Good Shepherd

When I was a kid, we lived in Australia for a year, and our next-door neighbor had a sheep station.  Sheep are a big thing down under, and as Canadians, we got invited to all kinds of things.  We got to see the sheep get dipped in some kind of medicine in what looked like a tiny dugout.  We got to see the sheep getting penned up for the shearing by the drovers, hard working and tanned, burly men.  We were shocked to see the dogs running over the backs of the penned-up sheep but even more shocked to see the drovers also walking across the backs of the sheep!  They were quick about it, and the sheep seemed none the worse for wear.  We even watched them wrestling the sheep into the shearing shed, pinning their legs and taking the razor right down to the skin of the animals.  It looked pretty traumatizing at first, but once the sheep were firmly held, they seemed to be okay.  We got to help picking off the loose or dirty bits of the fleeces and our hands got really soft from the lanolin in the fresh wool.  Then we watched the workers expertly flip the fleeces into big bins lined with burlap until they were full.  The bins were always in pairs and attached to a machine that would take one bin and rotate it over the second bin and squish its contents into the lower bin, then they would attach the top of the burlap and move it to the stack.  These burlap cubes must have been about three feet square and we kids thought it would be fun to jump on them and see how much we bounced!  We thought it would be soft but it was more like expecting a soft cushy sofa and getting a brick bench instead.  Wow!

It wasn’t our job to take care of the sheep.  And it wasn’t the job of the shearers to take care of the sheep.  That was the job of the Grazier, who owned the stations and kept the dingos away.  He knew that sheep who don’t get sheared can get into big trouble, even though they might like to escape from the shearing shed.  There was one sheep in New Zealand named Shrek, who escaped and when he was shorn, he lost sixty pounds of wool!  Sheep can get so weighed down by their wool that they can’t move to reach fresh pastures where green grass grows, and they can’t lie down by still waters to quench their thirst.

Good shepherds focus on more than just their sheep.  They also focus on the world that their sheep live in.  Shepherds who forget this part of caring for their sheep will allow them to overgraze their pastures.  Spending too long in any one paddock can lead to sheep having worms, or being impacted by drought conditions, or targeted by wolves and coyotes.

Sometimes we can be like stubborn sheep, wanting to avoid what’s good for us, and not recognizing how good we have it.  We don’t want to take the medicine the Good Shepherd provides for our souls, and we certainly don’t want to lose the things that keep us feeling warm and cozy and safe.  We don’t want to be moved from paddock to paddock to let the earth and grass recuperate from our use of the land. But there are times when the Good Shepherd knows we need to be sheared of all the things that weigh us down, fear, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and yes, maybe even too much stuff.  There are times when the Good Shepherd calls us to recognize when we have harmed the environment.  It’s hard to let go of all that, but we need to trust that the Good Shepherd knows what’s best for us.  And when our shepherd cares so much for us that he’s ready to even sacrifice his life for our well-being, that’s pretty amazing and humbling. 

Yesterday, people spent some time pondering the different images they had of our Good Shepherd.  If you talk to a shepherd who takes care of sheep for a living, as I had the opportunity to do just this week, the Good Shepherd is an amazing metaphor that resonates with them in a very powerful way.  But many of us have never touched a sheep or even seen a sheep up close.  The image of Jesus as our Good Shepherd can be as foreign to our lived experience as the image of a skyscraper would have been to a Roman Emperor.  Using this image today may be as enticing as a 1950’s jello salad, once all the rage at church potlucks, but never seen on restaurant menus.  In today’s society, it’s a metaphor that may not work well for us, especially if we think of sheep as docile and dumb.  They are anything but.  They can be tough, stubborn, creative, and easily spoiled by city slickers treating them like pets, as one of my farmer friends has often told me.  What kind of metaphors could we explore for Jesus that might help us feel more connected to him? Jesus is my homeless shelter?  Jesus is my Construction Safety Officer?  Jesus is my fire chief?  Jesus is my Astronaut?  Some of the metaphors that people came up with yesterday were amazing.  

Whatever metaphor we use that works for us today, hopefully it helps us to remember the characteristics of Jesus that can help us expand our understanding of who Jesus is in our lives today. Easter is a time to remember that Jesus had an abiding, unwavering kind of love and commitment to us all. And thanks be to God, Jesus continues to inspire and guide us and lead us into safe pastures.  May it be so for us all.  Amen.

The Big Thaw

 Just a week ago I walked down to the river. for me it’s a short trip, but it was amazing to see that there was still a lot of ice.  It was just starting to show water in places here and there.  And now a week later, it’s all thawed with nary a speck of ice or snow.

And we can see how fast it runs now that the ice is gone.  It is moving swift and silently once again.  The geese are nesting, the fish are biting, the flies are hatching, the bulbs are sprouting, and the grass is greening.  The season is changing before our eyes and another winter is behind us.

When we still had snow and ice, it seemed like nothing would change and spring would never come. Saul was frozen into such an attitude.  He had built an ice jam of cold fury towards people he saw as a threat.  He would not be moved from that position that these new-fangled ideas were an abominable twisting of the Torah. The more he heard them, the more he listened to them, the more of a threat they seemed, and the more icy he became to their ideas.

He became so obsessed with the followers of ‘The Way” that he asked for special authority to deal with them.  He wanted that ‘double 0’ designation that gave him licence to arrest and kill.  And he was willing to walk all the way to Damascus in Syria!  That’s 275 km away.  At the average speed of most humans, Saul was willing to go on a two week journey to round up and arrest malcontents so they could be punished.

All he could see was the threat.  All he could think of was preserving the status quo.  All he wanted to do was hurt.  He was frozen in his attitude towards people he hadn’t even met in person, condemning them without a fair trial.  Even helping with their execution.  He was the one who held the coats of others while they executed Stephen, he was the one described as ‘ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both women and men to put them in jail’.

But he wasn’t the only one frozen into a particular opinion and attitude.  The real hero in this story, I think, is Ananias. He also was stuck in the attitude that Saul was a threat to his family, friends and his new faith.  He didn’t want to deal with this dangerous man.  He only saw the danger and not the opportunity that lay before him.  No way he wanted to go and be nice to Saul!

But Ananias was a follower of the Way and knew that Jesus taught them to pray for their enemies.  He knew that the resurrection had turned all their assumptions about the way the world worked upside down. He knew that he might not be the greatest at preaching the gospel to cynical people, but he was the ‘johnny on the spot’, the one God could connect with and send.  He was the one who healed Saul’s deep, frozen soul.  He was the one that started the river flowing, and what a river it was!

Saul who was so frozen in his ways and his attitudes and his hate, broke down in front of humble Ananias.  He realized his stubbornness and anger had been not only so unhealthy it impacted him physically, it also pushed him into behaving in ways counter to the faith he honored.  His extremist mindset pulled him into what today’s psychologists call ‘cognitive dissonance’.  Instead of honoring God and studying the Torah, he was persecuting people he didn’t know, breaking the Torah’s command to love God and love neighbor.

Who do we connect with?  Are we a Saul, stubbornly frozen in sure we know what is right and best for our neighbors, and willing to do whatever it takes to prove that we are right, and certain they deserve punishment?  Are we an Ananias, wondering how on earth we can talk to someone as angry and hurting as Saul?  Are we Saul’s companions, helping guide him to the support he needs?  Are we the followers of the Way, wondering what we can do to keep ourselves safe during the threat Saul is bringing?

If we are honest with ourselves, there are times when we are frozen in resistance to God’s message of compassion.  There are times when we are called to help someone in pain, and we feel like we don’t know where to start.  There are times when we can speak a word of comfort, not realizing how thawing simple words can be.  Ananias was not one of the twelve, and we don’t have letters in the bible from him to the other teachers.  This is the only sermon he preached.  This is the only story we have of him.  A simple man, following a simple message, speaking in faith and hope and courage to someone he never dreamed he could influence.

On this Christian Family Sunday, when we honor the many people in our lives who have been sources of love and healing, may we find the courage to speak out to the Sauls in our families who are frozen in cognitive dissonance and hurting enough to recognize their need to change.  May we find the honesty to face our own stubborn blindness and know it persecutes not just family and friends, but even and especially our Holy God.  May we help guide those who are in pain to safe places where they can thaw and find healing.  And may we find God’s healing presence taking the scales from our eyes and bringing us back our sight and energy to flow like a mighty river in God’s plan to end conflict and hate for all.  May we continue the story of ‘The Way’, one step at a time, one story at a time, one thawing river at a time. Amen.