Sunday Sermon - 27 April
I can’t believe it is already, once again, Good Shepherd Sunday. Last year’s Good Shepherd Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter, was on May 11, 2025 and I made it very clear to everyone how deep my lack of fondness for sheep really is (our family raised them for quite a while during my younger years when we lived on a farm north of Toronto).
It’s not that I don’t like sheep, I just found them to be so frustratingly stupid compared to all of the other barnyard animals we had. They got themselves tangled up in fences for no reason and were oblivious to what seemed to come so easily to the other animals. So whenever the Bible refers to Christ’s followers as sheep or whenever Jesus refers to his followers, like me, as sheep I get a little offended. I kind of take it as an insult, like Jesus is calling me stupid. Maybe he’s not wrong but, whatever, let’s just leave my personal roadblocks aside for now.
The Bible can be a complex enigma at times. I don’t know about you, but when I’m reading scripture it feels like trying to follow a storyline with characters that keep changing roles in the middle of the plot.
In today’s readings, for example, we are told that:
Jesus is the shepherd.
We are the sheep.
Jesus is regarded as the metaphorical paschal lamb, sacrificed for us.
So, is Jesus the Shepherd or the lamb? Are we his sheep or, as is often cited in the Bible, are we called to be shepherds? It’s kind of confusing. At some point you start to wonder, “Wait—who exactly is in charge of the flock here?”
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.” Very clear. Strong. Confident. Pastorally ensuring.
But then along comes the whole Paschal imagery, resonating from the Old Testament and echoed throughout the New Testament, and then, most recently, in Holy Week Jesus has become the Lamb. The one who is sacrificed.
So now we have:
a shepherd
who is also a lamb
leading sheep
who are not the lamb
but somehow connected to the lamb
and occasionally told to act like shepherds
It’s a twisting and turning metaphor throughout scripture, and it doesn’t get any less confusing when you hold that together with the reading from the Acts of the Apostles today.
There, the early Church is living in this beautiful, harmonious way—sharing everything, eating together, praying together. It sounds like an idyllic communal life. Until you apply the metaphor. This is a group of sheep, who have apparently formed a cooperative, and are now managing their own system (if you want to continue to beat the drum that is “sheep” imagery). In this system, there is no shepherd visibly present. Just sheep, all equal, making very good financial and spiritual decisions. Growing the flock. Doing God’s good work.
Then we turn to the reading from Peter’s first letter where Peter says:
“You were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”
Which is comforting—until you remember that sheep are not that bright. They are famous for not having navigational skills.
Sheep don’t intentionally go on a brief spiritual detour. Sheep wander off, get stuck in bushes and fences, and cannot untangle themselves from these obstacles they’ve blindly gotten themselves into.
So now, with this collection of readings, the picture is:
we are wandering sheep
Jesus is the shepherd
but also the lamb
and somehow the early Church is functioning like a well-organized flock without need of constant supervision
You can’t help but begin to think, “Is this supposed to make sense?”
And let’s not leave out the 23rd Psalm, that beloved piece of scripture, and things start to feel slightly different.
“The Lord is my shepherd…” Beautiful.
“I shall not want…” Encouraging.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures…” Comforting, because sheep only lie down when they feel safe from predators. They are, because of their lack of ability to self-preserve, incredibly vulnerable.
The metaphors throughout scripture of lamb, sheep and shepherd can be confusing. Images overlap. Roles blur. Metaphors collide. But maybe that’s not a problem to solve—maybe it’s a truth to live by. The reality is this: throughout our lives, we are all three.
There are times when we are indeed lambs—called, like Christ, to give of ourselves in humble, sacrificial love. Not in grand, dramatic gestures most of the time, but in the quiet, daily offering of patience, kindness, forgiveness. Laying down a piece of ourselves for the sake of another.
There are times when we are sheep—tangled up in the messiness of life. Caught in situations we didn’t intend, or perhaps did, and now can’t seem to get out of. Confused. Stuck. Bleating a little louder than we’d like to admit, hoping someone—a shepherd of God—will come and find us and lead us out.
And there are times when we are called to be shepherds—guiding, protecting, caring for others who are walking through the valleys of their lives. Offering a steady presence. Helping someone else find their footing when the path gets dark.
All of it is true. All at the same time. And yes—it can be hard to make sense of. But isn’t that life?
As I was writing this sermon I was reminded of Father Gregory Boyle’s book, Tattoos on the Heart. This is the same person (different book) that Bishop Riscylla spoke of when she visited last year. Father Gregory is a Jesuit priest in Los Angeles who has spent decades working with gang members—young men and women who have been caught, quite literally, in cycles of violence, poverty, and despair.
He founded Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world. If you read his books, Tattoos on the Heart or Barking to the Choir, you begin to see this shepherding in action but not in some neat, tidy, success-story kind of way.
Sometimes he loses members of his “flock.” Sometimes, despite everything, they fall back into old patterns. Sometimes they die. Yet, he keeps showing up. He keeps loving. He keeps walking with them. A common theme or thread from his many anecdotes in the book is that we are all just trying to find our way home.
That’s it, isn’t it?
Not the shepherd standing above the sheep in perfect control, but someone walking among them, knowing that he, too, is in need of grace. Because here’s his living truth: even as he shepherds others, he himself is being transformed, learning, changing, growing. He is not just saving others—he is being saved in the very act of loving them. He is both shepherd and sheep, serving and being served. This is the paradox of life as a Christian.
Life doesn’t always line up neatly. It doesn’t always follow a clean, logical script. And neither does faith. Yet in the midst of it all, we are given our place—to love, to serve, to walk with one another. Sometimes we lead. Sometimes we follow. Sometimes we simply cry out for help.
I’ll admit—I can still get caught up in the fact that sheep aren’t exactly the brightest of creatures. And sometimes I am very sheep-like. I do things, say things, wander into situations that leave me wondering how on earth I got myself so tangled up. I am guessing that you might be able to relate to that as well.
Thank God for the shepherds in our lives—the people who walk with us, guide us, and help lead us through those “valleys of darkness" when we can’t quite find our way home. But most of all, thanks be to God for the Good Shepherd—the one who is also the Lamb—who knows us, seeks us out, calls us by name, and never stops leading us homeward through the dark.
Maybe Scripture doesn’t always make perfect, tidy sense, just like life, but in its strange and beautiful overlapping images it tells us something deeply true - that wherever we find ourselves, however we find ourselves: as lamb, as sheep, or as shepherd, we are never outside the reach of God’s loving grace made known to us in Jesus our Christ.
Amen.