I am excited to have two chaplain residents joining my department from Slovakia this August, Dasa and Klara, both graduating from seminary in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia very soon. I know little about Slovakia, but in my correspondence with them and in my time talking with them I have been impressed on several levels.  I am impressed with their sense of calling, their willingness to pack up and come to the United States for a year so that they can help find their place in ministry and take back new opportunities to the peoples of Slovakia.  There are not many opportunities for women in ministry there, so I applaud their willingness to travel half a globe away to exercise and develop their gifts.  I have tried to learn a little of the Slovak language on the internet, but I will confess it is tough.  So a great big dobré ráno (good morning) to you all! So it is in that vein that I am impressed with how good their English is.  Heck, their English is better than some of my kinfolk’s English.  Because my family is probably like yours, probably speaks more “Arkansas” than English.  It is part of our Southern heritage; we have our own special language.  I will never forget in preaching lab in seminary the class picked on me because I said “jest” for “just” and “fer” for “for.”  The sad part was most of the criticism came from Texans who really mess up the language.  One blog I read this week describes this “southernese” this way:

Only a true Southerner knows the difference between a hissie fit and a conniption, or how many fish make up a mess.  A true Southerner can show or point out to you the general direction of cattywumpus. A true Southerner knows exactly how long directly is, as in “Going to town, be back directly.” Even true Southern babies know that “Gimme some sugar” is not a request for the white, granular sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl in the middle of the table. All true Southerners know exactly when “by and by” is. True Southerners know instinctively that the best gesture of solace for a neighbor who’s got trouble is a plate of hot fried chicken and a big bowl of cold tater salad. (If the trouble is a real crisis, they also know to add some hot biscuits and nanner puddin’.) True Southerners grow up knowing the difference in length between “pert’ near” and “a right far piece.” True Southerners both know and understand the differences between a redneck, a good ol’ boy. True Southerners know that fixin’ can be used as a noun, verb and adverb. No true Southerner would ever assume that the car with the flashing turn signal is actually going to make a turn.

I am sure that my new Slovakian friends will readily learn to speak “Arkansas.”  I have had one other European work for me in the department, and he was from Romania. He spoke six or seven languages but was always telling me that English is a funny language.  Certainly linguists classify English as a highly irregular language.  It is also full of idioms as most languages are. And it is full of confusing paradoxes and oxymorons. 

Now a paradox, according to Webster’s is a statement that seems to contradict itself, or seems to be false, yet it is true.  An oxymoron is a type of paradox where a name or phrase tends to contradict itself.  For example, Jumbo shrimp.  How can they be jumbo and shrimpy at the same time?  An Oxymoron. Or how about these: Plastic glasses.  What are they plastic or glass? deafening silence—that is a loud silence. Or how about almost perfect; found missing; minor crisis; seriously funny; definite maybe; freezer burn; rolling stop; congressional action; American English; bittersweet; government efficiency, or maybe athletic scholarship.    Or how about these: military intelligence; true lies; airline schedule; business ethics; alone together; cafeteria food; clearly ambiguous; deafening silence; even odds; least favorite; modern history; old news; player coach; pretty ugly; postal service; rap music; same difference; second best; religious tolerance; or one that comes to mind this time election year, honest politician.  Now thank God there are many honest politicians out there, but you understand the stereotype. While I think that these oxymorons are awfully good, I hope you won’t clearly misunderstand and believe that I suffer from Acute Dullness!!

            My friend also wants to know what pineapples have to do with pine or apples and do eggs come from an eggplant?  And why we’re at it, why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?  We play at a recital, and recite at a play.  And why do we say our noses run and our feet smell?

            On a more serious side and oxymorons notwithstanding, there are paradoxes that are common to every discipline of study.  Philosophy, science, theology all have paradoxes.  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  Can God make a mountain that he can’t move?  I am an amateur astronomer, and there are many counterintuitive paradoxes created by the theory of relativity, such as some stars may be older than the universe that birthed them– figure that one out.  Or simple word puzzlers like “This statement is false.” That is a nonsensical paradox that is not falsifiable or verifiable.  Paradoxes often confuse us and counter human reason and confound comprehension.

            I believe that one of the reasons that life is so hard at times is the fact that it is full of paradoxes, contradictions that just don’t make sense. Paradoxes that are the essence of life and these paradoxes puzzle and confuse us, and are not funny or welcome when we are weak, confused, distraught, vulnerable, or are simply searching for meaning and purpose.  Because when we are emotionally, mentally, physically or spiritually spent, we turn to logic for comfort, and we have a strong need for understanding or to make sense out of our plight. Truly we can indeed endure any how if we have a why.

            In our passage of scripture today, Christ calls himself the “Good Shepherd,” and that might be the definitive Biblical oxymoron.  In most of our thinking, a shepherd represents an idyllic lifestyle–pastoral, outdoors, carefree.  They sat around and played harps or flutes or reeds or stringed instruments.  They composed poetry like the world’s greatest poet, David.   They were respectable people.  After all, father Abraham was a shepherd.  Moses was tending sheep in Midian when he saw the burning bush.  A shepherd occasionally would get to play hero and chase off a fierce predatory animal.  It was shepherds who received the news flash of the ages when they were tending their flocks by night when all heaven broke open proclaiming Jesus birth.  It is easy to see shepherds as good.  Or is it?

            Those who have really studied the culture of the Bible would suggest that shepherds were anything but good, at least by Jesus day, and they did not have a good reputation.  It is an image we have idealized to such a point that we miss the irony of it entirely. To the Pharisees in particular, this phrase would have been an oxymoron.  There could be so such things as a “good” shepherd, because if for no other reason the very circumstances of their lifestyle. By living outdoors, following their herds for weeks at time they were completely unable to keep the cleanliness codes or the dietary laws which the Pharisees thought essential for one to be acceptable before God and in polite company. No way could a shepherd be considered “good” in any meaningful religious sense.   They also had the reputation of scoundrels, thieves, and pilferers.   There were many warnings about doing business with shepherds. Garrison Keillor described them this way a Christmas monologue a few years ago:

“They were kind of a motley bunch, those shepherds were. It was not a profession that educated people went into. It was kind of like parking lot attendants today. They were not looked on with esteem by other people. … The only ones left to be shepherds were the ones who didn’t have anything else.” 

So Jesus’ audience must have been amazed at his declaration because the Good Shepherd was an oxymoron, and his announcement made an immediate impact on his audience.  If I used the phrase, “I am an honest politician” or a “sincere televangelist” or the “honorable reporter for the National Enquirer” you might understand the impact of what Jesus said to them. While there are honest politicians and thank God we need them, we are often skeptical and assume that if you are a politician you are dishonest until proven otherwise.  In several public opinion surveys, politicians and journalist battle for the bottom spot of least trusted professions. And unfortunately, the clergy have sustained several notable integrity hits the past few years and has dropped on that list as well.

            So Jesus claims to be a “good shepherd” had an immediate emotive impact on his hearers. The truth is that most of Jesus ministry was paradoxical, or at least a big oxymoronic object lesson.  He said paradoxical things such as the first shall be last and the last shall be first.  He said that the greatest shall be a servant of all; that we obtain glory through suffering; that you have to lose your life if you have any chance of saving it.  He delivered a real shocker when he said that the poor were in fact blessed because they were in fact rich; that when we are weak, then we are strong; that the meek would inherit the earth; that those who mourned would be the ones who were comforted; that the worst sinners were the religiously self righteous, that peacemakers really rule.             

He was so paradoxical that the Pharisees and Sadducees could not figure him out, so they plainly ask him in our text if he was the messiah.  His reply was basically he wouldn’t say because they wouldn’t understand it anyway, so why bother?  But his sheep would understand, and his sheep were precisely those with ears to hear; those who knew his voice.  His sheep were unlikely sheep, like the woman at the well, like Nicodemus evidently, like the man born blind, like the centurion and his son, like Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  These stories in the gospel of John demonstrate that the sheep hear his voice. His discourses with the Pharisees and Sadducees indicate that many people did not hear his voice, especially the people that should have known better and the very people that should have welcomed his voice.  And we will hear his voice as well, if we listen, for he still calls us by name.

            As the good shepherd he protects us, his flock.  Verse 12 says that the wolves attack the flock with the intent of scattering the sheep.  Who are the wolves, and how do they threaten us?  I suspect that Jesus was talking about the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and they might not have even realized it.  I don’t know who all Jesus would call a wolf today, but their howl has a distinctive ring to it.  For the wolves use the bait of selfishness, greed, jealousy, power, politics and hatred to lure us away from the sheepfold.  It has always been that way.

            These wolf-sheep are a paradox themselves in Christianity, but their inconsistency smacks of hypocrisy, and no one likes a hypocrite.  The wolves always hunt in packs, and they often disguise themselves in sheep’s clothing and infiltrate the flock to look for their prey. And they have many disguises today.  In fact, they hide behind the oxymoron as well.

            There are the Moral Combat wolves, oxymoronic because moral and combat don’t go together, and their howl distracts us from the voice of the shepherd.  They are an oxymoron gone bad.  They define the word hypocrite, and give us all a bad name. They cry that we best serve God by following certain rules.  These moral wolves may not smoke, drink, go to movies, dance, or maybe play cards.  The may preach against the internet, TV or certain novels.  They may burn books and bomb abortion clinics. They may tell you how to vote if you care about God.  They know exactly what sin is, and in case you are not so enlightened it is easy to figure out, for if you don’t agree with them you are doing it.  If you don’t believe what they say, you are doing it.  They can pick a speck out of your eye at 50 paces, but have logs so big in theirs that even the vilest reprobate can sense the inconsistency.  Their cause seems noble, but they motivate by guilt and manipulation, and prey on our fears and insecurities.  Their howl is a slippery slope, and they extend their definition of “Christian” to include all those “sins” that they themselves are not likely to do.   They know wrong from right, good from evil, and there is no ambiguity for them.  There is of course, a ring of truth in what they say, so people inflexibly listen.    And if you hang out with the wrong crowd, they might just crucify you.

            If theses howls were not enough, there is also the howl of the “Church club” wolves, oxymoronic because the church is no club.  The club wolves says you have to go to a certain church (theirs), believe certain doctrines (theirs), have to please the gate keepers (them), and have to play by certain rules (theirs).  In its purest form, everyone but them is on a path to hell, and they are the only ones who are right.  And despite the arrogance and presumptuousness of it all, there are many sheep in this fold.

            Closely akin to these are the “Holy terror” wolves.   It is hard to be holy and a terror at the same time, but they pull it off.  They know God better than you, they know his will better than you, they know the Bible better than you, and as a matter of fact do speak for God and have a corner on the truth.  These wolves are very often wrapped in sheep’s clothing and infiltrate the flock.  These holier-than-thou folks are really wolves in sheep’s clothing.  The Pharisees had many members of this pack.

            The pack that is most popular today has to be the Mean love wolves.  The world after all is full of mean Christians, these are people who hate and do so in the name of Christ.  They may brandish a swastika, wear a white hood or live in the unholy land and hate Jews and Muslims.  They are involved in holy war, and no war is as ugly or mean as a holy war.  But where these wolves are most dangerous is when they manage to hide within the sheepfold, right in our own backyard.  They wrap themselves in the American flag and carry big black Bibles.  They sound like sheep, but they are listening to another shepherd, and they have a very nasty bite.

            I suppose all wolves are vicious and prey upon the sheep.  They have closed minds and they devour anyone different from them.  They justify their egotism, and defend their prejudices in the name of the shepherd.  They crediblize ignorance, propagate fears, expose insecurities, and feed on hatred and tolerance.  And they slip right into the sheepfold if the sheep are asleep.  And wolves always hunt in packs, and always hunt in the dark, where there is an absence of light.

            But the good news is that the good shepherd offers protection from the wolves.  They can never chase him away, even if they kill him.  For the good shepherd freely lays down his life for the sheep (v.11).  And the good shepherd lets us all know that his plans are bigger than us.  He says in verse 16, “I have other sheep.” 

            As I have tried to determine exactly what this means this week in study, nine out of ten commentators that I read did not even comment on this phrase, other sheep!  I thought it seemed rather important, but their silence might mean they don’t know what it means.  The traditional interpretation I suppose is that the other sheep are the gentiles, the non-Jews, the world that Jesus came to save.  But I choose to think that Jesus has sheep in all sorts of unlikely places, and like the Pharisees we too are not the only show in town.  And in contrasting himself to the wolves, the good shepherd was emphasizing his tolerance, his inclusiveness, his willing acceptance of others different from himself, and the fact that he loves the whole world enough to die for it.  His ministry was surrounded by such folk as these, so much so that he was accused of befriending people that made shepherd look like monks.  People like prostitutes, tax-collectors, publicans, and other assorted sinners. But his yoke was easy, his burden light compared to those who would scatter and divide us.

            So today my question for you is who are you listening to? Do you listen to wolves or to the Good Shepherd?  If your service to God is motivated by burdensome guilt, then watch out for the wolves.  If your relationship to God is based on fear and ignorance, then watch out for the wolves.  If your religion is akin to magic and superstition, then watch out for the wolves.  If your religion is mean, intolerant, exclusive, then watch out for the wolves.  If your yoke is heavy and your burden burdensome, then watch out for the wolves.  If you are not sure what the shepherd’s voice really sounds like, then watch out for the wolves, because you have become their next meal!

You see the good shepherd never leaves us alone.  He watches over us, protects us, leads us, guides us, directs us, and loves us, if we will just recognize and listen to his voice.  Then the oxymoron that is the Good Shepherd gives us comfort in life’s greatest paradoxes and we realize that when we are have doubts we birth faith; that when we are weak, we become strong; that when we are afraid we find peace; that when we are lost we find our way; that when we lack purpose we find the meaning of life.  And when we realize these facts, we echo with the psalmist,

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.

 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
       he leads me beside quiet waters,

 He restores my soul.
       He guides me in paths of righteousness
       for his name’s sake.

 Even though I walk
       through the valley of the shadow of death,
       I will fear no evil,
       for you are with me;
       your rod and your staff,
       they comfort me.

 You prepare a table before me
       in the presence of my enemies.
       You anoint my head with oil;
       my cup overflows.

 Surely goodness and love will follow me
       all the days of my life,
       and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
       forever.

It is at this point that our understanding of the oxymoron, the ‘Good Shepherd,” becomes “almost perfect.”  And it becomes something else: the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God! Amen.