Sermon Good Shepherd Sunday 2026

The Lord is my shepherd.  Psalm 23 is a comforting and familiar prayer of praise and trust.  One that many of know by heart; it has been so beloved, it has been painted so often, used in funeral so often and been Sunday School fodder so often that I can almost see what you imagine when you hear the phrase.

The Lord is my Shepherd… it’s Jesus benign and long haired, with a shepherd’s crook and a happy little lamb across his shoulders.  Safe and secure.  Kind and Loving.  Comforting and cozy.  This is the Jesus we need at a funeral, in our grief and in our loneliness.  Jesus the Good Shepherd, lovingly tending his lambs and he certainly is that.

However, that is not the only aspect of a shepherd; “when I walk through the valley of darkness, your rod and staff comfort me.”  Remember King David, killing Goliath with a sling when he was a shepherd boy?  The rod and staff we the tools and weapons of the shepherd.  A shepherd’s crook was used to pull the sheep back from danger, to provide stability when walking over rough pasture and to fight off wolves, hyenas and Jackels.

In Jesus’ time, shepherding wasn’t a romantic metaphor. It was dangerous work, so it was also community work.  Each night sheep from several different families would be gathered into a common sheepfold.   A stone enclosure with high walls topped with thorns and brambles to keep out the predators, and a narrow door or gate guarded by the shepherd.   Each morning the shepherd would call, and the sheep would recognize their own shepherd’s voice and follow them to green pasture.  Just as described in our gospel today

“He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and they sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

“he makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters”

The sheep trust their shepherd, they trust him and knew his voice because they had built a relationship with the shepherd.  They have spent the time to get to know whose voice to follow, learning through time and experience that their Shepherd will lead them safely and well, and protect them from anything that would seek to hurt them.  Each shepherd knew each sheep and would call them uniquely, separating his flock from the others.  Each sheep knew the voice they trusted, and would follow no other.

It is interesting that many people hearing Jesus call himself “the gate for the sheep” see this as a metaphor for Jesus as gatekeeper; that this image is about who Jesus will let into heaven. This is an interesting idea because it isn’t at all what Jesus is saying.  However, we know that Jesus spoke in parables and they weren’t always clear.  Even our gospel today tells us “Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they didn’t understand.” That happens a lot.

If we look back a chapter in the gospel of John, the parable of the sheep gate came on the heels of the story of the man born blind, the man who Jesus healed and who was then called before the authorities to prove his identity and how he was healed.  If you recall they asked him again and again who had healed him and by what authority…the man born blind replied over and again “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”   And the leadership kicked him out of the synagogue, out of the community.  A lonely sheep in the sheepfold, without a flock, without a shepherd.

What happens to him next is no surprise to those of Jesus’ flock…

“Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him”

Jesus heard that the man had been alienated and sought him out.

The sheepfold of today’s gospel is not a symbol of heaven and Jesus is not a gate meant just to keep bad people out.  Rather the sheepfold is the world… a gathering of many different flocks.  Now, I don’t just mean different religion;, rather more specifically, it is full of sheep who listen to a different voice than Christ’s.  These flocks can represent religions, or those who listen to the voices of social climbing, or the voice of ‘Christ helps those who help themselves’ or even the voices that say that they have been kicked out of their flock. 

After all the sheepfold is a holding pen, to keep the sheep safe over night…amidst the darkness of the world.  The gate is not to keep the darkness or thief or wolf out, after all what wolf will knock on the door?  John tells us that the evils of the world sneak over the walls, slither in the sideways, enter by hidden means.  They are not kept out by the gate, rather the gate is that path by which the shepherd enters and calls for his sheep.  The gate is not to keep people out…rather, it is the means by which the sheep are led out to good pasture.  By the narrow way the shepherd will call and those who know his voice will follow.  “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.  … I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."

The Shepherd knows his flock and they know him…there is trust, relationship and community.  In this pastoral metaphor the world we know contains wolves, and they always go after the easy pray.  The lone sheep, the one straggler at the back of the flock, the weak, the dispossessed.  Like our blind man in the Gospel of John, kicked out of his community…alone and at risk.  He was like a sheep in a sheepfold without a flock or a shepherd.  Christ however, sought him out and called him…continuing the conversation, establishing the relationship, teaching him the voice of the Good Shepherd.  So that this man born blind, then healed, and then wounded by the very community which should have rejoiced with him, would be surrounded by the safety of a flock once more.  Saved from despair, saved from exclusion, saved from brokenness and lead to abundant life in the flock of the good shepherd.

Abundant life. I love that term, it speaks of a vastness of possibilities. It suggests a life where everyone can flourish—where bodies are fed, spirits are nourished, where communities are welcoming and hospitable, where creation and all that entails is honored.

So, when Jesus says, “I am the gate,” he doesn’t mean a locked door that keeps Christians safely apart from others, but rather an open path leading to a truly Christian community and lead by the very best of Shepherds. A path marked by radical welcome. A path that insists there is enough room, enough grace, enough love for everyone. 

            And yet, the church has to acknowledge that gates can both include and exclude and churches have often functioned as gates that keep people out—whether explicitly or subtly. That we have far too often taken on the role of the Sheperd and decided who is in and who is out.  Told so many that have been listening for Christ’s voice that they were not allowed to listen, to belong.  That they had to be our kind of sheep.

But it isn’t up to the sheep to decide who belongs in the flock.  The Good Shepherd calls and his sheep know his voice, and the rest of the flock do not get to decide.  Christ came that we all may have life and have it abundantly. Because the voice of the Good Shepherd does not call us into scarcity or restriction, it calls us into abundance. It calls us into a life where love is not scarce, where mercy is not rationed, where grace is not earned, but given freely to any who have ears to hear.

I am the good shepherd says Christ and am the gate.  It is Christ who calls us by name and Christ who leads us to abundant life.

“The Lord is my shepherd…He leads me in right paths for his name's sake. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long. “  amen