I don’t have any smart links to give a context to today’s reading. Jesus taught by parables: extended metaphors. And sometimes they are very pointed. This is one of those days.
Christ is saying that he is the only way to salvation. Those who have the Spirit of God within hear that. They find true teaching. And without Jesus, there is no way to salvation.
All other ways are false. Be offended with this if you will, but this is the gospel for today.
1“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
11“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away — and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
The sheep are bonded to their owner, the shepherd. The shepherd’s wealth is tied up in this flock. This is not unfamiliar: it is how my grandfather lived. He owned his cows, and moved from farm to farm with his herd, sharing the milk payment with the farm owner in lieu of rent. (And he worked hard to get there: he started as a farm labourer who could judge within a week how long he would be employed & just manage to save the cartage fee to the next farm). After the war (farming was a reserved occupation: he did not serve in WWII) they moved to town and he started repairing cars. It was a step up. (My other grandfather kept bees during that time to supplement his income from the post office. Times were hard).
But the hired hands do not care for the sheep. Nor do the false teachers, who jump over the fence to grab a quick meal.
We are told to judge teachers by their fruits. But we can also judge them by their doctrine. For those who add to the gospel reduce it to nothing. Those who deny the gospel leave it with… nothing. But those who have the spirit recognise the words of God, and in them there is life.
We have to ignore the intellectual fashions of the time. Identity politics. social redistribution (the end stage of which is confiscation of any wealth, as Cyprus is finding out, and could happen in NZ). Before that, nationalism, which morphed all so easily to the idolatrous worship of the genius loci, the volk, the rodina… in Stalinism, Hitlerism, and other varieties of Fascism.
The gospel must stand alone. We cannot add to it. We cannot remove from it. For if we do either, we become ineffective. The Gospel does not get reduced to nothing, but we become spiritually… nothing.
C.S. Lewis had Screwtape advising his nephew to get men to combine Christianity with x, whether x = socialism, vegetarianism, etc.; anything to weaken the faith and make it subservient to another doctrine. Today, people do it with x = liberalism, and feminism, in particular… The devil’s work is being done. It must be opposed.