John and a Mixed Metaphor Jesus

May 7, 2017

Cate Thorn

Easter 4     Acts 2:42-47     John 10:1-10 

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Ok, I own it, this gospel has got me stumped. Around and around I’ve read and sought to discern something from it, paused and prayed, allowed daily life and experiences to flow through the passage, through me to see what might arise in response to this gospel. And nothing, well in fairness lots of things but disparate threads and scraps of thought that never seem to quite coalesce. It bothered me, my ego demanded of me that I at least had something vaguely cogent to share with you. As the week progressed, feeling a little alarmed by this, it suddenly struck me, maybe not knowing was my response. Maybe sharing the various threads and scraps of response arising in me after spending some time with the gospel would be sufficient and so this is what I bring today. Along the way, as I sought the shared wisdom of others far more erudite than myself, I felt some relief to discover some of them also saying they weren’t sure quite what the author of the text was having Jesus say. 

Today’s gospel passage from John has many a mixed metaphor, or a figure of speech, as the text translates it. We’ve a sheepfold, with a gatekeeper who lets a shepherd for the shepherd to bring out his sheep. The sheep know the shepherd for they recognise both his voice and their name called. The shepherd leads them out from the sheepfold and his sheep follow. Thieves and bandits can get into the sheepfold but not via the gate. This is the figure of speech, the metaphor part – apparently no one listening understands what Jesus is talking about so the author of John has Jesus interpret – “I am the gate,” Jesus says. What!!?? I didn’t seeing that one coming, not once but twice Jesus states, “I am the gate” so we know it wasn’t a mistake. Ok, so Jesus is now the gate, even so the sheep only listen to the one who calls them, are saved, come in and go out, find pasture and have life abundantly, they’re not stolen, killed and destroyed by thieves and bandits. 

It seems rather as if the author of today’s snippet of scripture got very excited and decided to throw in a whole bunch of pastoral images associated with divine care from scripture, as if to see what would happen. For, should this passage have continued, we have Jesus declare “I am the good shepherd” but let’s not go there today. 

I recognise such passage is metaphorical, I’m not intending to try and figure this out in literal sense. However, in the figure of speech part of the reading, the bit before Jesus clarifies what he is saying by confusingly interpreting what he means, I would have thought Jesus was pointing to himself as the shepherd, the one admitted to the sheepfold by the gatekeeper (let’s not go there). The one who goes into the sheepfold, whose voice the sheep hear when the shepherd calls his own sheep by name. The one who leads his sheep out, the one who, when “all his own,” are brought out, goes ahead of them and the sheep follow because they know his voice. Interestingly the following sheep go out, that’s all. They leave the sheepfold and follow, who knows where? 

Wow, we could have fun with this, especially if we approached it with the intention to exclude, to claim privilege or status of divine stature and approval. Sure we’re told this is a figure of speech but what fun’s been had over the years by those who’ve aligned themselves as Jesus followers! Just take the image of sheepfold, for example, do you find popping into your head the idea of ‘church’ or ‘Christianity’ or some manner of concrete entity that is place of segregating identity? Perhaps as a place or space that keeps people safe, together, away from all manner of threatening nasty beasties? This isn’t to judge such thought as right or wrong, simply to indicate how we’ve been shaped to hear or think. Sheepfold does conjure images of a safe enclosed resting place for sheep (or other herded flock) to protect them from marauding dangers in the wilds – that is true. Such image is useful to portray a protective place of refuge or sanctuary in this figure of speech context. However, to be equally useful outside of such metaphorical context requires an ‘other than literal’ translation. It’s also interesting to note that thieves and bandits appear to be an ever present danger to the sheep when they’re in the sheepfold. 

If we were to interpret that the shepherd is Jesus, he enters through the gate, calls his own sheep who respond to his voice and their name. These sheep are called from, to follow Jesus from the relative safety of the sheepfold. We hear in our translation the phrase “When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them.” Literally translated the Greek more accurately reads, “When he may drive his own out, he goes before them.” The Greek verb used ‘to drive out’ (literally ‘to throw out’) often has the sense of violence or coercion – like John 2:15 when Jesus drives out the sheep and oxen and the persons selling in the temple. In this case the shepherd ‘drives out’ the sheep, but by going before them and calling them and they hear his voice and follow. It quite changes the sentiment of calling from gently following a shepherd’s lead to being impelled to journey away from place of comfort and safety. 

That the shepherd goes into the sheepfold and calls his own sheep by name and that those sheep follow because they know his voice, suggests there are other sheep in the fold – this sheepfold isn’t an exclusive joint. What’s more a little later in this same chapter of John we hear Jesus speak of having different sheep in different folds. So, yes, what we hear is that some hear Jesus’ voice and follow him and some don’t – that’s all we hear. We can decide to interpret this to mean we’ve had a sense of being called by name and we know others who speak of their sense of responding to their name being called – all well and good. The invitation to then judge and exclude others who seem not to have responded to Jesus’ call – that’s something else entirely. 

So now we transition to the second part of today’s text when the author of John’s gospel helpfully (or otherwise) has Jesus explain this figure of speech. Apparently it is plain to see this figure of speech illustrates that Jesus is the gate for the sheep, (by) or through whom the sheep come in and go out and find pasture (now we know where they’re going!). Immediately, I imagine, we hear the interpretation of this text narrow. Not necessarily because of what is before us, these words of John’s gospel, but perhaps because of other scriptural passages suggesting few will enter the narrow door, pass through the eye of the needle, or John’s later words that Jesus is the way the truth and the life – texts that have been so thoroughly misused. 

How might we understand the role of the gate? However we interpret a sheepfold, I think it’s fair to say it’s a place we come and go from. A gate is a place of transition, with purpose to provide an access way, those who pass through are noticed, a gate enables coming and going. A gate signals, identifies there is a place or space to come to and go from, unlike a wall that’s fixed, movability is the function of a gate, to enable flow. Given the tendency to want to get a fix on Jesus, perhaps utilise him to filter the acceptability or otherwise of those other to us, such image of gate as enabling and allowing flow, flexibility of function and purpose is curious. 

Even though in this explanation of the figure of speech Jesus is gate somehow the sheep still listen to the voice that calls them for, “All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them.” In the interpretation we also discover where the sheep go out to – pasture, sustenance is found outside the sheepfold. The text does say that those who enter by the gate (Jesus) will be saved (commentators confirm, this isn’t about eternal life this is saved from the thieves and bandits, by the way), the sheep who enter through the gate will come in and go out and find pasture … will have life and have it abundantly. It doesn’t say no one else will come to and go from the sheepfold. 

Mixed metaphors, fluidity of meanings, possibilities of understandings, the challenge of getting a fix from which to present and argument, a way to interpret or understand this text has flummoxed me this week. Snippets and fragments of wondering is all that has occurred with no way to wrestle them into some cogent form. Maybe that is a learning, we’re forever trying to wrestle God to ground, to lay our hands on divine purpose and meaning so we can tout it as a the meaning, the knowing, the wisdom for this place and time. It is uncomfortable to abide with an elusive, ever revealing, ever morphing God who reveals and conceals in equal measure. For it rather pushes us to depend on relational flow, which may require we spend a bit of time in relationship, developing our relationship to strengthen our bonds of understanding and trust. It would be far easier to be certain and concrete and told what to do.