Talking about sheep, sheeple, and shepherds this week:
Mark 6:30-34,53-56; Ephesians 2:11-22; Psalm 23; Jeremiah 23:1-6
This is a very sheep-y week in our lectionary. Jeremiah is talking about bad shepherds and good shepherds. In Psalm 23, we announce that GOD is our shepherd. In the Gospel, Jesus looks on a crowd of people and sees them as sheep without a shepherd. The Ephesians text doesn’t fit with the shepherd motif quite as well at first glance, but it still does fit together.
Now, up until recently, I knew precisely nothing about sheep and shepherds. Well, I take it back; I knew sheep were rather, well, dumb. I’ve started to get to know much more about sheep, and now I have an intellectual understanding, though not a practical one at all.
Left to their own devices, sheep seem to want to go out of their way to kill themselves. Not being very smart, they tend to fail even at that endeavor, but it’s the job of the shepherd to make sure the sheep don’t kill or hurt themselves or find themselves in the maw of wolves and other predators.
In Scripture, humans are quite often metaphorically referred to as sheep. I think this fits altogether too well, especially as we tend to do things that would be harmful to ourselves and others. That’s kind of how sin works itself out in our lives.
Luckily for us, as Psalm 23 reminds us, there exists a certain individual, well, more correctly a certain Trinity, who is completely willing to be our shepherd. We sang earlier today, “The Lord is my shepherd.” He leads us to green pastures and still waters; he revives us and leads us on right paths; he protects us from all evil, even through the valley of death. These are all very shepherding things to do, and God does them quite well (so long as we actually pay attention).
But, people, being somewhat like sheep, have a hard time following a shepherd they can’t actually interact with in most cases. God, knowing this, then calls humans to “shepherd” in his stead. In the Old Testament it was through judges, prophets, and kings. In the New Testament we had God Himself, in the person of Jesus, and the apostles. Now we have pastors and teachers, pastor being the Latin word for “shepherd.” However, being as these shepherds are human, excepting of course Jesus, they tend to screw up.
That’s what the Jeremiah reading is all about. The “shepherds” of Israel, namely the kings but also those in power, failed in their duty and led the flock astray. Because of that, God will scatter the Israelites throughout the world, something that was fulfilled not much later in the Exile. But God, wanting to leave good news as well as bad, also says that there will be another Shepherd, one who will to what is just and right, and God’s people “will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing.”
This is fulfilled in Jesus, for as we read in Mark’s gospel, “When Jesus … saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.” Unfortunately, Mark doesn’t record what Jesus taught, but I have to wonder if it was similar to what Paul writes in Ephesians. These would have been people who felt lost, confused, and afraid, even if they might not have been able to put words to the feelings they had, just as sheep would be without a shepherd.
Paul writes, “In Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ… Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” We are united under one shepherd, Jesus, with some “under-shepherds” in the apostles and prophets.
Yet it’s not just pastors, apostles, and prophets who shepherd God’s folk. All of us have, at some time, shepherded God’s sheep. Parents shepherd their children, some of you have shepherded through Sunday School, VBS, and other events. Some people shepherd through musical talents — the whole idea is to help those around us to continue our walk with God, so that we may truly say, in the words of the hymn, “And so, through all the length of days, Thy goodness faileth never. Good Shepherd, may I sing thy praise Within thy house forever.”