What Sheep Know

John 10:1-10

Let’s talk about sheep, shall we?

It’s Sheep Sunday today – not a holiday you’re going to find on your average wall calendar (or smartphone app), but it comes around every year in the church, a few Sundays after Easter.

So let’s do a little word association: What comes to mind when you think about sheep?

How about “good listeners”?  Is that something you think about when someone talks about sheep?

It’s what Jesus thinks about sheep, it turns out.Did you hear him just now?

…the sheep hear [the shepherd’s] voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out…he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.

The thing about sheep – according to Jesus today – is that they know where they belong because they listen. Listen for the right voice, the voice they know.

There’s an intimacy to knowing a voice, even if it’s lost a bit in the age of almost universal CallerID. To know the voice on the other end of the line so well it can start in the middle of the conversation without any need of introduction. To recognize a voice when you are in the midst of stress, a voice you’ll respond to when you’re drowning, or half-asleep, or out of sight and mind.

That knowing – that recognition powerful enough to penetrate panic, or distraction, or any other fog and noise – comes from time spent together, time listening to one another, and from deep emotional connections – not universally happy feelings, but powerful.

It comes from love.

Whose voice do you know that way?
Whose voice do you hear often, that’s so familiar that you don’t even think about it?

Family members? maybe some co-workers? Maybe a particular voice on TV or the radio…

Sometimes those voices get so familiar that they fade to white noise, or we stop listening. (Your mother may have had something to say about that.)

That happens to us, sometimes, with the voice of God.

When the Bible all sort of starts to sound the same… and you can’t remember offhand without looking at your insert what the first lesson said this morning.

Or the Golden Rule or the Lord’s Prayer or the 23^rd Psalm or the words of the Eucharist don’t feel fresh, or relevant, or about what matters in life right now.

It happens, even with well-loved voices.

And probably, on some level, that’s how the sheep hear and know the voice of their shepherd. It’s a voice that’s familiar, comfortable, safe enough, that it provides a reassurance or guidepost you don’t have to think about too much, like making the turn into your own driveway after 20 years of living in the same place.

We need that familiarity with God’s voice: the kind of familiarity that we can follow when we’re not really paying attention. We get that familiarity from time and repetition, by reading the Bible, coming to church, to Sunday School (as student or teacher), by praying the prayers, over and over and over, and as we get that familiar with God’s voice, what we really need to hear will pop out of the familiarity, from time to time – if we keep showing up.

But that’s not the only way we need to know a voice.

Think now about whose voice would stop you in your tracks.

Whose voice do you think you would hear, in a coma, in your dreams?
Whose voice would you respond to, would call you back to yourself, in the middle of a panic?

It might be some of the same voices who other times are part of our white noise. It might be someone different for you.

But these voices – a voice you’d respond to in a coma, in the middle of drowning, or in the middle of your most intense work or play – these voices mark our deepest trust and love. And that is definitely what Jesus means about the sheep knowing the shepherd’s voice.

We get familiar with a voice by time and repetition, but we only get that trust from actually trusting; by risking trust when you don’t have to yet: By walking for the first time because your father believes you can; riding the bike without training wheels because you trusted your mother to let go. By trusting your 16 year old kid to drive their little sibling to practice; or letting your 60 year old kid make decisions for you you wouldn’t have made yourself.

We get that trust in God by packing up and moving to a new job far away, or in a new field, by taking Jesus literally about loving our neighbors when we don’t like our neighbors, forgiving when there is more to be gained by holding out for retribution, by going on out and making disciples when people might laugh at us, or be uncomfortable with your passion.

We get that trust from trusting, and from love. From loving so much that you’ll do anything for your beloved, and from knowing yourself loved that much.

That’s what the sheep know: trust and belovedness.

That is how we know the voice we follow.

Some of us happen to hear the voice of God in words, words that apply to our immediate situation: “Choose this one. Stay here. Now! Not yet. Go to Galilee….”
Some of us don’t.

Others hear the voice of God by the movement of our hearts – when joy or sympathy or sorrow or hope pull you to certain people, new ideas and big dreams, or to action.

Others don’t.

Some hear the voice of God clearly in the words of the Bible, in the actions of the sacraments,

in the voice of a loved one, or by experiencing answered prayer.

And some of us don’t know for sure how we hear God’s voice,

but I promise you, you do.

You do, because the voice of God is love.

Think about what it feels like when you know that you are loved.

Whether it’s in rare shining moments, or long, quiet, barely noticeable assurance, that knowing that you are loved is what Jesus wants us to notice about sheep and the good shepherd today.

We practice that feeling – or we are meant to – at the altar, at communion, where the shepherd feeds us. We are called to practice being beloved among our families and dear friends. We practice being beloved by God, and returning and sharing that love, because that practice is how we listen to God.

So pay attention to your belovedness.

Stay tuned to that voice. Spend time with it.

Listen. Love. Be loved.

Because that is how God saves us; how Jesus gives abundant life.

That is how the good shepherd is known, in the world, and among us.

The shepherd is known to everyone by the sheep who follow that voice: to pasture, and out of danger, through love, and to abundant life.