Sermon Title: No Hired Hands
Text: 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18; John 21:15-19; Psalm 23
By: Rev. Terry Carty
Date: 4-29-12
Place: Kingston Springs United Methodist Church
Season: Fourth Sunday of Easter
Main Point: Jesus does not call us to be sheep. Jesus does not call us to be ‘hired hands.’ Christ calls us to lead like the Good Shepherd – own a piece of the kingdom.
Erin is one of the best folk artists I have known. I met her when she came with her youth group to a camp that I led at Lake Junaluska. This particular camp is the one summer youth event at Junaluska that is youth planned and youth led. Every year the campers select the youth who will plan the following year’s camp. So I have met a number of very bright, creative, energetic young people during my involvement with that event. Erin stands out.
Over her high school years Erin was my go-to person whenever I needed a logo or promotional artwork for anything I was doing. She had a style that I liked, but moreover she was able to take a verbal idea and develop a whole graphic concept. Additionally, she listened to others and collaborated to help them become more creative with their parts of the projects.
By the time Erin went to college she had designed t-shirts, backdrops, posters and brochures for each of those youth-planned camps at Lake Junaluska. She had also done the graphic design for every Tennessee Conference youth event, and she was the primary designer for most of the activities at her school.
She was a freshman in college when I asked her to be assistant to a West Coast designer I had hired to do the event “look” for the United Methodist global youth gathering in 1999. I told her and the designer that I wanted Erin to get the experience of designing and building a huge event. Four years later, I contracted with her to be the designer for the 2003 global youth event to be held at the University of Tennessee.
Now with a degree in business management she was ready. The contract paid her enough that she was able to give this her full-time effort. She took a meager budget and a supply of volunteers, and she transformed the university campus in Knoxville into a United Methodist youth world. It was amazing. The UT orange campus became our colors and our look. Her logos came to life in giant banners, brilliant digital images, and event sculptures that Identified locations of a United Methodist youth “world” there on that large campus and the former Worlds Fair park.
We rented a warehouse where she managed all the artwork and supervised the many local volunteers who were building the displays, stage backdrops and so on. Everything had her ‘touch.’ She handled everything including the daunting task of transporting all the parts to the campus and assembling them in a very tight time frame.
Additionally, Erin developed a plan to market all of the banners and decorations as souvenirs to be purchased by the youth groups who participated. By the end of the event all of the decorations had been purchased and a depot was organized so departing youth groups could claim their treasures to remind them of an awesome event.
When the event was over Erin was much in demand. I figured that this was exactly the reason she had majored in Business Management in college. Her business was started and she had an amazing portfolio to market her design business.
It was only a few months later that I called her to work on another project. She declined. She had decided that she would work for her father’s business – he has a fleet of exterminators. I didn’t understand. Why would this marvelously creative artist give up a potentially thriving business in her craft to help manage a bug extermination business?
When she explained, I understood. Erin went to business school because she wanted a career in management, not because she wanted to manage a career in art. Moreover, as she considered her promising design business, she had visions of working with those volunteers and painstakingly insuring the integrity of her designs. In her business she had already reached the point where she would need to hire more artists to keep up with the demand. She would not be able to enjoy her love of design because she would become the manger of a stable of hired artists. She knew artists. She knew that they would be working for their own artistic integrity – not hers. It would become a constant battle that she knew she would lose often as her business grew.
Erin has brought many new clients to her dad’s business. She has developed new ways to market to contractors. She intentionally networks with people like herself in other types of business so she continues to grow her skills in management and to discover new areas in which to expand. As her dad nears retirement, Erin is fully ready to continue as the CEO of their business.
What does this talk of business management, artists and exterminators have to do with Christ the Good Shepherd? It has everything to do with it. Jesus pointed out to the disciples that a good shepherd knows every sheep in the pen. A good shepherd makes sure that every sheep is fed and cared for individually. When the flock gets too large, the good shepherd must become a rancher and hire other people to stay in the fields to tend the sheep. Jesus pointed out that at the first sign of danger, the hired hands run away and leave the beloved sheep unprotected. Where the good shepherd lays life on the line for the sheep, the hired hand first tends to his/her own safety.
When Jesus is translated saying, “I lay down my life for the sheep,” he would be more accurately translated saying, “I put my life on the line for the sheep.” This is not just an indication that he will die, but an indication that he will live for us – he will risk everything for his sheep.
Furthermore, the conversation with Peter suggests that Jesus calls those who love him to come out of the herd and become good shepherds as well. Like Erin, Jesus does not want to trust the work of his life to hired hands. Jesus wants his sheep, both those who are already in his fold and those who are outside the fold, to be cared for the same way that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, cared for them.
I believe that in every generation since Peter, Jesus has sought those who love Him to be good shepherds. Jesus calls us today to love him enough that we look both inside the fold of this congregation and also beyond our walls – even beyond our Christian family – to care for His sheep.
Today I ask you to search your heart. Do you love Jesus enough to risk? Do you love Jesus enough to put your life on the line in loving neighbors and strangers? If you do, then care for his lambs, feed his sheep, care for his sheep. Let your love for Christ so show through you, that you draw others into the fold of the one Good Shepherd.