On this Good Shepherd Sunday, it is helpful to remember the reality of working with sheep. They can be very smart, especially the bell weathers, and at other times they can be, well, not the cleverest animals you have ever met, and just as prone to mistakes as we humans can be. Here's a video to remind us what sheep can be like: (99) Sheep gets stuck in trench, jumps back in - YouTube. So they can get into ruts and need help getting out, only to fall into bigger and deeper ruts. Not unlike humans. We can get caught in emotional ruts and intellectual ditches unintentionally, we can get stuck and not know how to extricate ourselves from the holes we are in.
Cue the
shepherd, and not just any shepherd, the good shepherd as mentioned in our
scriptures this morning. One thing I
learned this week was the word for ‘good’ used in the original Greek might be
better translated as ‘model’. So,
although the shepherd in our scripture is contrasted with a hired hand who
doesn’t have a relationship with the sheep other than their paycheck, it’s not
so much that the shepherd is ‘good’ and the hired help is ‘bad’. It is that a model shepherd, an ideal
shepherd, the kind you want to hire to take care of your flock, invests more
than time into the flock. It’s not just
about the paycheck, it’s about where the heart is invested.
Both our
scriptures talk about Jesus, our model shepherd, as being so invested in the
flock that he was ready and willing to sacrifice even his life for those
sheep. To be so into a loving
relationship that the gospel writer later wrote, “greater love has no one than
this that someone lays down their life for another”. Our model shepherd loves so deeply that they
will risk their body for not just another person but a whole community.
That is quite
the model to follow. That’s quite the inspiration,
that’s quite the big shoes to step into.
Jesus said that this love was so big that it encompassed others who were
not a part of the inner circle, the disciples and followers that were part of
the flock. Jesus specifically spoke
about the other sheep that were also needing a shepherd. The ones who were lost, the ones who had
wandered off, the ones who were isolated, the ones who were in pain or in
danger. Jesus wasn’t there just for the 12,
or just for the people of Israel. Jesus
was there for the big picture. Jesus was
deeply, emotionally invested in the wellbeing of each and everyone in the
world. That’s quite the model.
We see plenty
of examples where people are not following the model of being invested in the
wellbeing of everyone. Anti maskers who
want their businesses reopened and so what if a few old people die here or
there. Racists who think it’s fun to use
a microphone with a noose attached to it during a public demonstration in Northern
Alberta. Politicians who don’t support
their own party’s stance on health regulations.
A legal system that throws out tickets issued to people flaunting the
health regulations. Police officers who think it’s okay to kneel on someone’s
neck for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds.
Plenty of stories of people who are more like hired hands than role
models.
We too are
called to listen for the Shepherd’s voice and become loving, invested role
models for our community. This is not
easy work. How do I love the person who
thinks that I am bad or political when I wear a mask or sign up for a
vaccine? How do I love the person who
tells me I am a sheeple, and stupid for believing doctors, scientists, and
politicians? How do I love the neighbor
who thinks it’s okay to pollute the world with facemasks? Or the family member who promotes conspiracy
theories every time we call? Sacrificial
love is not easy in these situations.
Where are the
role models who care to the point of sacrificial love? I recently learned about a movement in
Minneapolis that started after the George Floyd murder. One lady courageously donned her clergy
collar, e-mailed her colleagues, and went out into the riots to listen and
support protestors. She became part of a
growing team who wear bright orange t-shirts with the word ‘chaplain’ on it in
bold letters. They hand out everything
from bottled water and pizza, but mostly they listen. They listen to trauma, fear, anger,
frustration, racism, injustice and more.
And day by day, they are modelling what it means to be a caring and loving
presence in the world. It is not easy
work, it is not safe work, but it is work that they have felt called to
do. To bring healing in a time where the
world feels out of control.
Sacrificial love
for ordinary sheep is the model shepherd’s highest intention. The model shepherd is not me, and not you,
but we can become inspired to imitate that model to our best abilities. Just as Jesus had very clear intentions
centered around loving his flock, we need to wrestle with our intentions. Why do we feel the need to pick up that
phone, write that letter, talk to that person?
Is it out of love for our community or is it out of anger or fear? Can we see that individual as part of our
flock that we are called to guide? There
are some sheep that are in a deep hole of anger, distrust and fear because
that’s how they are meeting their needs for safety.
And we need to
be aware that we can feel more like the hired hand than the shepherd. Our ability to love that sacrificially might
not be there yet. We may not be as
healed as we’d like from our own feelings of fear and anger. We may not be invested in their welfare as
much as our own. This may be the Model
Shepherd’s voice calling us to rest patiently until we gain our own strength
and safety before we try to rescue others.
It’s very easy to think we can fix things and people when we are stuck
in our own ditches. And trying to fix
other people because we know best is the very definition of colonial oppression
which led to residential schools and other racist interventions; because we did
not have our intentions grounded in sacrificial love.
And maybe we
need to recognize that we are not the shepherd called to help them out of that
hole, or that this is not the right time for us to help. Our most loving action
may be to rest and pray that we be pulled out of our own ditches and that they
may find someone wise and patient who has the skills to pull our neighbors out
of their ditch too. There are many
resources that we can refer people to. But we can choose to invest in the most
loving outcome for people who are struggling, just like us, to make sense of
the world.
We are not
Jesus, the model shepherd who is deeply invested in our welfare. But we can listen for Jesus and remember to
do our best to love others as we have been loved, deeply, unconditionally, and
love ourselves as well especially when we feel like we’re caught in a ditch
like a silly sheep. We are loved, even
then, and thanks be to God for that sacrificial investment of love!