Gently Led

Growing up I always heard that sheep were the dumbest of animals.  I once heard that God created sheep in order to make chickens look smart. In Scripture, sheep are noted for their tendency to wander off.  They are notorious, usually, for simply being lost.  It’s odd that we do not take offense to this passage more often.  Scripture consistently calls us sheep—an animal whose purposes consist of being shaved over and over and then slaughtered. Why aren’t we offended?  We aren’t that dumb are we?

God could have called us a number of animals, but God called us sheep.  Thanks a lot for the compliment, God. Maybe we are prone to wander—prone to get lost—after all.

In the book Alice in Wonderland, Alice finds herself completely lost and approaches the Cheshire Cat. Alice asked, "Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?" The Cheshire Cat replies, "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” "I don't much care," said Alice. To which the cat replied, "Then it doesn't matter which way you go."

Alice is a wandering sheep; Alice is also all too familiar. Sometimes I feel just like Alice.  I wonder if you do too.  Often, we don’t know which way to go nor do we even know where our destination might be. Many in our country are going through a crisis as our homes are foreclosed and we are denied healthcare. Our jobs are shipped overseas.  Many of us don’t know what to do with our lives; some of us don’t know what to do after graduation.  Some of us have lost loved ones recently.  There is certainly no clear destination when we wander through the valley of death.

Or, maybe the cause of our wandering is spiritual. The recent UM General Conference made the case that we might be wandering.  The Methodist Church appears to be dying in a number of ways—we are losing members every year, more and more churches are shutting their doors, and soon we are not even going to have enough clergy to fill pulpits in our Churches. Alice says, “Which way do I go?”/“What’s my destination?” Maybe that whole “wandering sheep” image is dead on.

Are we just a bunch of lost sheep who are destined to fall in a ditch or are we headed straight for the wolves? Psalm 23 actually illustrates the opposite:

God, my shepherd,
I don't need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows.
You find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word
You let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction.

Even when the way goes through Death Valley
I'm not afraid when you walk by my side.
You revive my drooping head;
my cup brims with blessing.

Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life.
I'm back home in the house of God
for the rest of my life.  (The Message, Eugene Peterson)

As I prepared for this sermon, I came across a pleasant surprise while reading some of Barbara Brown Taylor’s work (The Preaching Life). Apparently, the cattle ranchers are responsible for spreading the whole “sheep are dumb” rumors because sheep do not behave like cattle. Cows are herded together from the rear with shouts and cracking whips. If you stand behind sheep and do the same, you will find yourself chasing after scared sheep.  Sheep prefer to be led.  “You push cows. You lead sheep,” she says.  “They will not go anywhere that someone else does not go first—namely their shepherd—who always leads the way.”

Sheep are not necessarily dumb, but they do need to be led.  And Sheep need to be led gently by a Shepherd. An intimate bond develops between sheep and Shepherd.   They consider their leader to be a part of their family; even, a part of their own fold. The leader and the sheep develop their own language—“a click of the tongue may mean food, or a two-note song means that it is time to go home.” Sheep are led to greener pastures when they hear the soothing voice of their Shepherd. Sheep are not dumb, but they need to be gently led.

Our Gospel lesson, John 10, calls Jesus the good shepherd. The one who owns the sheep and takes care of them, even when the wolves come and scatter the flock.  I wonder what kind of Shepherd Jesus is? Certainly Jesus is a Shepherd who didn’t find it sufficient to guide us from heaven, but one who came down to earth to lead us. Maybe it means that Jesus is shepherding us even when we do not hear his voice or understand where we are going. Or that it means that we are not forced to do anything but we are gently guided.    After all, Shepherds do not shout directions at their sensitive sheep, lest the sheep run astray. Our Shepherd is not always explicit with his sheep, but he prefers to sing softly as we walk through the pastures.  Still, this great Shepherd cares passionately for the sheep, carries us to waters, heals us when we are afflicted, he retrieves us when we are lost. He’s a Shepherd who will pick us up when we fall, feed our famished bodies with a click of the tongue, and take us home with a two-note song.

 To be led gently means that Jesus is the one who will never leave us.  Precisely, in the middle of the Psalm, the King James version says, “For thou art with me.” Jesus is alongside of us—guiding, protecting, and even carrying his oblivious sheep. John Wesley’s dying words were, “And the best of all is, God is with us.”

But the Gospel of John does not merely note that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, it also says that he is the Good Shepherd who laid down his life.  Psalm 23 is not only our prayer; it was also Jesus’ prayer. It was Jesus’ prayer when he walked through the darkest valley of death. Psalm 23 was the prayer of Jesus’ shadows of betrayal, denial, suffering and crucifixion. It was Christ’s prayer in the shadow of death. His Shepherd, God the Father, walked with him along the lonesome valley.

His rod and his staff guide us perfectly, because at one time he stumbled in the darkness. We no longer wander in death because the Good Shepherd laid down his life for us that we might receive life.   Jesus Christ, the anointed one now anoints us and his cup overflows into ours. And so when we wander in our darkest valleys, we know that Christ has already been there. We can pray, “For thou are with me” and really believe it. Our Shepherd promises to lead us with a tender nudge and a gentle voice that says, “Come. Let’s go this way.  The pastures are greener over here. The water is flowing on this side. Follow me.”

The Lord is our shepherd. This must mean that we are being led, even if we do not understand what our shepherd is doing.  We are being led, even when we feel like we are wandering in the wilderness.   We are being led, even if the destination is unclear.  If the Lord is our Shepherd, then what do we lack?

I’ll share a final story.  The author Anne Lamott, in her insightful and humorous book, Traveling Mercies, shares a true story that her minister told in a sermon. When the minister was seven years old, her best friend got lost one day. “The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived, but she couldn’t find a single landmark. She was frightened. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his car, and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman and then she told him firmly, ‘You could let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from there.’”

Anne Lamott then adds the following: “No matter how bad I am feeling, how lost or lonely or frightened, when I see the church I can always find my way home.”

Scripture calls us sheep.  And it’s not because we are dumb, but it’s because we are cared for and looked after; we are led.  And God, of course, is our Shepherd—God makes sure none of us are lost, or left behind, and he carries us until we can get back on our two feet. Today, in this Church, our Shepherd has come to find us so that we can hear his voice and follow him beside still waters, to rest in the pastures of green grass, to restore our souls, and to find our way home.