Text study on John 10:1-10
Lectionary text for May 15, 2011
Jesus as the Good Shepherd is a well-known image of Christ. Our shepherd leads, corrects and encourages us to eternal life and salvation. Our shepherd carries us through the misfortune of being lost, despair, despondency and betrayal. Jesus is our Good Shepherd.
Our society, on the other hand, has two great shepherds: our human passions and our self-centeredness. Passions tell us that if it feels good to you, it is OK — and God will bless you. Self-centeredness claims that everything is colored by the glasses which you wear.
A young teenager once came to me in tears. She told me, “I hate my parents. This is my body and I can do with my body whatever I want.” I asked her to explain more.
She wanted to get a navel ring and her parents said no. She was angry. I listened to her and then asked her if her eyes looked like her father’s or mother’s eyes. She said, “My mother’s — they are big and bright.”
I asked, “How tall are you?” She replied, “I am tall like my father.” I asked again, “What about your teeth?” She laughed. “They are my mother’s teeth.”
I said, “If your teeth, height and eyes come from your parents, they are gifts given to you. Don’t you think that they have a say when you are under their roof?” She smiled. We prayed and she left.
When she came back a grown woman with a baby to be baptized, I could not help myself. I asked, “When is the baby getting a navel ring?” She laughed and said, “Not in this lifetime.”
Our minds, rational and emotional, get clouded by passions and we create our own logic. We become our own shepherds when our passions and our self-obsession dictate our actions and behaviors. In the language of John’s Gospel, the thief is whatever (or whoever) we allow to steal us away from the Good Shepherd.
As a community of faith trying to celebrate and encourage one another biblically, is our leading principle to listen to the Scriptures or to impose whatever is already in our minds?
We cannot interpret this passage to say that Jesus is a Good Shepherd if we mean only “For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny.”
Rather, this passage reminds us that the gospel destroys the paradigms created by relativism and our passions. The proclamation of God’s law and commandments are a sign of a caring Creator who leads us to living water — when we allow ourselves to be led.
Antonio Cabello is a mission developer who is pastor at Iglesia San Esteban Martír, an ELCA congregation in Carpentersville, Ill. He is originally from Venezuela.
I wish I could say this more tactfully, but the theology here is terribly confused, most clearly in the last paragraph. First of all, the Gospel does not destroy. The Gospel is God's promise of mercy to sinners on account of Jesus' death and resurrection, and is a new creation God works in sinners. Destruction is about the exact opposite of what the Gospel is. Second of all, the proclamation of God's law and commandments does not "lead us to living water when we allow ourselves to be led". God's Law performs two tasks: structuring society/restraining evil and convicting people of their sin. We don't have a choice in our participation under God's Law-- His Law is done whether we like it or not, and that tends to end poorly for us, since we are all sinners. The "living water" is God's Gospel promise, NOT God's Law. Proclamation of the Law does not bring life-- it brings death, specifically in the "you've been measured and fall up short". In fact, the last paragraph would be much better if it read:
"Rather, this passage reminds us that the law destroys paradigms created by relativism and our passions. The proclamation of the Gospel is that the Good Shepherd has found you and returned you to the flock, even though it cost His life. You are free to live this Good News and bring living water to all who thirst."
Martin Luther wrote about three uses for the Law. Perhaps the writer of this article is giving us his understanding of Luther's Third Use of the Law. Is not the work of the "caring Creator" to keep our lives from going off the deep end and to prepare our hearts for ultimate solutions which only God was provide?
Peter, I am glad that you are confused about the theology in the article. It is not supposed to be easy. Martin Luther in his interpretation of the psalm said that psalm 23 is about the third commandment, he is right; it is about the Word, it is about “gladly hear and learn it”; it is about “we should fear and love God”. He also state that this psalm 23, it is about the second petition “Thy kingdom come”. How is the Kingdom of God coming or not ?
How many sermons are we going to hear saying only He is a Good Shepherd, when we mean is “For He’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow which nobody can deny”. Your interpretation, how can I say this tactfully, it is so fill of this domestication of God, it is almost cheap Grace in Words of other lutheran. Your interpretation of Psalm 23, it does not relate to the image of the Sheperd-King-Melek, also present in the Gospel. For Martin Luther, this psalm is how God shows "the wright way". Third use of the Law seen to be at least one of the aspect of this psalm. The Second, it is that only God can give us the power to do so.
Luther didn't say anything about the 3rd Use. Melancthon did, and the debate after Luther's death was supposedly settled with the Formula of Concord, Article VI. But what FC6 affirms is simply that we are sinner-saints, and that insofar as we remain in the old creation, we remain under the Law. Third Use is the first two uses of the Law all over again in the life of the Christian. The Law has nothing to say to the new creation, does not give grace, nor is God's law ever just informational (lex semper accusat). The Third Use of the Law is not Good News, nor is it predicated on the Gospel.
Preaching of the Law does not save. Period. It doesn't get you any closer to salvation, it doesn't earn you God's grace. Thinking that it does is a common temptation we have-- that we can do God's work ourselves, that we need to be wary of "cheap grace". Grace is actually a completely free gift to us-- the cost is to God and the Christ whom we killed, whom we HAD to kill. Grace comes to us in the midst of our sin and changes us forever. It's not a makeover, it's a new creation. There's no going back.
Also, Luther on "Thy kingdom come" in the Large Catechism: "What is the kingdom of God? Answer: Simply what we learned in the Creed, namely that God sent his Son, Christ our Lord, into the world to redeem and deliver us from the power of the devil and to bring us to himself and rule us as a king of righteousness, life and salvation against sin, death and an evil conscience.... All this is simply to say: 'Dear Father, we pray Thee, give us thy Word, that the Gospel may be sincerely preached throughout the world and that it may be received by faith and may work and live in us."
Note how much in Luther's passage is about what we do vs what God has done for us. Christianity is not about what we have earned by our own merit... with Paul, we confess that all we had before is to be considered rubbish. Nor is that redemption so that we can live out God's Law correctly; as Luther writes, there are two kinds of righteousness: that of the Law, and that of the Gospel.
I didn't read past the first line of this article. Jesus is not the Good Shepherd in this passage of John. He defines himself as the gate. Big difference.