how his voice sounded inside them. This then is the beginning of discernment of God's calling.

The Pharisees guided the "Flock of God" by externally telling them what exactly they must do to be good. This was controlling and all on the external. The people had to listen to the words, but not the interior voice.

The voice of the Good Shepherd touches something deeper within us. The "name" is more than an appellation or title. Jesus calls to something of himself that is buried within us. It resounds as an unexplainable harmony within us.

External conformity is just that and not discernment. Conformity is immediate, instinctual, and fearful. John presents the Pharisees as  "strangers" who forced conformity with a whip of fear.

Learning the voice of Jesus takes reflection, time, and confrontation with our egoistic voices. We learn what disharmony sounds like and the necessity for approval that it demands.

The continuation of the Gospel passage is important. "I am the good shepherd, the one that lays down his life for the sheep." It is for this reason, we are assured, that God's love is so totally poured out into Christ?and so empowering that his life, even though laid down, is given back again.

The Psalmist tells us, "Even in the dark valley I will fear no evil. You are at my side. You give me courage. You are my food and drink. You anoint me. There is nothing I shall want. Goodness and kindness will follow me all my days. I will dwell in your fold forever."

Can we be lost or destroyed? Only over the Lord's dead body. But he is risen now, to die no more. Through the laying down of his life on the cross and his rising before us, we are led into the sheepfold of eternal life.