Lectionary for May 11, 2025
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23;
Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30
Have you seen those videos of sheep being corralled by three or four sheepdogs? A drone usually flies overhead so you can see the amount of control that the dogs have in moving the sheep from pen to pen or separating off a certain number from the rest of the flock. It’s truly mesmerizing and relaxing to watch. My favorite part is when the sheepdogs gather all the sheep into one, big flock.
Shepherding in ancient Southwest Asia was very different. For starters, sheepdogs were extremely atypical, though not completely unheard of, in ancient Israel. Instead, one shepherd was more likely running around the edges of her or his flock, trying to herd all the sheep together. That’s the image I see in this week’s lectionary passages: Jesus encouraging and, frankly, wrestling not-quite-willing sheep into joining the flock.
On Good Shepherd Sunday, we frequently turn to the psalm first. The image of God as a shepherd, forcing sheep to lie down in green pasture near calm waters, while watchfully protecting them with staff and rod should any predator attack is an ancient and modern comfort. But who are the sheep? And how many sheep are there? These questions are answered in the other lectionary readings.
In the passage from Acts, Peter acted quickly to resurrect a woman who died from her sickness. A hint about the changing nature of Jesus’ flock is given in her introduction. She is introduced as Tabitha, which in Aramaic means “gazelle,” but then her name is translated into Greek as well (Acts 9:36, 39, 40). The gospel had already spread to Hellenized Greeks (Acts 6:1-6), to Samaritans (Acts 8:4-24) and to Solomon’s descendants in Ethiopia (Acts 8:25-40). The dual naming of Tabitha/Dorcas in Acts 9 is meant to introduce the mission to the gentiles in Acts 10. The flock is expanding rapidly!
How do we honor the work of the Good Shepherd to include so many different kinds of sheep into one flock? What are your congregations doing to welcome newcomers, especially folks who might be different?
Jesus himself pointed out that his flock would expand. In a highly charged exchange during the Hanukkah feast, he drew a line for who is part of the flock and who is not. Jesus had been saying that he had sheep of another fold that he intended to merge into God’s flock to create one flock together with one shepherd (John 10:16).
Then at Solomon’s portico, Jesus told those who refused to recognize that the miracles he performed could only be done by the Messiah that they were not part of his flock (John 10:26). These divisive words would have hit especially hard during Hanukkah. This is a time that, after all, commemorated the ways that the sons of Mattathias of Modi’in killed both Seleucid Greeks and Jewish collaborators with their oppressors. There was such infighting in the Jewish community in the following hundred years that eventually Rome stepped in to stop the civil war. It’s not surprising at all that Jesus, in rhetorically dispossessing from Israel some Jews who had come to the temple to mark independence, was almost stoned. Nevertheless, Jesus maintained that he had other sheep to add to the flock.
Finally, in Revelation 7, we see the fruit of Jesus adding other sheep to the flock. A great multitude of every nation, tribe, people group and language stood before the throne, with palm branches in their hands, praising God in their own language. The “Great Multitude” is meant to remind the careful reader that, as far back as the Exodus from Egypt, God’s salvific mission included sheep from every flock. A mixed multitude left Egypt with the Israelites (Exodus 12:38), and God spoke in multiple languages at Mount Sinai (Exodus 20:18). God’s flock and mission have always included sheep from various pastures.
Whether making sheep lie down to eat, drink and rest or simply gathering all the sheep together into one flock, Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. But how do we honor the work of the Good Shepherd to include so many different kinds of sheep into one flock? What are your congregations doing to welcome newcomers, especially folks who might be different? As the old saying goes, “You’ll never meet someone for whom Christ didn’t die.” How are we welcoming folks who are different kinds of sheep into the one flock of the one shepherd?
