I am the gate, Jesus says.
You know, like many of you, this pandemic has forced our family to be home together pretty much 24/7—certainly a challenge at times, but also a tremendous blessing. With daycare closed, Liz and I have witnessed more of those moments that showcase our two-year old learning and growing and doing silly two-year-old things. And one of Hanah’s favorite games these days involves our poor dog, Ruby, and a safety gate that separates our dining room from our kitchen. Hanah loves playing the gatekeeper. She lets Ruby (and us!) in, she keeps her out. She might open the gate just enough to give Ruby a window to escape, but the moment Ruby makes a move, Hanah swings the gate closed, “Ruby stay!”
I’ll be really honest—when I first read through this gospel lesson for the Fourth Sunday in Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday, my thought was, given our reality of mandated sheltering—a state in which doors are supposed to mostly stay closed—I thought the image of a gate maybe isn’t super helpful. Because, even as many of us have tried making the best of this new normal, I’m getting tired of gates and doors. I’m growing weary of masks, distancing, things that make us stay in place, things that keep us from going about our lives like we used to, things that keep us from physically connecting with others.
At the same time, as we’ve been kept from connecting with each other in a physical way, I’ve been amazed at how people have stayed connected through phones and video conferencing. I’ve heard more than a few people tell me that they’ve been more in touch with friends and family during this pandemic than they’ve ever been. And as we’ve switched to these new and different ways of connecting, I think we’ve been forced to pay more attention to each others’ voices. I’ve noticed this especially during bible study on Tuesday mornings—since most of the participants call in from their phone, we don’t see any faces, we just hear voices. And it’s amazing to me how well everyone knows the sound of each others’ voice—there’s never any mystery about who’s talking. We recognize each other simply by listening to someone’s voice.
The gate and the shepherd are really useless if the sheep don’t know and recognize the sound of the shepherd’s voice. If you have a pet at home, then you know this. If we’re on zoom or facetime with my parents or Liz’s parents, our dog immediately recognizes their voices, coming from the computer. She’ll run to the door, expecting them to walk in. This voice motif that Jesus discusses is I think both a promise and a challenge. It’s a challenge because there are lots of voices out there, right? There are lots of voices competing for our attention. There are lots of voices that fall into Jesus’ category of thieves and bandits—voices that knowingly mislead, voices that are void of empathy or self-sacrifice, voices that care, not about the sheep, only about themselves. I don’t think you need a very wild imagination to think of some of those voices right now. Sometimes the voices of the thieves and bandits are the loudest and the ones that steer us away from listening to the voice of the shepherd. And therein lies the challenge that Jesus names for us.
But with the challenge is also a promise. Jesus promises that he calls his sheep by name, and the sheep know the sound of his voice. Jesus knows and calls each of us by name—this promise was spoken to us at baptism. The voice of Jesus we recognize as a voice that brings calm, reassurance, and hope when we’re feeling anxious, uncertain, afraid or disheartened. It’s a voice we trust because we know he’s been on the roads we’ve traveled, suffered the things that we have. It’s a voice we trust because in the cross, he laid down his life for the sheep, just as he said. It’s a voice we trust because through his death and resurrection, he has brought us life, and life abundantly. And this is how we know the sound of his voice—it’s the one that brings us out of despair and into hope, and out of death into abundant life.
You know, gates can keep us in. But gates can also release us. There will come a day when we can leave our homes with more freedom and a greater sense of security, even though things may never go back to the way they were. When that time arrives, God will release us to re-imagine the possibilities and the new ways to do God’s work and share God’s good news with the world. The good shepherd will release us from our tombs of despair reminding us that he knows us and calls us by name.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, the psalmist writes, you are with me. As we seem to be passing through more shadowy valleys these days, the voice of the good shepherd speaks to us and reminds us that we are his and he is with us—now, in two weeks, in two months, in two years. And along the way, our cup still overflows with abundant life.