Called by Name
Fourth Sunday of Easter
On April 11th, 2023, a conservative pastor tweeted the following: “In the Bible, demons refer to themselves as they/them/we/us…” I found the tweet through one of its many repostings.
This past Sunday I had two trans youth help lead worship in my congregation. While they don’t use the pronouns “they/them,” I am fairly certain that the aforementioned tweet was meant to include them. I know it wasn’t merely a grammatical critique of the shifting usage of the formerly only-plural “they.”
As I have been preparing for this week’s sermon on Psalm 23 and John 10:1-10, I have had a triptych in my mind. The first panel holds these two beloved youth. The second panel is this hateful post. And the third panel is John’s statement that Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, “calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”
Let me unravel that a bit.
The theme of God as shepherd found in this week’s texts is a bit of a respite from the traumatic events of last week’s news cycle. Images of rolling green hills and still, fresh water, are what my mind needs after the front porches and driveways of last week. Although my own happy green place always includes the tang of salt-water air, I can see why the pastoral scene of Psalm 23 is known far beyond the walls of the church. It offers the promise of rest and protection, even when the way is dark and rough. And some weeks the way seems to always be dark and rough.
We know that the folks who come into our sanctuaries in their Sunday best, all bright and shiny with their good reading voices on, carry heartbreak and heartaches. We know they go to therapy and AA, that they weep over their adult children, and pull their hair out over their young ones. We don’t have to convince them there are dark valleys, for we have been in those valleys with them as they reach out all around, groping for protection from dangers, visible or invisible.
Psalm 23 helps us bring them hope - especially if we can embrace it as an anthem of strength and promise rather than a saccharine poem, embroidered and hung in thousands of church parlors or printed on Hallmark greeting cards. Any of the lines of this psalm can be used as breath prayers, breathed in and out to calm our hearts and minds when the valleys are just too dark. In fact, some of these have carried me through my own dark valleys.
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
Even when the world would take it all, every last breath.
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Even when my family and friends ghost me.
You prepare a table before me
In the presence of my enemies.
And I can feast on the abundance, with no fear of being shot.
It is the scene of Psalm 23 that I have in mind when I turn to John 10:1-10, where Jesus confronts his listeners (always religious leaders) with the meaning of his having healed the man born blind (9:1-41). Here he follows up on his insinuation to the Pharisees that they, not the man born blind, are the ones who do not see (9:41).
What do they not see?
They do not see that God’s presence is a mountain top tromping, thief bouncing, sheep cuddling kind of presence. They do not see that Jesus is the shepherd whom Jacob named in his proclamations to his son Joseph (Gen. 49:24); a shepherd who would feed, gather, carry, and gently lead the people out of exile (Isaiah 40:11). That Jesus is just like the dogged shepherd of Ezekiel 34. There, not only are the abusive religious leaders who would use their flock for their own financial gain chastised (listen closely, fellow preachers), but God is revealed as a shepherd who demands the abused sheep back, who protects them from usury, who seeks out the lost and brings them back together out of isolation and into community, who brings them to a home where they are nourished (in splendor and excess, no less!), who binds the injured, strengthens the weak, and makes provision for their future well-being.
Jesus isn’t primarily about theological debates about sin and divinity, but is about the holistic well-being of all. In John 10, we have an image of Jesus not only having gathered the sheep, but also having provided for their protection with a sheep pen that he himself guards from those who would use and abuse the sheep - much like the religious leaders in Ezekiel 34.
But, is Jesus guarding the pen as the shepherd or as the gate? And if the gate, is this to keep out non-Christians? Bad Christians? Non-gender-conforming Christians? Let me suggest that the gate, rather than being a demarcation of who is “in” and who is “out,” of who is “he” or “she” or “they,” is instead an indication that it is by Jesus’ way (a way that heals men born blind) that the beloved sheep go in to shelter in the evening and out to sustenance and space in the morning.
The true shepherd is, after all, not one who would see the sheep’s value only in what they will produce for his financial gain (milk, meat, and wool). Rather, the true shepherd will lead and the sheep will follow not because they are forced to do so, but because they are loved, they are called by name, they are intimately familiar with the one who is leading them to safety by night and sustenance by day. They have been sought out. Notice that this shepherd walks ahead of the sheep, not behind where one might expect a shepherd to use that infamous crook to prod the sheep on. The crook is not to harm them, but to make space for them in which they are safe.
They are called by name.
They have been called by name.
For they know the voice that calls to them.
Friends, as we go about our ministries this week, let us remember that the shepherd who calls his sheep by name does so with kindness and gentleness, saving the harshness to use on correcting those who would harm them, the robbers and bandits, the false shepherds. The true shepherd who is the way to protection and sustenance calls the sheep by name.
Perhaps you will be in a place this week where you will have the opportunity to use someone’s chosen name, even if you formerly knew them by their previous name. Perhaps you will have the opportunity to stumble through the awkwardness of learning to pronounce an immigrant's name. Perhaps you will have the opportunity to, with kindness, use someone’s chosen pronouns.
When you do any of these things - think of Christ the Shepherd whose love and calling his sheep by name was the protection and kindness they needed to stay alive. Let us enter by that gate.
For Christ has come that all the sheep might “have life, and have it abundantly.”