On the fourth Sunday after Easter – traditionally referred to as Good Shepherd Sunday – it is customary for the preacher to explore the protective and nurturing metaphor of shepherding. As many of you know, I’ve explored in previous years how the metaphor of the shepherd and the dynamics of shepherding offer a sharp contrast between modern and 1st-century methods of sheep farming. Good Shepherd Sunday also tends to fall on Mother’s Day, which, if you think about it, is an interesting homiletic challenge. But in 2026, preachers breathe a sigh of relief, for Mothers Day is still two weeks off.
Coming from New Zealand – a nation of five million humans and over 40 million sheep – the life of sheep and that of the shepherds who manage them is somewhat familiar. In previous sermons on Good Shepherd Sunday, I’ve spoken of my nephew Hamish, who farms a hill country station – sheep farms are known as stations in the rugged hill country of NZ’s South Island – a topography familiar to many of us as the mountainous and foreboding terrain that formed the scenic backdrop for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
Easter IV draws its Good Shepherd theme from John’s presentation of Jesus as the good shepherd in chapter 10. Here, we are given two contrasting images of Jesus. One is as the personification of the good shepherd- I am the good shepherd – hearing my voice my sheep know me and follow me. This image resonates with intimations of intimacy and loving care. But on Easter IV this year we are presented with the more striking image of Jesus as the gateway to the sheepfold.
Facing the blank looks of incomprehension on the faces of his disciples as he speaks about himself as the gatekeeper who guards against the illicit entry of thieves and rustlers seeking to mislead and steal the sheep, Jesus offers what I would have thought was an even less comprehensible metaphor – of himself as the literal gate to the fold –I am the gate for the sheep.
On my final Sunday, the shepherd and sheepfold metaphors raise timely questions about the nature of the church and the dynamics of belonging in Christian community.
The Episcopal Church has this quaint phrase to identify one of its three main membership criteria. Following John 10 you might think the Episcopal Church would say that one of the core attributes of membership is to know and be known by Jesus. It is very telling that the Episcopal Church prefers to define membership as those who know and are known to the treasurer. Following a very moving service of confirmation and reception last week, this being my final Sunday, there’s an added poignancy to questions of belonging.
The Church is the Christian community, which may seem an obvious statement. We have a very impoverished understanding of Christian community because we imagine that we are the Christian community – that without us there is no Church. In this sense, we think of the Christian community as a voluntary association, much like membership in a tennis club. Accordingly, this simplifies the question of belonging. We are the Church in the same way that we are the tennis club. Without its members, there is no tennis club.
Over the last 12 years, I have endeavored to lead us into a richer vision of the Christian community as God’s creation, not ours. The Christian community is not a manifestation of our social organizing, but the creation of God-in-Christ active within our midst. It precedes us and continues after we have dispersed.
During these last 12 years, I’ve continued to remind us that we are a community on a journey – a journey we make together, inviting us to embark on our journey together into the mystery that is God made visible through Christ, flowing into us, empowering us as a community through the sacraments of presence.
We participate in the sacrament of presence when we gather together to listen to the Word proclaimed, and when we participate in the sacrament of presence at the Eucharistic table. From our encounter together with the power of God’s presence, all other elements of fellowship and outreach flow.
As the sheep enter the sheepfold, so we come into a divine sheepfold through the gateway of Christ, who is already awaiting our arrival, inviting us into participation in the work he has already begun.
During the last 12 years, I have worked to inspire in us a vision of ourselves knit together in community, bound to one another in fellowship and shared endeavor.
I have frequently reminded us of the prophetic words of the Early Church Father Tertullian – one Christian is no Christian! The only way to be a Christian is to be baptized into a lifetime’s participation in the life of the Christian community, which is the divine community of God-in-Christ – the Body of Christ made visible in us through our encounter with divine presence.
If John 10 is the metaphor for our entry and belonging at St Martin’s, then the first reading from Luke-Acts chapter 2 clarifies the nature of belonging. The hallmark of belonging is participation – active engagement in the covenanted relationship with God – and – more challengingly, a covenanted relationship with one another.
By covenanted relationship, I mean a relationship in which we become responsible to and for one another!
We read in Acts 2:42 of the first Christians who devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, gathering to worship God, breaking bread with one another, praying unceasingly for one another, and for the world around them, a world we should remember that viewed them with considerable hostility.
In addition to practicing common fellowship, they shared their material resources – holding all things in common for the benefit of all.
It’s this characteristic of early Christianity that facilitated the Church’s astonishing growth in a short span of time. Luke writes that day by day, the Lord added to their number. This characteristic has continued to inspire a vision of a society where each gives according to their ability, and each receives according to their need.
Perhaps we can’t – or won’t – aspire to the embodiment of this vision – being molded in a society where private property is elevated to the level of a divine edict. Yet through participation, in worship and all that flows from it into community, we discover that belonging fosters believing. It’s important to get this right. It’s belonging that fosters belief, not, as is commonly held in much popular American Christianity, the other way around.
I’ve encouraged us to challenge all the churchy institutional boundaries that get in the way of a wider inclusion into belonging. All are welcome to worship here as we foster the growth of believing in one another, not just personal believing, but communal believing that marks us out in a world organized along lines of exclusion – strictly distinguishing who’s in from who’s out.
Belonging fosters believing. Faith is not only something we think; it is something we grow into—together!
As I come to the end of my time with you, this remains my invitation:
Come as you are! Grow with us in faith! Go forth with courage and in peace!
Because the Church is not ours to possess—it is God’s gift to us.
And Christ remains the gate. Christ remains the shepherd. Because Christ continues to call, the journey does not end here. It continues—in you, through you, and beyond you.
After twelve years among you, I leave with a deep sense of gratitude—gratitude and a joy-filled thankfulness for your faithfulness, your generosity, and the many ways you have made Christ’s presence known to me.
It has been my privilege to share in this journey together in worship, in conversation, in moments of joy, and in times of sorrow.
While my role among you now comes to an end, the bond we share in Christ does not. I carry you with me, and I trust that the same Good Shepherd who has guided us together will continue to lead you forward—faithfully, gently, in courageous and risky hope, always in love. Amen.
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