Of Sheep and Shepherds

Jeremiah 23:1-6; Colossians 1:11-20

November 20, 2016

The kids down at Camp Hanover are awfully fond of a song that I find just awful. Goes kinda like this, “I just wanna be a sheep, bah, bah, bah, bah / / pray the Lord my soul to keep, yeah, yeah …” It goes through a set of counter narratives – hypocrites, Sadducees, Pharisees – and concludes that we don’t want to be like them. Instead, we just want to be the sheep.

The problem – well, beyond the utterly inane music – the problem is, I don’t want to be a sheep. Sheep are stupid. Seriously, they appear to me to be among the dumbest of God’s creatures. I do not want to be like that.

In fact, if we take remotely seriously the notion that we are somehow created in the image of God, I’ll go so far as to say that if we want to be like sheep we dishonor the intelligent, loving, and wildly creative God who made us. No, sir, I do not want to be a sheep. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

On the other hand, perhaps there is a secret life of sheep of which I am ignorant. Our kids were little during a golden age for children’s film, and we all grew inordinately fond of the movie Babe. It’s the tale of a pig who thinks he’s a sheepdog, the sheep who come to accept him as such, and the shepherd who is willing to consider seriously something that only he notices.

Even when everyone else thinks he’s crazy and hallucinating, the good shepherd acts on what he has taken note of and enters Babe, the pig, in a sheepdog contest. It’s a kids’ movie, so, naturally, Babe wins. But he does so only when the sheep come to his rescue.

Beneath their docile and, well, stupid appearance, the sheep turn out to be both wise and wily. If I have to be a sheep, let me be one like that, and let me come under the care of a shepherd who does not destroy and scatter, who does not drive away the flock nor neglect it, but, rather, one who looks for the best in everyone under his care, and creatively draws it forth from them.

We need such a shepherd these days. More than that, we need to become such for each other these days.

The election, and, especially, the long and hideous campaign that preceded it, have loosed a great deal of ugliness and ignorance in our society. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, and xenophobia have found vile expression. The nation is riven into factions that speak at and across each other rather than with one another. And there are a whole host of folks who are acting dumber than sheep out there these days.

The prejudices are, of course, nothing new under the sun. But the rancor tearing the fabric of our society has taken on a tenor that feels different.

If we say that we are followers of Jesus – the Good Shepherd, the one whose sheep know him, recognize his voice, and follow him – we have some particular responsibilities these days.

The text from Jeremiah this morning, along with the rest of that prophetic word, serves to remind us of a few of them. Jeremiah insists that God demands justice and righteousness of those in powerful positions. Jeremiah sees the hand of God scattering the sheep because the shepherd has not attended to justice. Jeremiah understands that the collapse of the social order results from injustice, and that those in power have a particular responsibility to act with righteousness for the sake of justice on behalf of the marginalized, the widows and orphans, the powerless and the outcast.

Our responsibility, then, is to remain vigilant, to call out injustice whenever we see it, and to resist it with all of our wisdom and wile.

We sheep of the Presbyterian flock have an additional responsibility in the present moment. The president-elect has called himself one of us. While there is considerable doubt about his membership in any congregation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), I’m willing to take him at his word on this, because, if he is a member of our church, he is bound to us in a relationship of mutual responsibility and accountability.

We Presbyterians are heirs to the tradition of John Calvin, and it is tempting to say something about the doctrine of total depravity being proved by our politics, or to quote Calvin, who wrote in the Institutes of the Christian Religion that “those who domineer unjustly and tyrannically are raised up by [God] to punish the people for their iniquity.”

In other words, perhaps the sheep, themselves, deserve the shepherd they got because they failed to attend to justice; that is to say, we failed.

Indeed, it’s not difficult at all to create a litany of such failures over recent years: we have, collectively, failed to attend to the fact that our economy serves the interests of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the poor; we have, collectively, failed to attend to the fact that families are being torn apart by our immigration policies and enforcement procedures; we have, collectively, failed to attend to the fact that we are carrying out endless war in the midst of mindless entertainments. We could go on and on, but I’ll cut to the chase and say, simply, that we have, collectively, failed to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

Maybe we really are just sheep in need of a good shepherd.

Confession song

So, where’s the good news in all of this?

Well, it is the final Sunday on the liturgical calendar, the Sunday traditionally designated as Christ the King Sunday. That’s why we began with Crown Him With Many Crowns this morning. We recall, today, the reign of Christ, the good shepherd, and proclaim the very good news that, in Jesus, we see that God does reign in sovereign love. In the midst of all the ugliness around us, sovereign love is surely good news.

The other news these days is, to be sure, challenging and frightening. Lots of folks across the country, including more than a few in this room, are quite fearful – both of what has happened and of what may.

One of my favorite verses in all of scripture says simple, “perfect love casts out all fear.” God reigns in perfect love.

Because God acts in the world through the power of love, this sovereign love invites us to respond to the world in kind – that is to say, with love. Love is fundamental relational, and thus, when Jesus says, “follow me,” he is inviting us to participate in the reign of love; he is inviting us into relationship. When all else fails, resort to love.

Good news has power. It is, as Paul wrote to the Colossians, “glorious power” for it is the power to lift us up, to draw us together, and to sustain us.

As we are lifted up we are empowered to lift others, so just in the past week eight of us went to West Virginia to help folks whose homes were devastated by floods last summer. Another dozen of us went down to AFAC yesterday to support the annual turkey distribution to our neighbors in need.

As we are drawn together we are empowered to draw others together as well. We do this, in part, through creating safe and beautiful spaces. We fill them with song, trusting that Dostoevsky was on to something important when he wrote, “beauty will save the world.” So we do things such as invite the GenOUT Chorus to share their songs with us today and join our voices with an interfaith choir next Sunday in a concert for hope on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. We do things such as explore what it would entail to become a “sanctuary congregation.” We do things such as enact our prayers with light and color. Beauty draws us together and it honors the author of creation’s vast beauty.

As we are sustained, we are empowered to sustain others. We do this in part by resisting all that stands against the values of the gospel: hospitality, welcome to strangers, compassion, peace, justice, and love.

Together, as the church, we hold on to one another in a circle of love as a shepherd holds together the flock. I may not want to be a sheep, but I do want to stand within the circle of love.

They say that the shepherd knows his sheep and they know him.

I don’t know much of anything about flocks of sheep, but I do know my tribe. It’s a tribe known by love. In my tribe, these things are true: