What are we working for?
Our text this morning tells us about Jesus the Good Shepherd and also a little about our accountabilities at work. This being Labor Sunday, the text is appropriate. Jesus calls himself as a servant, a worker serving His Father as a Good shepherd. To him is entrusted the salvation and welfare of the sheep in many sheepfolds, which he aims to lead and gather into the household of God. Jesus is a worker who takes care of the sheep knowing each sheep individually. He provides food, shelter, water, and care. Psalm 23 is the classic rendition of the Good shepherd. “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters…yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me…”KJV
The good shepherd is skilled in leadership and communication. The sheep know him by the sound of his voice and by the touch of his staff. But Jesus also points out there are shepherds who are really thieves and robbers. There are hirelings (subcontracted shepherds) who run away when wolves come. He differs from them, in that he gives his life for them, while the hirelings run away and steal. This is because they work for pay (verse 13) and have no concern for the sheep.
Let me propose 3 applications for us:
1. The Lord is our shepherd we shall not want
The picture of gentle sheep contented with their leader, grazing lazily in the grass, lying down beside a pure stream is so difficult to conjure in our country today. I am sure there are contented sheep who have found their perfect place of employment, (often greener pastures abroad) where they hope to work and contribute their utmost until retirement. There are contented sheep in Silliman too I am sure. There are those who have realized Jesus words “I came that they may have life and life in abundance.” John 10:10.
But somehow TV news footages in May jar our sense of reality as workers march in the streets and demand higher wages in Cebu, Manila and Davao. We see footages of thousands of workers in England and the US charging into police out of frustration for jobs lost in the global recession. We see footages of Job Fairs and thousands of people pushing to get inside, demanding to be interviewed by labor recruiters, many for jobs abroad. An academician talked on TV about job mismatches. Colleges are not preparing for the kind of workers they need. Many college graduates need to be retrained, they said.
Except for a few, the majority of Filipinos cannot truly say, I shall not want, can they? They can say “The Lord is my Shepherd”. Full stop. They cannot say “I shall not want.” Because they want a job; They want a higher salary; they want a good working environment. They want safe and clean water; a clean environment?
How do we reconcile this statement? “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”? We are a Christian country, but why do we want so much? Is it our shepherd’s fault? Or should we understand this to mean, abundance is a reality that refers only to life eternal? I think we need to postpone deciding on those until we get to the next point.
2. Second point, We are shepherds of other sheep V16
Our text says that Jesus has his flock taken cared of. But in v 16, Jesus says “I have other sheep who do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. John is telling us that Jesus is the good shepherd, who loves us, and gives up his life for our sake. He gives us a full life, a life with meaning, a joyous life in union with Him. The amount of gifts and possibilities given to us are truly enormous.
But material abundance is not everything. Love is everything. Sharing is everything. Abundance therefore refers to a full life of love and sharing in the here and now, as well as in the life afterwards. Remember the rich man who gave morsels to Lazarus? He was not abundant. He was poor in spirit.
Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, our Good shepherd. He desires abundant life for us. But abundance is not an individual achievement. It is given in relation to the command to love the neighbor.
In history the believers lived in abundance, even in times of persecution and want. Acts 2:42 ff tells us, the believers “devoted themselves to the teachings of the apostles, and to a common life, to the breaking of the bread, to prayer. And awe came upon everyone, and many wonders were done through the disciples. All who believed were together, and had all things in common.” There was Shalom, union with God, peace, nothing missing, nothing broken.
The community of faith became abundant in love as shepherded by the apostles. They shepherded one another. How well we have shepherded each other will reveal how abundant we have become?
3. We need to deal with wolves and thieves (v 
One of the things I have learned in Silliman is the way we handle external and internal enemies. You must have heard of the Exodus and the way some people are trying to say, Silliman grabbed their lands. And this problem is not yet going away. We do have enemies. How do we deal with them? We deal with them in a redemptive way. We have talked to them, given them opportunities for scholarships, acknowledged the contributions of their ancestors to the mission of the university, recognize their needs, given service to their communities, but never by surrendering the truth and the mission.
We also have to consider that sometimes, we are our worst enemies. We forget that we are called to be shepherds. We are content to be tended like sheep. We idealize the sheep. We simply receive blessings but do not give out blessings. That is not abundance. In fact, we are the Body of Christ. We are the body of shepherds. Sometimes we never graduate from being the sheep. And being selfish, sometimes we graduate to become the wolves and the thieves ourselves.
There are stories of priests devouring their members and vice versa. We have hearts that are capable of being cruel, deceptive, manipulative, greedy, and selfish. These things cloud our judgment and hearing of what God wants and demands from us. Sometimes we are tempted to say, “I don’t care what happens, I’m going to….do what.? We do things that will make us happy, make us feel good, make us have a good time. We may aspire for the good life. But we can never have the good life without the truth and the mission.
And so to the question for today, what are we working for, who are we working for? We answer: Jesus Christ is our Good Shepherd. We are working to be shepherds of the flock of this generation, so that they may have abundant life. But abundant life must not be achieved by surrendering the truth and the mission. In fact, we can only shepherd by upholding the way, the truth and the life. This is why we are here. This is our mission. So help us God.
(Sermon delivered in Silliman Church May 3, 2009)
