"Sheep's Ears" (Fourth Sunday of Easter)

John 10:22-30

22 At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." 25 Jesus answered, "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; 26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. 30 The Father and I are one."

            Any of you have one of those friends who is really into a television show? You know the type: it’s all they talk about; it’s all they read about; they seem to be all but consumed by the show, its characters, and its plot. They are absolutely obsessed with the show, and since they’re your friend and they want to share this most wonderful thing in their life with you, they really want you to watch the show too. So, being the good friend you are, you decide one week that you’re going to check out this life-changing piece of television art for yourself (secretly praying it doesn’t consume you and turn you into someone who endlessly obsesses about an hour-long cable drama). You sit down on your couch, maybe you’ve popped some popcorn, got yourself a tall glass of something cold to drink, turn on the TV, and prepare yourself for what’s coming. It quickly becomes obvious, however, that you’re lost: You don’t know who any of these people are, why you should care about what they are doing, and most of the names, places, and events that unfold make absolutely no sense to you because (unlike your obsessing friend) you haven’t seen the first three seasons, read the fan blogs, or poured over the original source material (whether it’s comic books, novels, etc.). Your experience of the show and its narrative are limited because you lack the context of what’s going on. Sure you get the gist and the overall premise isn’t lost on you, but as for the details, those small things that actually contribute a great deal to understanding what’s really going on, you’re completely lost.

            I think this can happen to us when we read Scripture too. We can know the gist of the narrative—maybe we’ve even read it more than once before, but there are details, those small things that actually contribute a great deal to understanding what’s really going on. Sometimes these details are subtle, more like literary “winks” written into the text as a sort of nod to the original audience. These sorts of details may seem unimportant to us, yet they would have jumped off the page to those who first read or heard the words. There are times when these sorts of details may not affect our understanding of the text a great deal, times when these details may only serve to reinforce what we already know and believe the text to be communicating to us, but then there are those times when those small bits can add a facet of understanding to the text that causes us to read the text again, to listen with new, different ears. I believe there are a few of those sorts of bits that speak to us in the text before us this morning, so let us listen to them with new, different ears.

            Right away, in our text this morning, we are told, “At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.” Seems like some harmless exposition, some scene-setting, but I wonder how many of you know what the festival of the Dedication is, or where the portico of Solomon is located in Herod’s Temple, or if there’s any real importance in reminding the reader that “it was winter.” It may help to give us a little context.

The festival of the Dedication is what we actually know today as Hanukkah, a festival that celebrates the victory of Judas Maccabeus over the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who had desecrated the altar of the temple for three years by erecting a statue of the god Zeus in the Most Holy Place (this is actually the “abomination that desolates” mentioned in the book of Daniel). Judas and the Maccabees overthrew Antiochus, cleansed the temple, and rededicated its altar for the worship of the God of Israel. The festival of the Dedication, unlike other festivals, could be observed at home, without a pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. It was observed with the lighting of candles, a celebration recalling the victory of one of Israel’s own over the Gentile oppressors, a festival that celebrated the power and might of one “messiah” who had proven triumphant over the heathen Gentiles and their desecration of the temple. While it may not have been one of the major festivals of the day, the festival of the Dedication surely would have had people talking about the Messiah, the Gentile, Roman oppressors, and the need for a revolt in order to purge Jerusalem and the Temple of the Gentiles’ presence.

I don’t doubt that with such talk, with such imagery in the hearts and minds of the people, there may have been questions, murmuring about this Jesus of Nazareth possibly gathering up a movement to, like Judas “the Hammer” before him, overtake the Romans and reinstate some sort of Jewish government over the city of Jerusalem, if not over all of Judea. I suppose that’s why “the Jews gathered around him…said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’"

Here again, though, there’s a bit of context we’re lacking. You see, at first reading, “the Jews” (the fourth gospel’s designation of those Jewish leaders in opposition to Jesus and his movement) seem anxious, almost wanting Jesus to surprise them and claim to be the Messiah. “How long will you keep us in suspense?” It sounds like they’re on the edge of their seats, on the verge of either believing and following Jesus or throwing him and his whole ideology out of town in order to make way for whoever is next in line to call himself “messiah.” Here’s the thing though, what these people literally say is “How long are you going to keep taking away our life?” Now, that sounds a lot different than “How long will you keep us in suspense?” doesn’t it? Even still, those words may not mean exactly what we might think they mean. You see, “How long are you going to keep taking away our life?” is an idiom, an expression that has a more colloquial meaning, and in this case it is better understood as “How long are you going to keep annoying or irritating us?” So the question in verse 24 is perhaps better understood as something like “"How long will you keep annoying us? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly. Stop speaking in riddles and avoiding our questions."

These Jewish leaders are annoyed, irritated with Jesus. He refuses to answer their questions directly, refuses to fess up to whether or not he’s the Messiah. Perhaps Jesus just likes messing with them, likes to keep them on their toes, but judging by his response to them in verses 25 through 30, Jesus has already answered their question: "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one." “I’ve already told you,” Jesus says, but like the cold, winter air just outside the protective walls of Solomon’s portico, their understanding of Jesus is cold, frigid with the unmovable expectations of those who already have it figured out, those who already believe they know who and what the Messiah is supposed to be. Jesus has already told them the answer to their question, but they can’t hear because they have the ears of those who’ve already decided what God’s Anointed One is supposed to do, who the Messiah is supposed to be. They are like those folks today who ask for your opinion—not so they may learn from your perspective or genuinely learn more about you and what you stand for, but so they can decide whether you agree with them or not and whether they like you or not.

“The Jews” had the image of one like Judas Maccabeus, one with a name like “the Hammer” who would rise up as a powerful, nationalistic, political hero, one who would storm the palaces of the Romans waving the flag of his people in one hand, while wielding a terrible, swift sword in the other. Perhaps they had in mind a messiah who would make it worthwhile to be a part of the Jewish elite, part of the upper-crust of the Israelite establishment, one who would fully reinstate the temple cult and its practices that favored those who could make the journey to Jerusalem, those who could afford the sacrifices. For these Jewish leaders, Jesus’s works spoke less of a messiah and more of a social worker, one who spent time with the poor, the needy, the sick, the outcast.

Sure, he had performed some signs of power and wonder—miracles like feeding thousands of people, healing the sick, giving site to the blind, even raising the dead, but had any of those actions actually driven out a single Roman authority? Had Jesus’ actions actually benefitted the nation as a whole? What about the temple? What about national pride and a desire to be governed by their own people? Jesus hadn’t done anything to bring anything like that about. In fact, it seemed (upon further inspection) that the crowds that were following Jesus were filled with the type of folks who were the last ones you’d want leading a revolution: fishermen, tax collectors, lepers, the formerly-demon-possessed, women, children, gentiles, Samaritans, prostitutes, the homeless, the blind, the lame, the crazy, the strung out, the hopeless, addicts, Roman soldiers, the poor—all of the wrong kinds of folks it takes to get a movement going, all the wrong kinds of people it takes to start a revolution, all the wrong kind of people period!

No wonder these Jewish leaders are annoyed! There’s all the hype, all this talk about Jesus being the Messiah, and he can’t even put together a decent following of decent people. They’re frustrated, annoyed, because Jesus won’t answer them directly, but the truth is Jesus has answered them loud and clear, they just don’t like the response they got from him, so they refuse to take it seriously, to listen to it with ears tuned to the voice of the Good Shepherd.

Aren’t we like that sometimes? Don’t we have our expectations of what Jesus should do, of who Jesus should be? Don’t we bring our own certainties to the table when it comes to defining who Jesus is? We’ve read the Scriptures. We’ve heard the prophecies. We’ve listened to the preachers tell us about the “sweet bye and bye” and the Christ who has promised us health, wealth, and prosperity. We’ve got our own expectation of a Jesus who likes what we like, despises what we despise, a Christ who sees things our way, who speaks our language, and meets our needs. But isn’t it annoying when Jesus doesn’t meet those expectations? Isn’t it frustrating when Jesus proves to be more than the image we’ve carved out for him, more than the box we’ve tried to keep him in?

When we listen to the words of Jesus found in Scripture, when we listen for the words of Jesus from the Holy Spirit, when we listen to his words with our own ears—ears tuned for happy platitudes, self-serving theological arguments and proof-texts—I’m afraid, more often than not, we wind up like “the Jews” of our text this morning: at best, “in suspense,” but mostly frustrated and annoyed because Jesus isn’t fitting into our plans, our picture of what a Savior is supposed to be. However, when we listen with the ears of sheep listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd, we cannot help but hear the very heart of God! When we listen with ears tuned for the kingdom—a kingdom made up of all of the wrong kinds of folks it takes to get a movement going, all the wrong kinds of people it takes to start a revolution, all the wrong kind of people period—when we listen with those kinds of ears, we are sure to hear the Good News that has made a way where there once was no way for any of us.

That’s not to say there won’t be times along the way when we won’t get annoyed, irritated, or frustrated by words of Christ, the truth of the gospel. After all, Jesus’ words are for everybody, the gospel is for everybody, and let’s face it—we don’t like everybody! We may not want other sheep following our shepherd, listening to his voice, getting in on all the grace going around, but the truth is there is a wideness to the love and grace of Christ that is beyond our expectations, beyond even our comprehension. That’s why we can listen in the first place. That’s why we know the Savior’s voice in the first place, because in spite of our stubbornness, in spite of our expectations and desires for a custom-made Christ, God still gives us grace. The voice of Christ still calls to us with words of love. May we listen to his call—not with ears searching for what we want, but with the ears of sheep who belong to the Good Shepherd. May we listen to the savior’s voice and follow him, wherever and with whomever he may call us. Amen.