[Propertalk] sheep and goodness

[Ann Fontaine]

 From -  (not my sermon)

http://revjph.blogspot.com/2009/05/madpriests-bog-standard-sermon-for.html

Jesus said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I  
came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good  
shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The  
hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees  
the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away - and the wolf  
snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a  
hired hand does not care for the sheep.

"I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the  
Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the  
sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must  
bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be  
one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because  
I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from  
me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down,  
and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command  
from my Father.”

A poem.

Sheep die.
They lie and rot in farmyards
chewed by dogs.
They smell of rain and dirt and disinfectant.

Ignorance and barbed wire meet
to greet with death
God’s metaphor for man.

And is it that their sodden pelts could be
the weight of sin?
Or is it sheer stupidity?


Sheep are stupid.

They smell bad and they are stupid.

I speak as one who knows sheep. I have spent time with sheep. I have  
been very close to sheep. I have done things with elastic bands to  
little baby boy lambs that would make your eyes water. I have chased  
sheep round fields trying to get them to go through a gate. And from  
the determination that they showed in trying to avoid it, they  
obviously thought that gate was the very gateway to Hell itself.

Sheep are scared of everything. Not just people and dogs. But bushes  
and trees and things that aren’t even there.

Yes, sheep are stupid.

They taste nice. Their milk makes brilliant cheese. Their wool is one  
of God’s best inventions. So they are pretty useful animals. But they  
are stupid. Especially female sheep. They must be the only species in  
the animal kingdom where the male has slightly more sense than the  
female. You could probably strike up a good friendship with a ram, as  
long as it isn’t the tupping season when they tend to get a bit  
obsessed about just one thing and a little touchy if approached. But,  
sheep, forget it.

It makes you wonder why Jesus refers to his followers as sheep.

“Jesus said to the Pharisees: ‘I am the good shepherd. The good  
shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.’”

I’ve known some good shepherds in my life. A clergy friend of mine,  
Judy, was the vicar at Rothbury and Alwinton (I think she’s moved on,  
or is in the process of moving on, to Alton). She was on “Songs of  
Praise” once, being interviewed because she was both a Christian  
shepherd and a real shepherd.

When it comes to being a shepherd of real sheep I think she would walk  
many miles in the mud with her dog to rescue a wounded animal. She  
would go out in some pretty awful weather to look after the sheep,  
especially during the lambing season. But I don’t think I would be  
doing her down at all to say that I doubt that she would ever lay down  
her life for one of her sheep. Not deliberately. She has far more  
common sense than that. I don’t think that there is a sane shepherd or  
farmer in the country who would willingly sacrifice his own life for  
one of his sheep. Certainly not at the prices they fetch at market  
nowadays. In fact, I would go as far as to say that this has always  
been the case, even back in Jesus’ time.

The problem is, over the years we have come to misunderstand the full  
meaning of those parables concerning sheep that we find in the Bible.

Think about it. Jesus tells us that he is the good shepherd and that  
because he is the good shepherd he is willing to lay down his life for  
any one of his sheep. In fact, not only for the sheep of his own flock  
but also for the sheep from other flocks as well. But common sense  
tells us that this is stupid, that there is no logic here. A shepherd,  
no matter how good he is does not lay down his life for his own sheep  
let alone somebody else’s sheep. There is something wrong here. And  
what is wrong is this. When we hear Jesus refer to himself as a good  
shepherd we think that he is likening himself to the good shepherds  
that we know; people like my friend, Judy, for example. But he isn’t.  
He is in fact saying something a lot more. And the clue to what he is  
saying is in the Greek. The Greek language has many different words  
for the English word “good”. There are at least eight in the New  
Testament alone. The word John uses in today’s Gospel is ‘kalos’ and  
the word ‘kalos’ was used to specifically mean beautiful, exquisite,  
genuine, perfect in form and nature.

Jesus is not saying that he is only the good shepherd. He is saying  
much more than that. He is saying that he is the Godly shepherd, the  
shepherd of God. And this shepherd of God, who is called Jesus, goes  
far beyond the goodness of the earthly shepherd and gives something  
that no earthly shepherd could, or would, ever give.

Sheep are stupid and are not worth risking your life for. But, of  
course, it is not the sheep we come across in fields and on hillsides  
that Jesus is talking about in this parable.

It is us. Us human beings who are the sheep he is referring to. We are  
the sheep of Christ’s flock. And the sheep metaphor is perfect for us  
as we are so very, very stupid. In fact, we seem capable of far  
greater stupidity than the sheep of the field.

The sheep of the field do not destroy their own environment even when  
they know that such destruction will make life, if there still is any  
life, a living hell for their children. The sheep of the field do not  
go around killing each other over fossil fuels and ideologies. The  
sheep of the field do not go to every length to stop the spread of  
foot and mouth disease in cows whilst doing very little to contain the  
spread of a deadly illness that can infect them, because to do so  
would interrupt world trade and the making of money.

We are the most foolhardy, selfish and self-harming animal that has  
ever walked on this planet. Any shepherd of ours should look on us, in  
our self-inflicted misery, and decide, very quickly, that we are just  
not worth the laying down of any life for. Our salvation, you would  
think, is just not worth it.

Yet our shepherd, Jesus Christ, did lay down his life for our  
salvation, and he did it willingly. We did not earn such a sacrifice,  
we did not merit such a sacrifice, but Jesus still made the sacrifice.  
And in doing so he gave worth to the worthless, he gave worth to each  
one of us, although we did not deserve it.

And that is true grace.

That is the grace that can only come from the Godly shepherd, the  
divine shepherd. Because only God can be capable of such sacrificial  
self-giving.

And it is because our salvation was won for us by God himself, not by  
a human being, or human beings, or any of their ideologies or  
philosophies, that we can be confident of our salvation, even though  
we know that our own actions and our own nature does not warrant such  
a glorious prize.

Sheep die and we die too. But because the eternal one, battled through  
the rains and the gales and the muddy fields of death to find his lost  
sheep and rescue them by laying down his very life for his foolhardy  
and disobedient sheep, we have been spared the finality of our earthly  
death. We are rescued from death along with our godly shepherd who  
redeems us and returns us to the fold.
POSTED BY MADPRIEST AT 11:12 AM






The Rev. Ann Fontaine
Lander, Wyoming


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