I Know My Own and My Own Know Me

I Know My Own and My Own Know Me

April 29, 2012

John 10: 11-18

Rev. Ericka Parkinson Kilbourne

11 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.¹²The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.¹³The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.¹⁴I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,¹⁵just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.¹⁶I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.¹⁷For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.¹⁸No one takes^* it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’

            Who really knows you?  Your spouse, your children, your parents, your best friend, your co-workers, your church friends?  And what does it mean that they know you? That they know your name…perhaps first, middle and last?  That they know your favorite ice cream flavor or exactly how you like your coffee?  Or is it that they know just the right way to aggravate you or just the right way to make you laugh when a tense situation has arisen? Or is that the one person who really knows you is the one, as it is often quoted, knows all about you, and loves you anyway?

            Since graduating from high school, I have moved to a new state six times, and each time to a new state and new situation.   Nothing is lonelier than feeling “unknown.”  While it is exciting and sometimes refreshing to move to a new place, it is also somewhat exhausting having to introduce yourself, look for common ground between yourself and possible new friends, and then to tell stories about your past, your passions, your loves and your very self in order to come to a place where you are “known.”  We have almost been here in Michigan City for a year, and I have to say that I am delighted to embrace the fact that I feel comfortable and fairly known here in the city, in our neighborhood at the courts, and here in our congregation.

            No matter how much we want to be known, and no matter what level of comfort and safety and reliability come with being known, there is always a piece or two, sometimes larger than others, that we want to keep to ourselves, though. Do you find that to be true?  We want to go where everyone knows our name, but not necessarily where everyone knows our whole being.  I’ve been reading a little bit about shame for the doctoral thesis I am writing, and one of the best definitions I have found is this: shame is when you have failed to manage to keep up the façade of the “You” you wish to share with the world.” In other words, there is the “you” that you want to make known, when making new friends, when beginning a relationship, when building a relationship…and then there’s the “you” you’d rather keep hidden.  Like all the bad habits that all of us have.  Chewing your nails, having a quick temper, forgetting things easily, being impatient, secretly loving soap operas but all the while saying, “well, I don’t really watch much television,”…and then there are things that only a roommate or spouse can find out about us…snoring, leaving the toilet seat up, finishing the carton of milk and leaving it in the refrigerator. And then there are those deeper things we keep hidden, and we pray that not even the person sleeping next to us will find out…the feelings of doubt…when we doubt ourselves, when we doubt our God…the feelings of resentment we might still hold for a family member or former friend.  Regret for something that happened five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago.

            Yes, no matter how much we would like to be “known,” there are those certain things that we would rather remain “unknown,” to most or all of the rest of the world.  When we feel shame, it’s not that we feel guilty about one thing, ask for forgiveness, and then move on.  No, when we feel shame, our entire being is wrapped up in that one feeling, and we wish to hide our entire selves. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, their fall, their choosing to eat of the apple, lead them to be entirely ashamed of themselves, and so they hid.

            And so we hide, too. Hide those things which seem to horrible, too awful to share. We declare, “If you knew this about me, well you just wouldn’t love me anymore.”  And we spend a great amount of time and effort to put forth the “self” which we want to be seen and known, and we hide the “self” of which we are ashamed.  And while some of this is just good manners and being socially aware, all too often, we are doing damage to ourselves with all of our hiding, with all of our masking.

            That is why this scripture is so comforting to me.  Jesus says that he is the good shepherd, and that he knows his own his own know him.  It’s comforting when I’m living in a new place, or perhaps entering a new situation, meeting new people, and feeling lonely and “unknown:” I can always rely on God, through Christ, to be familiar.  And most importantly, I can rely upon the fact that God, through Christ, knows me.  When I moved to Mississippi, right after college, I couldn’t have been more of a fish out of water.  In that small town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, I was quite old to be unmarried, it was quite uncommon to be a woman pursuing a call and vocation in the ministry, and my thoughts on race, when I expressed them, were strange and threatening.  At one point, the United Methodist minister suggested that I not quote Martin Luther King Jr. again, the next time I addressed a crowd at his church.  I can honestly say that I have never been lonelier than I was in those first six months of my ministry there. And at the same time, I can honestly say that my relationship with God was strengthened in a way that it never had before.  In the midst of loneliness, in being misunderstood, in being rejected, I never relied so much on the fact that God knew me…and that I was loved by God.

            Being known by God through Christ is not only comforting when we are alone or lonely, but it is also comforting when we are hiding our true selves from others.  At first, it may feel a bit threatening or scary that God knows us….knows everything there is to know about us…God knows the self that we put forward in the community, at work, at church, in our neighborhood, and God knows the self beyond our “public self.”  God knows and loves our quirkiness, our messiness, our compulsive idiosyncrasies.  Anyone who has ever spent any time with sheep know that it is not the shepherd’s job to love only the perfect and well-mannered sheep…if that were true, there would be no sheep to tend.  Sheep are messy, they are unruly, they are impatient and don’t excel at cooperation.  So are all of us, at times.  And if it were the great shepherd’s job to tend to only the perfect and well-behaved sheep among us, then there would be none to tend for that shepherd, either.

            John Calvin writes in the beginning of his Institutes on the Christian religion that the more we learn about ourselves, the more we learn about God, and that vice-versa, the more we learn about God, the more we learn about ourselves.

            Jesus said that he is the Good Shepherd, that he knows his own and his own know him.  May we live into this message.  May we begin to know more and more about ourselves, as we grow into an understanding that by grace and through Jesus Christ, our God knows all there is to know about us and loves us anyway.

            And may we grow to know more and more about God, who calls us into authentic relationships, that while studying scripture, worshiping, and serving, we might know more about ourselves and each other.

            May we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd this morning: “I know my own and my own know me.”  Amen.