Reflection from Good Shepherd Sunday

Listen to the audio HERE and/or read below...

Good morning. As many of you know, the Good Shepherd is the central parable of our children’s programming here at CTR. The contemplative, Montessori-style instruction we use is actually called the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. So, as you might imagine, I’ve heard this lesson a time or two.

We gather in our atrium, which is the prepared sacred space for the children, and invite them to slowly and prayerfully ponder what Jesus meant when he called himself the Good Shepherd. We ask them, what do you think a good shepherd does? And they respond with things like: he takes his sheep to good places to eat, keeps them safe, leads them to beautiful places to rest. And though I have been virtually enveloped by this lesson for the past three, I’m not sure I ever really heard it, personally, until this week.

I follow a few pastor’s on-line, many who are women, and listen to their weekly sermons via podcasts. One of my favorites is Nadia Bolz-Weber who started this little ELCA Lutheran church in Colorado. The other night I listened to her brilliant sermon and I heard the Good Shepherd calling in her words…

She entitled her reflection “The Truth About Sheep: A Sermon by Someone Who Doesn’t Know Anything About Sheep But Knows a Little About Humans and Only a Tiny Bit About God But is going to Take a Shot At This Anyhow.”

When she spoke the opening line of her sermon, I involuntarily took in a sharp, short breath, feeling unexpectedly exposed because she spoke aloud something that I think about every single time I hear this lesson in the atrium with the kids…and I always feel a little ashamed and afraid that I’m going to be revealed as a fraud for thinking it…she says….

“The Truth About Sheep is that I don’t want to be one.

A wolf or a shepherd, yes, but never a sheep. Sheep are stupid and docile and easily manipulated.
I want to make my own choices and go my own way. Even, it should be noted, if those choices and that way is killing me.

The Truth About Sheep is that sometimes we are rebellious – we are the ones who stay as far to the edge of the flock as possible so we can try and pretend we are free agents. Our insistence that we aren’t like other sheep keeps us from the one thing we really want which is to belong and feel safe
but it is the complete lack of belonging and feeling safe-ness that keeps us at arm’s length, appearing aloof, always poised to cut and run should things get too intimate.

The Truth About Sheep is that we want nothing more than to belong and yet never felt we have OR we have felt a part of something for awhile and then not a part of something so quickly that it doesn’t feel like it even counted." (Bolz-Weber)

Here’s a bit of my own riff on her premise…

The Truth About Sheep is that sometimes we are hard of hearing because the pace of our daily life is not conducive to listening for the Shepherd…we hear his voice only in passing because we are never still. We are the sheep who are so busy, our calendars are so packed, our stress level is so high that we are in an almost constant state of fight or flight. 

We are so distracted by our noisy beeping screens, that even when we hear the shepherd call out to us, it sounds very distant, so faint that is easily dismissed as something we just imagined, because we never just stop…and get quiet so we can really listen.

We just keep moving…because our culture has told us that action and accomplishment are better than rest….That doing something – anything- is better than doing nothing. We are the sheep who are slow in recognizing that observing the Sabbath, taking a day of rest, is not a suggestion or an option that God gives us, but rather it’s a commandment. One of the big ten. Right up there with thou shalt not kill.

We are the sheep who are unable to lead our children to good nourishment or teach them how to distinguish the shepherd’s voice among all the other voices clamoring for their attention because we have lost the ancient habit and ability to stop, rest and listen.

We are the sheep who need our Sabbath rest so we can remember what is beautiful and sacred; we need to light candles, sing songs, tell stories, eat, nap, and make love. We need to let our work lie fallow, so our souls can be restored and we can once again be available to the insights and creativity that arise only in stillness, "knowing that when we act from a place of deep rest, we are more capable of right understanding, right action and right effort.” (Muller, Sabbath)

We are the sheep who can’t hear the shepherd because his voice is drown out or mistaken for the incessant scolding of our inner critic who tells us we should be thinner or smarter, or our house should be cleaner, or we should have done this or that so we could be as talented, strong, successful as all the other sheep.

One of the main principles of CGS is that Christ is the only teacher in the atrium. Which means that we catechist’s are receiving guidance from God right along with the children, and very often through the children, during our time together.

I’ve only recently become aware that (during the lesson) whenever the kids respond “the Good Shepherd leads his sheep to lie down and rest in green pastures” a feeling of both skepticism and deep longing comes over me, like a wave. There is some warped cultural or parent tape that plays in me that says if “I’m happy then I’m not working hard enough.” The quiet time in the atrium with the children, moving at their pace, has shown me that that voice is not of God…

Now those were my words. But this next part is a paraphrase from Pastor Nadia (some of it’s mine, but most of it's hers, so I'm just marking the whole thing as a quote), because quite simply it can’t be said any better. She just nails the landing here, and it’s a work of art that I don’t want to mess up or spoil…I just want to share it…because for me it is as clear as the Shepherd’s voice gets….

She says, on our better days “we can really shine as sheep. We are the sheep who do unbelievably tender and kind things for our fellow flockmates. We show them where the best grass is, we nudge them with our noses helping them stand back up when they fall. We bind each others wounds…we care for those who are sick. We celebrate, cry and mourn with one another. We are the sheep who love and listen to the Good Shepherd and are so often our very best selves.

We are defiant, needy, compassionate, stingy, tender, vain, anxious and courageous. We are all of these sheep. And it’s ok. There is nothing wrong with any of it, because it is the truth. And Jesus said the truth will set us free. There is nothing wrong with the fact that I am a sheep of God’s keeping and that you are sheep of God’s keeping.

The Truth Of Who We Are and our fragile need to belong is nothing to be ashamed of. We are all these kinds of sheep because these kinds of sheep are all there are. When we wander off and try and get our needs met through all the wrong ways –and allow others to be our shepherd – and when we are dumb and let the wolves in - and when we do all the other things sheep just do, it doesn’t mean we are not worthy to have a good shepherd, it just makes it all that much better news that we have a good shepherd.

And the shepherd loves this mess of sheep – The shepherd lays down his life for just these kinds of sheep – which means that the shepherd’s care and love is not contingent on the sheep being the right kind.

Because here’s The Truth About The Shepherd –The Shepherd never mentions the type of quality of sheep he demands. The shepherd never holds auditions. The shepherd never provides protection and love and concern for his sheep based on how the sheep look or feel or behave…

The Truth About The Shepherd is that despite all of this, we are known, we are loved and we are called by name. We know the voice. It is always there, breaking through our insecurities and fear of wolves, it is within the clamor of our noisy, busy lives and defends us against the harsh murmurs of our inner critic. The voice of the one who lays down his life for us ….who pours out his boundless love for his imperfect and smelly sheep…..is always right there saying:

You belong to me..." (Bolz-Weber)