April 26, 2026

Hearing the Good Shepherd - Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A
John 10:1-10 · Psalm 23 · Acts 2:42-47
Christ Church, Red Wing · Morning Prayer

Years ago, my uncle, a farmer who raises pigs, purchased a few dozen sheep. He believed from the start that they would be an easy way to make money for the farm. He had well over an acre of grass and a few lightly wooded areas on his property in northern Iowa. He already had a mobile fencing system and a metal hoop barn that could be easily moved around the property to keep them safe. He also had a collie dog that was very enthusiastic about helping with the sheep. The sheep, regrettably, were not thrilled with him or the collie. And they often ran away every time he or the dog came near them. It turns out the sheep really needed to get to know him first.

Originally, his idea was to rotate them on the grass in the back lot of his farm and come see them just once or twice a day to water them. However, when early summer arrived and it was time to shear the sheep, they were quite nervous and reluctant, refusing to cooperate with the shearing process. They consistently fled from him, particularly when his dog was present. After doing this for a while, he realized he needed a different approach with the sheep. When he got a new herd of sheep and really just be with them for a season, and then he would often sell them in the fall, so he would get new sheep every spring.

What he learned to do was set up the pen at the beginning of the spring right by his house, basically in his backyard. This allowed him to visit the sheep constantly throughout the day and for them to get to know him. Instead of just walking by them or dropping off some water or maybe some supplementary food, he would spend time with them every day, multiple times a day. He would let them learn his voice, and he would pet them as they got to know him. He did the same with the dog. He let the dog into the fence and had them get to know the dog, helping them know that the dog was safe to be around. It was only through this interaction, which needed to happen multiple times a day, that the sheep could really become comfortable with him. Then, as the season went on, he could move them around the farm, and if he only interacted with them once or twice a day, it was perfectly fine. They were perfectly happy to do what he called them to do. When he asked them to come, they came. When he needed to move them, it was much easier to move them. When he needed to shear them, it was much easier to shear them. It was only because the sheep got to hear and learn his voice.

Throughout scripture, God calls his people sheep. Israel is led like a flock out of Egypt through the desert (Exod. 15:13, 17; Psalm 78:52–55). The Psalmist says, “We are [God's] people, and the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:3; cf. Ezek. 34:31). I think is really easy to misunderstand this image because we have a word in our culture: sheeple. People who are docile, uncritical, and follow the crowd like a herd. And yet this is not the image of sheep at all we get in scripture, and it is an image that is not accurate for people or sheep. Sheep are not dumb. They are actually remarkably intelligent animals. So if you get nothing else out of my sermon today, hear this. We are not compared to sheep because we are dumb. We are compared to sheep because, like sheep, we are afraid.

Sheep live in fear. They are prey animals. They know it. And in the deep places of our hearts, so do we. We often make a lot of the decisions in our life based on fear. And like sheep, we need someone to lead us out of that fear. Sheep need a good shepherd to care for them and walk with them. And we need a good shepherd to come among us and lead us beside still waters.

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. So this morning I want to walk through three things. What it looks like for Jesus to be the Good Shepherd of a frightened flock. What it looks like learn to recognize his voice. And what it looks like living together as the flock God has gathered us into.

So let’s start with our fear. Our gospel story is a bit cut off from its context. Jesus' teaching in this passage comes right after a miracle he performed in the previous chapter. Jesus had just healed a man who had been blind since birth. The now-healed man goes home, and his neighbors do not recognize him. They took him to the religious authorities. The authorities do not like that the healing happened on the Sabbath. They really do not like that it was Jesus from Galilee who had healed him. So they interrogated the man. Then they interrogated his parents. And when they don't get the answers they want from him, they throw him out of the synagogue. And it's at this moment, Jesus turns to those religious authorities and starts talking about gates and shepherds. About thieves and bandits. About a flock of sheep who know the shepherd’s voice and follow him. When Jesus says, “the sheep follow him because they know his voice,” he is pointing, in front of everyone, at the man who had been born blind, who just did exactly that. He heard Jesus. He followed Jesus. He refused to let other voices override what he knew about Jesus from his own life. And it cost him. He was kicked out from the flock.

That matters to us. There are voices in our lives that compete for our attention. Voices of fear. Voices of pressure. Voices that tell us who we should be and what we should worry about. Some of those voices are loud. Some of them have authority. Some of them speak in the name of God. The good news is that none of those voices are the shepherd’s voice. The voice we are called to follow is the voice of he who, when his sheep have just been cast out, comes looking for them. The voice of the one who calls each of his sheep by name. That is the voice we need to learn to recognize.

We are sheep, and we follow Jesus, our Good Shepherd, by learning to recognize his voice. So how do that? How do we learn to recognize Jesus' voice? How do we know when God is speaking to us?

I can tell you as someone who has a few academic degrees in this stuff. It's not by studying it. Not by reading a book about it. Not even by listening for it harder. We learn to recognize God's voice is the same way we learn to recognize the voice of someone we love. By being with them over time. Through the ordinary stuff of life.

You know what this is like. You can pick out the voice of someone you love in a crowded room. Not because you trained for it. Because you have lived with them. You know the cadence. You know what they sound like when they are tired. You know what they sound like when they are teasing. You would know that voice even in the dark. In his book Hearing God, Dallas Willard writes, “It is a remarkable fact that sheep and other domesticated animals unerringly recognize the voice of their master. When they first hear that voice, they do not recognize who is speaking, but they learn to do so very quickly.” We are no different. We learn the shepherd’s voice through familiarity. Through time spent. Through dwelling.

This is the secret hidden in the 23rd Psalm. That psalm is not a poem about technique. It is not a how-to. It is the song of someone who has spent his whole life walking with the shepherd and knows what that sounds like. Green pastures. Still waters. The valley of the shadow. The presence at the table. Goodness and mercy all the days of my life. None of that is theoretical. It is the testimony of someone whose ear has been shaped by a long obedience in following the Good Shepherd.

That is what we are after. Not a trick for hearing God, but a life with God. The kind of life where, when the loud voices come and tell us what to be afraid of or that we don't belong here. We can hear the quiet voice of the good shepherd, who is already familiar to us, calling us by name.

Here is what is hard. We live with so many voices. We carry so much on our shoulders. Some days the loud voices feel like they are winning. Some days the shepherd’s voice feels far away. And yet. The shepherd’s voice is still here. He is still calling his sheep by name. He is still calls you by name. He is still leading us out into the pasture. And the way recognizing his voice is not a strategy or a program. It is the slow, faithful work of dwelling with God. Showing up at this table. Praying regularly. Letting our ears be reshaped by his presence, the way a child’s ear is reshaped by the voice of the parent they love.

That is what Psalm 23 invites us into. Not new information. A familiar voice. The kind of familiarity that, in the dark valley, lets us say, “I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” We are sheep, and we follow Jesus, our Good Shepherd, by learning to recognize his voice.

Here is the part that is costly to miss. The voice we are called to dwell with is not just the voice of a shepherd to me. It is the voice of a shepherd to us. Notice what else Jesus calls himself. “I am the gate for the sheep.” Twice in this short passage he names himself as the gate, the way in. Going through the gate means going in with others. It is to be folded into a flock.

Recognizing the shepherd’s voice is not a solo project. You learn it where the sheep are gathered. Hearing the same voice. Following the same shepherd. Eating from the same hand.

Which is why Acts 2 is not a stranger to today’s gospel. It is what listening to the Good Shepherd looks like on the ground. Listen to what early Christians did. They devoted themselves to what the apostles taught. They participated in the fellowship. They took part in the breaking of bread and the prayers. They had all things in common. Day by day, in the temple and at home, with glad and generous hearts.

Acts 2 is a picture of what life with the good shepherd looks like when his sheep are gathered together. It is a promise that wherever the shepherd’s sheep gather around the table, around the prayers, around the teaching of the apostles, the abundant life Jesus came to give is already here. In this room. In this town. With these people.

Dallas Willard once wrote that God’s aim in human history is the creation of an inclusive community of loving persons, with himself as its primary sustainer and most glorious inhabitant. That is the gate we walk through. That is the flock we belong to. That is the abundant life Jesus is talking about when he says he came so that we might have life, and have it abundantly.

My uncle’s sheep did not learn his voice all at once. They did not learn it by being told who he was. They learned it by being with him, day by day, while he showed up at the fence. While he spoke to them. While he let them see him with the dog. While he let them know that he could be trusted. And one day they came when he called.

That is the work we have been called to do. We are sheep. And it is so easy to be afraid. There are loud voices in our world telling us what to fear and who to follow. Most of them seem louder than the shepherd’s. And they know how to get our attention. But that is not the shepherd’s voice.

The Good Shepherd’s voice is the voice that came looking for the man who got cast out. The voice that calls each of his sheep by name. His voice speaks quietly and patiently, day by day, until it becomes the one we know in the dark.

So keep showing up. Keep learning from the Good Shepheard. Keep coming to this table. And keep praying together. We sit in the company of other sheep, learning to hear the same voice. If we let our ears be reshaped by his presence. Then little by little, those other voices lose their grip, and the Good Shepherd’s voice will grow familiar.

We are sheep, and we follow Jesus, our Good Shepherd, by learning to recognize his voice.

Be his flock. Hear the good shepherd's call. And let us walk through the gate together.

Amen.