April 26 ~ Amidst the Noise... Is There Still Room in Us for the Voice of the Shepherd

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Acts 2:42-47

Psalm 23

1 Peter 2:19-25

John 10:1-10

Sermon by Joel Crouse

We live in a world of noise and distraction 0—a world science shows us is shrinking our attention spans. In 2004, the average North American attention span on screen was 2.5 minutes. Not that long when you think about it. By 2012, according to research by Gloria Mark, an American informatics professor, that number had dropped to 47 seconds. Today, with Tik Tok, I imagine that is even shorter.

Our lives are full of interruptions: chirps from our phones, people making demands, the latest global news, the next thing we are told we absolutely must care about right now. More research by Dr. Mark found that it takes us an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to a task once we are interrupted. Our culture had adapted – movies move faster, books are shorter.

Earlier this year, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck pointed out that Netflix is encouraging creators to repeat important plot points in character dialogue because they assume viewers are only half-watching while looking at their phones. That says something about the world we are living in. We are present, but only partly. We are always connected, but often barely attentive.

Despite all the ways that business and media try to capture our attention, who gets our attention is still, in the end, a choice. We choose to pay attention to our phones more than to the people around us. We choose to complain about what is wrong with the world rather than look for ways to make it right. We choose whether we are shepherds, or sheep who follow the attention bandits of consumerism, voyeurism, and polarization.

The gospel today reminds us that God is paying attention. It reminds us to invest our attention in what matters. Jesus, in telling this gospel, is putting a question to us: who gets our attention? Who do we follow?

In the gospel, Jesus uses the metaphor of the shepherd and the sheep, and not for the first time. Why is this metaphor so effective? We don’t see a lot of shepherds these days, but we can still understand the shepherd’s responsibility. Shepherds stay alert to the needs of their sheep. They protect the sheep from being stolen or injured. They hold the sheep safe in community. And they do this not only when it is a nice day to be outside. They do it through rain and snow. The shepherd, as Jesus describes himself, is a diligent, selfless guardian of the sheep.

And the sheep, Jesus says, hear the voice of the shepherd and pay attention.

That may be the hardest part for us to hear. Because attention is not just noticing something for a moment. Attention is an act of trust over time.  So, it’s not blind trust: the sheep know the shepherd’s voice because they have lived with it. They know its tone and character.  It is the voice that does not use fear to scatter them or shame to control them. It is the voice that gathers, restores, and leads. It is the voice that tells the truth about the world as it is, but refuses to let cruelty have the final word.

And because they know that voice, the sheep also know the difference between the shepherd and the thieves and bandits -- those who do not enter by the gate but climb in some other way. They are the voices that tell us we are what we own. The voices that tell us some people matter more than others. The voices that profit from our fear, our resentment, our exhaustion, and our distraction. The voices that do not love the sheep at all, but only want to use them.

“I am the gate,” Jesus says. “Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

There are many layers to unpack here. First, we are told that God enters through the gate, not sneaking into our midst. God is up front with us. The gospel is an open document.  Its truth is clear, even if living it is hard: love your neighbour, tell the truth, care for the vulnerable, forgive, share, show mercy, resist the powers that dehumanize. If we hear a whisper in our ear promising a too-good-to-be-true solution, we know that’s not God whispering. If we hear a voice urging us away from compassion, justice, and responsibility for one another, we know that is not the voice of Christ. God does not flatter our lesser selves. God calls us beyond them.

But Jesus also says: I am the gate. So now he is not just the shepherd entering among the flock; he is the gate itself, the one through whom we find safety, freedom, and life. And based on what we know about the rest of the gospel, we are not meant to imagine a narrow-hearted gatekeeper, eager to shut people out. No, this is the same Jesus who eats with outsiders, who speaks with the rejected, who heals on the wrong day, who breaks the rules of respectable religion whenever those rules get in the way of mercy. The gate is not there to keep frightened people away from God. The gate is there so that the sheep may know where life truly is.

And notice what Jesus says about that life. He says the sheep will come in and go out and find pasture. There is safety, yes, but there is also movement. There is shelter, but there is also mission. Faith is not hiding from the world. Faith is being grounded enough in the love of God that we can enter the world without being possessed by its noise. We come in to be gathered, healed, forgiven, and fed. We go out to serve, to love, to repair, to stand with those who are poor, forgotten, and lost.

What is true for us as individuals is true for us as a church.  We are not called to be a frightened pen, huddled together and suspicious of the world outside. The church is called to listen for the voice of Jesus and then to follow him into the world. Into the places of hurt. Into the work of justice. Into the mending of broken lives and broken communities. Into solidarity with the poor, the excluded, the newcomer, the one whose dignity is denied. If Jesus is the gate, then He is the way into a larger life, not a smaller one.

Finally, the gospel reinforces our covenant with God. Live a gospel-led life, we are told, and we will find the pasture we seek. Not a life free from conflict or pain, but a life rooted deeply enough in grace that we are not ruled by fear. A life where we remember that we belong to God, and therefore to one another.

And to do that, we must choose to pay attention.

That doesn’t mean we never get to watch the cute puppy video, or vent about the latest presidential post, or play video games.  Jesus is not calling us out of life, but more fully into it. He is asking whether beneath all the noise there is still room in us for the voice of the shepherd. Room for prayer, compassion, courage. Room for our neighbour. Room for the quiet, steady call of grace.

Our attention spans may be short on social media. But may they be long and faithful when it comes to the things of God. May we learn again to hear the shepherd’s voice above all the others. And hearing it, may we follow — not only into comfort, but into love, justice, mercy, and abundant life.

Amen