While this is true, it’s also true that we can’t get away with simply blaming this on other people – or the systems that shape our lives.  We play into this ourselves by being someone other than the person God created us to be.
We play into this ourselves, even if we don’t settle for being known by our numbers, whenever we settle for living a life other than the life God intends for us to live.
As the poet May Sarton says about herself, late in her life:
Now I become myself.
It’s taken time, many years and places.
I’ve been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces. (Quoted in Parker Palmer,  Let Your Life Speak: Listening to the Voice of Vocation, p. 9).
Who hasn’t at one time or another “worn other people’s faces?”
The church, of course, isn’t innocent when it comes to knowing people more by their numbers than by their names.
Can I have a witness?
We don’t have numbers on our offering envelopes for nothing.
The church, at its worst, can treat people simply as pledging units or bodies in the pews.
The church, at its worst, can encourage people to wear other people’s faces.
The church, at its worst, can subtly or not so subtly encourage people to always have a smile on their face no matter what’s happening in their hearts.
The church, at its worst, tells people that they have to be someone other than who they are to be acceptable in their community of faith and in the Kingdom of God.
Just ask someone who is gay or lesbian.
Can I have a witness?   
The church, at its worst, becomes something other than the church of the Good Shepherd – the one who said to his disciples then and says to us now – “I know my own and my own know me…” 
Our Good Shepherd God knows us not by our numbers but by our name.  The God who said through the prophet Ezekiel, “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep” (Ezekiel 34:15) also said through the prophet Isaiah, “I have called you by name, you are mine…because you are precious in my sight…and I love you.” (Isaiah 43:1b, 4a)
There is a longing in each of our hearts to be known – not by our numbers but by our names – to be known in all our uniqueness and preciousness as a child of God. 
There is a longing in each of our hearts to be known in the fullness of who we are as a human being – with all our warts and wounds, along with all our beauty and blessings.
This longing is often buried beneath our fears. 

There was a time in my life when I was convinced that if anyone really knew me – really knew my inner most thoughts and feelings – they couldn’t possibly love me.  There was a time in my life when I was convinced that I was unlovable.  There was time in my life when I was afraid to allow anyone to know me – to really know me. 
And I don’t think I’m the only one who has felt this fear.
Can I have a witness?
While fear may at times bury our longing  to be known, sooner or later this longing resurfaces because it rises from the essence of who we are as holy, human beings.
There is this longing to be known in each of our hearts, no matter how fearful we may sometimes be. 
 And there is a God who is as present to us as the air we breathe who alone can satisfy our longing to be known and loved for who we are.
 “I know my own and my own know me.  Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” (John 10:14-15).
This type of knowing is similar to the Hebraic understanding – and not the Greek.  The Hebraic understanding of “knowing” means experiencing.  It means being in relationship with – in an intimate relationship with another.  In Hebrew the verb for knowing is the same word used to describe a sexual relationship with someone. 
The Greeks, on the other hand, understood knowing more in the sense of seeing or understanding.  It was more intellectual than experiential. 
The Good Shepherd knows his flock.  God knows God’s people through relationships that are deep, trusting, and intimate.
In a poem called Frail and Glorious Macrina Wiederkehr connects the experience of baptism with her awareness of being known by God.  She writes:

The waters of baptism flowed over me
and no original sin was seen.
Rather, the Eye of God beheld
a tiny mass of bones and flesh
soul and spirit
infinite possibility
pure process
new, empty, and free,
free to choose
 good or evil
 light or darkness
 life or death
 grace or sin.

It was my original union
I was passing through baptismal waters
being filled with power like unto God’s
and God wept
at the possibility of me.

 God wept at the possibility of me!
Mrs. Churchill, my 8th grade science teacher, was one of the best teachers I ever had.  She was creative, committed and compassionate.  She made all her students feel smart and appreciated for who they were. In the fall of 1963, she invited our class to her house one night to look at the stars, as part of our studying astronomy.
On that crisp, clear evening, I found myself standing there, looking up at the heavens, in the company of my classmates and our teacher.  As we surveyed Orion, the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia’s Chair and many other constellations, I became aware of how close I felt, not just to the people with me, but to God as well.  I was a part of our mysterious and majestic universe in such a way that I felt both very, very small and very, very special.  In that moment I knew that I was known by God – a God whom I now know was passionate about the possibility of each of us starring at the night sky.
The experience of being known by and knowing our Good Shepherd God comes in community with others.  Karl Barth, the German theologian, says that there is no such thing as an individual Christian.  To illustrate this he pointed out that in English there is no separate singular form of the word sheep.  (Cynthia Gano Lindner, Living by the Word, Christian Century, April 21, 2009, p. 21)
As Martin Luther King, Jr. understood, “We are (all)…tied in a single garment of destiny.” (A Testament of Hope – The Essential Writings of MLK, Jr., edited by James M. Washington, p.210)
Being known by and knowing the Good Shepherd is about our relationship with God and our relationships with one another.
It’s about building and being in relationships where we risk being transparent, vulnerable and wearing our own face with God and with one another – come what may. 
It’s about recognizing our connectedness with God and with one another.
It’s about knowing that in the end “there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16) – because in some sense, in some very real sense, there already is one flock, one shepherd.
Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian pastor and writer, describes the day his first novel was published.  He was coming out of his publisher’s office – riding on air – when he bumped into a friend from college who was out of work.  They soon said good-bye.  He describes what happened this way:
“All I can say is that something small but unforgettable happened inside me as a result of that chance meeting…some small flickering out of the truth that, in the long run, there can be no real joy for anybody until there is joy finally for us all…” (Sacred Journey, p.97)
At a clergy training a few years ago in Chicago I experienced what Buechner was saying. 
A Lutheran pastor from St. Paul was leading a session on how to build deep, trusting relationships with others - relationships that challenge people to become the person God created them to be.

He singled out two pastors in a group of 80.  One was Joe – a Black Baptist pastor from Milwaukee who co-chaired the clergy caucus of MICAH – the project in Milwaukee similar to VOICE-Buffalo.  He then turned to Julie – a younger Lutheran pastor in Milwaukee who was the other co-chair of MICAH’s clergy caucus.
He asked Julie what sort of relationship she had with Joe. 
“Do you know where his passion comes from?” he asked.   “Do you know where he’s experienced pain in his life?”
 “No,” she said, “I don’t.” 
“Do you know why this work is so important to him?”
“No,” Julie said, “I don’t.”
He then turned to Joe.  “Do you know these things about Julie?” he asked.
Joe said, “No, I don’t.”
Looking right at Joe, whom he knew as a colleague and a friend, he said, “You’re denying Julie the opportunity to become the pastor God intends her to be by not building a deep, trusting relationship with her!  She can’t become the pastor she wants to be, without your taking her seriously and believing that God has a plan for her life and that you’re part of that plan!”
Witnessing this exchange brought tears to my eyes.  Behind these tears was the awareness that the people in this encounter were known by God and knew God in their own lives – and the awareness that the people in this encounter needed the other to wear their own face – in order for them to become the person God had created and called them to be.
Each of them – along with each of us – longs to be known by God and to know God!
Each of them – along with each of us – longs to be a good shepherd and not a hired hand!
We all long to know God and to know one another with the same suffering, self-giving, joy-filled love found in the One who said, “I am the Good Shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” (John 10:14-15)
Imagine that!
We can know and love Jesus and one another – as well as Jesus knew and loved God!
Imagine that!
Imagine a community of people who know one another not by their numbers but by their names!
Imagine a community of people who know that no one can steal who they are in the eyes of God!
Imagine a community of people who are willing to risk being vulnerable to go deeper in their relationships with one another and with God!
Imagine a community of people who know that there is no real joy for any of us until there is joy finally for us all!
Imagine a community of people who challenge one another to wear their own face as the beloved of God!

Imagine a community of shepherds, who, like our shepherding God, “seeks the lost, brings back the strayed, binds up the injured and strengthens the weak!” (Ezekiel 34:16)
Imagine a community of people, called the church, known by and knowing a God who weeps at the possibility of each of us in our own lives and in our life together!
To God be the glory!  Alleluia!  Amen!
John 10:11-18
 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
The 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. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I 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.
For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No 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.’