John 101%m48 Sitez
April 12, 1970

Several weeks ago we drove to Brown County for the Maple Sugar Festival and durin>
that experience I learned some things ebout sheep that I hadn't know before. The
prophet described the Suffering Servant in these terms: "Like a sheep that before
its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.” Well, as is the case with a lot
of city people, I had never seen a sheep getting sheared. And as I watched the animal
lifted, twisted, occasionally nipped by the shears, totally passive throughout, these
familiar words came back. This sheep was truly dumb. He didn't open his mouth.

Totally fascinated at this point, I decided to reveal the extent of my ignorance
by asking one of the obvious experts standing around what I considered a very logical
question. “Doesn't it hurt? Aren't they cold after the wool is removed?" I expeot
he's still chuckling, but the man was gracious enough to explain that it didn't hurt,
except for those few nips, and that the sheep actually felt better without the wool.
Whether the sheep isn't smart enough to come in out of the rain, or whether the heavy
wool so insulates him that he doesn't even know it's raining, the fact is that he will
stand in the rain until his coat has absorbed around forty pounds of water. That makes
him sluggish and uncomfortable and it doesn't dry out sometimes for several weeks.

Now I'm telling you all of this because it is indicative of a general predicament
regarding Biblical imagery. There's a lot of meaning, a lot of freight, in the
Biblical symbols that eludes us simply because you and I don't live in the writer's
world. .: While I was preparing this sermon, Rev. James Sala called and in the course
of the conversation asked what I was preaching about this Sunday. When I told him,
he said something that summarizes our problem. "The trouble with that passage," he
said, “is that where we think about sheep is usually in terms of the price of Lamb
Chops."

That, in fact, is the problem. The image of the Shepherd and his sheep - so very
rich in Biblical content and meaning - simply doesn't strike us as very relevant. And
if we are going to get at the Biblical intent we have to do some old fashioned research —

to discover what this image meant to the men who used it,

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More than 500 times sheep, flocks, lambs and shepherds are mentioned in the pages
of the Bible. I've already cited one of thom from the Fifty-Third Chapter Isaiah.

Earlier in that same book the writer penned a pasgage which when set to music by Gec:_-
Frederick Handel never fails to move me deeply:

"He will feed his flock like a shepherd,

He will gather the lambs in his arms,

He will carry them in his bosom, .

And gently lead those that are with young." (Isaiah 40:11)

And, of course, the most familiar of all: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want. He makes me lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside still waters."
(Psalm 23:1,2)

In the near East in Biblical times, and even today, shepherding was and is a
highly complex art. It is not anything like modern American sheep ranching; nor does
it resemble to romanticized image of sheep tending in the highlands of Scotland.

The best feel for Biblical shepherding I've read comes from a Basque interpretation
of the Twenty-Third Psalm: "“Shoep graze from around 3;30 in the morning until 10.
Then they liedown for three or four hours of rest. When they are contentedly chewing
their cuds, the shepherd knows they are putting on fat. Consequently the good
shepherd starts his flock out in the morning on rougher herbage, moving on through the
morning to the richer, sweeter grasses and finally coming to @ shady place for the
forenoon rest in fine green pastures..."

"Every shepherd knows that sheep will not drink gurgling water.... ilthough
the sheep need the water they will not drink from a fast-flowing stream, The shepherd
must find a place where the rocks or erosion have made a little pool or else he
fashions with his hands a pocket from which the sheep can drink...."

‘While walking, sheep stay in a feeding line and at least once a day the
shepherd calls each one by name. The sheep leaves its place, goes to the shepherd
for some affectionate rubbing and scratching and then returns.

“At every sheepfold there is a big earthen bowl of olive oil and a large jar of

water. As the sheep come in for the night, they are led to the gate. The

shepherd examines each one as it passes for briars, snags, weeping eyes from dust
and scratches. Each sheep's wounds are carefully cleansed. Then the shepherd dips
his hands into the olive oil and anoints the injury. 4 large cup full of water
is drawn from the jar - never half-full. The sheep sinks his nose into the cup to
cleanse his eyes if fevered, and to drink until fully refreshed."

When all the sheep are at rest, the shepherd wraps himself in his robe and lies
down in the doorway to sloep, facing the sheep." [From the Basque Sheepherder and the
Shepherd Psalm]

The story is told of a woll meaning grandmother se gave her cight year old
granddaughter a very thorough book on penguins. The little girl wrote this candid
note: "Dear grandmother; Thank you for the new book. It tells me more about Penguins
than I wanted to know.'t You may now have been told more about sheep and shepherding
than you wanted to know.

ind yet, it is quite necessary to understand all the meanings involved whenever
this image is used Biblically. When Jesus said he was the door to the sheepfold:
or when he compared himsclf with a "good Shepherd" - this is the kind of content he
was intending. He was referring to a relationship so very unique, so dependent,
so intimate that we have no way to comprehend it other than getting insido his own
mind-set. He was talking about a kind of security that only those who had seen it
operating could understand.

I think Jesus was intending basically three things in the passage of scripture we
read this morning. First, he was underscoring the Old Testament idca of God as a —
shepherd. In the days of polytheism, when people had many deitics, the idea of one
God was the distinctive character of the Israclite culture. In comparison with the
Greeks who were inclined also to accept one God, the image of God as shepherd was
startling. Gods were grandiose, bigger-than-life portraits of men. Yor the Grecks,
God was e philosophic concept of ultimate goodness, ultimate justice or powor. But
the Jews kept insisting that God was most like a shepherd: and that his nature is known

only in relationship with his flock. Jesus was underscoring that.

me

Second, Jesus was using the illustration to make a "messianio claim" for himself.
"I am the door", "I am the good shepherd". Here Jesus was drawing on the theolo’
image known and accepted by his listeners and inserting himself in the key position.

He was the shepherd = he knows the shcep - they are under ‘his care - their safety
and security are his responsibility.

Third, Jesus was saying something about the Church. It is to be like a flock in
its dependence on him. Flocks must be fed, sheltered and led: so the Church of
Jesus Christ is nourished by him in worship, study and fellowship.

Now, we live a long way from the pastoral environment of . sheep—herding. And
yet, perhaps that distance - chronological, geographical — but mainly cultural - makes
even more relevant the word of God in this passage.

We live in a world totally devoid of a sense of God. To be sure thero is much
evidence of what has to be called "Pop Religion". If we went up and down the streets
of this neighborhood asking people if they believed in God, the overwhelming response
would be affirmative. Everyone believes in God_- it's as American .as apple pic and
motherhood. But it is a phony religiosity: the God believed in by Pop Religion
stays in his heaven and has nothing to do with the complexities of life. He is no
power to be reckoned with: he is no force in life: he demands nothing but that anti-
septic intellectual affirmation that he exists out there somewhere. He is the "man
upstairs": the god who doesn't matter. He is an "un-god". Pop Religion is an
important part of our culture, and one of its more serious effects is as an insulation
from the radical claims of the God who was the father of Jesus Christ. So long as your
God is safely stashed in hcaven, remote from your life - your concerns ~ your problems —
you don't have to be bothered with this other God, this God the Bible keeps claiming
is as intimately involved with you and me as a shepherd is with his own sheep.

‘nd so we live in a culture that pays lip-service to a Pop God, but is totally
devoid of any sense of God's presence. That culture is one now being diagnosed as very
sick. Its people are diagnosed as alicnated, —e adrift, without hope. Together

they arc walking through the dark valley of racial polarization caused by their own

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godless insensitivity, a war that cannot be won and which many feel ought not even to
be fought, crumbling cities which breed violence and poverty and more violence. And
together this people seems to be crying out for their pop God - so long absent - ~

to do something reconciling, something healing. Well, he won't and can't because that
God never existed. He was a figment of the collective American imagination.

The God revealed by Jesus Christ - the God who is like a shepherd - has been here
all along. We have ignored him: we have lived our lives and structured our institutions
and exploited our minorities and condoned ghettoes and racism and poverty with ne ka
as if He were not here: as if somchow he wasn't involved.

The Good News of the Gospol, however, which sometimes sounds like very bad
news, is that he is here; that he walks through the dark valleys with us: that he is
intimately involved in our common life and our individual lives.

The implications of that for our common life are profound. If God is involved
then how we conduct our corporate affairs suddenly becomes a moral and spiritual as
well as a political question. Suddenly poverty- becomes more than an unfortunate set
of circumstances. Suddenly racism becomes far more than ignorance. Suddenly we're
dealing with God when we call that man a nigger. Simultancously we'ro dealing with
our creator, the one with whom we ultimately have to do, when we look down our middle
class noses at the A.D.C. mother. The comforting shepherd image - whon understood in
terms of intimate involvement — can be extremely judgmental. But to ignore this God
is to miss totally the thrust of the Gospel.

Personally, the same logic maintains. We're not in this thing alone. What we
do, how we feol, how we relate with others, matters a great deal - because we have a
Shepherd who is with us. That can be bad nows, if in fact we're playing with a "Pop
God". But it can also be the best news in the world.

It means that you matter - and that I matter, Remember the shepherd standing at
the door of the fold, cleansing each minor wound, annointing each tiny scratch with
oil, nourishing cach sheep with the cool water of affection and caring. Well, the good
news of the Gospel is that God is like that with you and mc. We pick up our scratches

along the way: we have our problems, our disappointments. We experience shattering

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gricf whon a loved one dics, and minor grief when a friendship is brokon, We have

hopes and dreams so dear to us that we are wounded when they come crashing down aro’ .u
our feet. ind the good news of the Gospel is that God is so intimately involved wi"!
that he shares the hurt and burden of overyone of these experiences. Nothing is too
small, no wound too minor to escape his love. No experience is so shattcring that he
cannot help us through, picking up the pieces and presenting a now, creative possibility
that wo couldn't even have imagined before,

That's what it means to belong to the good Shepherd. That's the possibility —-
the saving, healing possibility that opens up when a man chooses to belong to his
flock,

Jesus knew the Psalter: the Psalms of David were set to music and sung by the
people in worship. He knew these ancient and good words, Hear them again - this
time as the mind of him who is the good Shepherd: (R § V)

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;

Ho makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sakc.

Evon though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil; for thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my encmics;

Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and meroy shall follow me all the days of my life;

And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." 4MACN «

Almighty God, make us sensitive to your presence. 4s we confront other people -
help us to see them in the light of your love. As we encounter difficult days in our
lives, help us to lean heavily on the healing grace of your love. Through Jesus Christ

our Lord. «men.