04/25/2021
One of the many crises of this past year has been a crisis of authority. As conflicting news reports, scientific studies, and “expert” voices have told us how to manage the challenges of COVID, racism, global warming, and political gridlock; many of us have grown weary, suspicious, and cynical, whose guidance and leadership can we trust? Who will tell us the truth? Whose voice should we listen for?
In our Gospel reading for this fourth Sunday of Easter, we hear a version of leadership quite different from the ones we’re used to in politics and the media. Every year, regardless of which lectionary cycle we are in, we are invited to journey in a rich, metaphorical world. A world where there are a whole slew of sheep and one, good sacrificial Shepherd. Our scripture beckons us to try to envision ourselves living off the land, tending to a flock, or roaming about foraging for food. We hear John speak of Jesus’ invitation to live among the grassy slopes and rocky hillsides. This morning our scriptures patiently and imaginatively asking us to enter into its world.
So, what does it mean for you and I, then, to be a sheep? To be a sheep is, at its most basic existence, to be a creature. Sheep probably do not contemplate whether or not they are a god. They likely do not spend their days thinking about ambition and success and storing up wealth for themselves. They have much more pressing tasks to tend to. For instance, they must eat, and eat, and eat. And when they are done eating, they must rest. Later, they might find some time to roughhouse and playfully pick on one another. Only to find that they need to rest some more. To cuddle up in a heap, snooze a bit in the sun or the shade of a tree. They aren’t sentient enough to spend their days thinking that they are the Source of all that is, the center of the universe, nor the creature at the pinnacle of creation. Sheep, it seems, are just happy to be sheep, eating and walking and playing and sleeping and bleating their way through life. A sheep is one of the may creatures, created and loved by the Creator!
Being a sheep also means being a part of a herd, a community. They are safest and thrive as part of a herd. When one wanders off, it knows it is alone, often scared, and in a precarious position. It knows that – out on a hillside all by itself – it is an easy and quick dinner for any roaming predator. It is true that sometimes sheep get lost, but most sheep seem to know to stick together, that their body depends on other bodies to form a large protective community. Sheep are reliant on other sheep. Their very lives depend on it!
And one last thing about being a sheep – sheep are followers. Sheep like to be led. Cows can be herded or “driven” from the rear with shouts and prods from cowboys but that won’t work with sheep. If you were to stand behind sheep making noise – they would just run off in all directions. They really have no idea where they are going. It’s as if they lack any internal GPS system. They will follow a trusted shepherd, whose voice they know to a place where they trust everything will be all right.
Jesus grasped, in his pre-industrial, agricultural world of ancient Israel, that the metaphor of humans being like sheep would be understood. Even today, we recognize that we are not the rulers of our lives, our communities, nor the masters of our own destiny. We, like sheep, are creatures who need community and can’t help but follow what is hopefully a good example, a Good Shepherd. We don’t respond well to being pushed, prodded, or shouted at from behind!
John’s vision of Jesus as our Good Shepherd comes right out of the teachings of the prophet Ezekiel the 34th chapter in the Old Testament. Ezekiel took the kings of Israel to task for being poor shepherds. They forgot to take care of the people and focused instead on their own needs. He first descried their behaviors and its consequences when he says in verses 2-6; “Oh, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the woold, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So, they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them.”
Yet Ezekiel knows that God is the best shepherd and offers a prophetic promise saying, “Thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out … I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep and I will make them lie down says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.” (verses 11, 14-16)
All of this also echoes in the spectacular poem of Psalm 23. Providing imagery and comfort in times of upheaval, it reminds us that God is our Good Shepherd. It also balances the references between the communal nature of God as our shepherd and the individual revelation that God is MY shepherd. The One who cares for the whole flock, indeed all flocks, is also the One who cares for you and me!
The Good Shepherd is beckoning you – can you hear Him? God is singing out your name, inviting you into relationship, calling for you to join the journey, to rejoice in your created goodness and to follow Christ, wherever He leads, even though those valleys of shadow and darkness.
Surely, God’s goodness and mercy will walk with us all the days of our lives and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.