April 26, 2026
The Fourth Sunday of Easter
The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Essex, CT
Acts 2:42-47 ~ Psalm 23 ~ 1 Peter 2:19-25 ~ John 10:1-10
Jesus talks in farmer language a lot: sheep and goats and seeds and wineskins. While farming and animal husbandry were a principal occupation of that part of the world in the time of Jesus, we 21st century residents of the U.S. might have a hard time making the connections in the same way that his early listeners did. It was hard enough for them, and they knew the environment.
I’ve always longed to have a farm. Not a real farm, mind you, (not like the one our guest speaker today has) but one where I could enjoy a few animals and grow some of my own food. A farmer-priest, if you will. A couple of decades ago, I had a chance to experience a tiny sliver of that.
This was long before ordination was little more than a whisper in my heart, and Tim and I attended an old, historic church in suburban Philadelphia called St. Peter’s in the Great Valley which you would not be able to find if you didn’t know it was there. Originally built in 1744, it has an old churchyard with many of its 18th headstones still intact, still legible. (It is also where I first met Rachel Field and her family, dear friends to this day.)
Several years before my arrival, the property committee delivered the distressing news that the grass trimmers were causing damage to those old headstones.
It was decided that a return to hand-trimming was too labor- and time-intensive, so one member of the committee, a self-styled gentleman farmer, offered to bring a couple of his sheep to the church to serve as grass-trimmers. It transformed the entire church. Not only did the sheep keep the churchyard trimmed, but their annual shearing also provided a lesson to the preschool children. There was a fabric artist who spun the wool into yarn, and the prayer shawl ministry knit the wool into prayer shawls. It was a beautiful cycle, and visitors to the church were enamored of this bucolic scene.
However, when one brings sheep into the picture, someone needs to tend to them, and it’s just not the sort of thing a rector asks of her sexton. Someone came up with the bright idea of getting volunteers to be shepherds, responsible for the animals’ care on one day each week. And this is where my shepherding experience began.
I was the Saturday shepherd. On my first Saturday, bursting with excitement, I headed over to the church in the morning, filled a wheelbarrow with hay and a large bucket with sheep meal, and began the short walk over to the churchyard. From that moment until I left them, I carried on a constant stream of chatter with the sheep (like I always do when in the company of animals), fussing at them if they tried to steal food from each other; sweet-talking them about how pretty they were; scolding the ram if he tried to nudge me with a bit too much energy.
Speaking of the ram, there was a baseball bat at the gate to the churchyard just in case he got a little too rambunctious. I never took it in with me, although the little old lady who was putting flowers on a grave one day could probably have used it. After that incident, we only kept ewes there.
I spent about 15 minutes on my shepherding duties that first day and then went on my way. The next morning, Tim and I arrived at church, chatting as we went up the walkway. From the far end of the churchyard, an enormous commotion arose, as the sheep began running and bleating toward the fence where I was passing by. After only one day of caretaking – mere minutes – they knew my voice. They knew, somewhere in the recesses of their little sheep brains, that my voice meant something good.
My stint as a shepherd gave me an entirely new appreciation of all the shepherding language in the bible.
- “The Lord is my shepherd.” (Psalm 23:1)
- “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt. 9:36)
- “I am the gate for the sheep.” (John 10:7)
- “I am the Good Shepherd.” (John 10:11)
- “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:17)
Today’s professional shepherds don’t chatter to their sheep. They use dogs to do the herding, machines for feeding, and they certainly don’t let the sheep wander around behind them! But when Jesus was talking about being a shepherd, he was talking about a relationship, caring, protective, dedicated to the flock.
Shepherding is an image, a metaphor for God, that scripture returns to again and again. The early followers of Jesus emulated this way of being. The reading we just heard from the beginning of Acts says that they took care of one another, shared things in common so that everyone had enough. This was the model of the baptized life, one that Wyatt enters this morning as he comes for baptism. How will he know which is the voice of the Good Shepherd? How will he know which gate takes him to safe pasture? How will he recognize the gatekeeper? Because we will promise to show him. We will promise to help him distinguish between the voices that will lead him into danger and the ones that will keep him safe in the fold, how to share what we have and show generosity to our neighbors.
Early in our reading 10th chapter of John, Jesus says, “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice” (10:4,5). Those sheep in the St. Peter’s church yard certainly knew my voice! How do we know the voice of our Shepherd? There are many voices that say that if I live right and pray the right way, only good things will come my way or that the bible says those people are sinners and are not worthy of care or that empathy is overrated. It seems fairly obvious that certain passages of scripture are being used to serve the ends of those who are saying them, and attempt to put God’s Word into a box of our own making.
So how do you hear the Shepherd’s voice? Listen for the one that says he will lay down his life. Listen for the one who says that there are other sheep not in this fold who must be brought in. Listen for the one that says there will be one flock, one shepherd.
As former presiding bishop Michael Curry is fond of saying, if it is not about love, it is not about God.
When I was ordained, the women of St. Peter’s got together to design and make for me this stole. (And although during Easter season the designated color is white, I can’t not wear this sheep stole today.) The wool for these sheep is wool from the sheep in the old churchyard. It is not just a sweet reminder of my days taking care of those sheep and those who played such a huge role in my discernment. It also reminds me of the one Good Shepherd whom I have promised to follow, to whose voice I strive to listen, and in whom I put my trust.
But that is not all. It is also a reminder to me of my role as the one who cares for this congregation as a shepherd does a flock – leading, tending, providing nourishment in the Word of God, and, most profoundly, being a voice that is true and trustworthy for you in a world filled with noise and distraction. My prayer is that my voice will always be one that says, above all, that God is love and that God loves each and every one of us, no exceptions. From the fluffy lambs to the cantankerous old rams, God loves us all.
Jesus our Good Shepherd laid down his life, for us. This is our call as ones who follow where he leads, to love and serve and, yes, maybe even to lay down our lives for those God calls Beloved.
My sheep.
[1] https://episcopalchurch.org/posts/publicaffairs/easter-2017-message-presiding-bishop-michael-curry-go-forth-be-people