This past Christmas, the Dallas family from our church gave us a wonderful gift of Noah’s Ark complete with hand-carved animals. The problem is that it is especially fascinating to children. We have had to glue poor Noah back together more than once. After one visit from our grandchildren, we saw that one of the sheep was missing from the set. We searched for that missing sheep high and low. We looked in the toy cabinet, between the cushions in the couch, in the spare bedroom, but still we couldn’t find the vagabond sheep. Things were not right. You just can’t have a single sheep going into the ark. Some time had passed and Sue moved the couch in the family room to sweep under it, and when she did, there was the missing sheep. We were very happy. We never gave up wishing we had that wandering sheep back and hoping we would find it. Every time we passed the set we thought about it. Things were just not the same without it being there.
It reminded me of what Jesus said about God’s love for lost sheep. My desire for a sheep carved from wood could hardly compare to God’s desire for his wandering sheep, the people he had created. Jesus said, “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep’” (Luke 15:4-6).
What this scripture tells us is that you don’t have to be a perfect sheep for God to love you. You can be lost and he still loves you and longs for you. You can be a wandering sheep and he still wants you back in the fold. The Shepherd does not reject the wandering sheep, or hope he gets what he deserves, the Shepherd seeks to save and bring back the lost sheep. He is not angry or scolding toward the sheep; he only rejoices when he is able to bring it back home. Jesus said at the end of the parable, “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent” (Luke 15:7). Even though we as sinners have brought him trouble, and he has had to go and seek us, he is full of joy when he can bring us home. What a great, good and loving Shepherd we have.
The first thing I would like to do today is to look at: The nature of sheep. Sheep are not particularly bright animals. It is not that they occasionally wander off, it is their pattern. It is predictable and expected. They are easily distracted and easily led astray. A story ran in the Washington Post in 2005 telling about shepherds in Gevas, Turkey who watched in shock as hundreds of their sheep followed each other over a cliff. First one sheep wandered away and fell over, and eventually the entire flock followed it. In the end, more than 400 sheep died in the plunge. There were 1,100 others that followed, but they survived because their fall was broken by the first ones that went over. Long ago, the prophet Isaiah recognized that the human condition was much like these sheep, for he wrote: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). We have followed the crowd instead of the Shepherd and the result is destruction.
I’Ching Thomas tells about observing some sheep. He writes: “A few years ago, while traveling across to Europe in a ferry, we found our bus parked next to a truck. It was one of those trucks where there are two levels of storage space for live animals. This time, it was loaded with sheep. There must have been at least a hundred sheep crammed into that vehicle, all on their way to the slaughterhouse. As I observed the animals, they were behaving rather amusingly — some were sticking out their noses sniffing away, while others were trying to peek out curiously as they experienced the new smells, sights, and sounds that were quite different from their usual farmstead. Little did they know they were on their way to be butchered!” He goes on to make an application: “While we might laugh at the silliness of the sheep, it is also a vivid illustration of our human state. On a daily basis, we are offered joyrides that promise pleasure and adventure, opportunities that seem to realize our ambition for recognition, power, material wealth, intimacy, and even meaning. At every turn, we are led by advertisers to believe that their products or services can satiate our thirst for excitement and thrill. Unknowingly, we accept invitations for rides which take us on roads that could result in our slow spiritual deaths. Sadly, we are not often aware of the looming danger as we are too preoccupied taking in the new experience and novelty. By the time we arrive at the slaughterhouse, it would be too late for us to escape our end.”
But there are some good things about sheep also. They can learn to follow the true Shepherd. They learn to recognize his voice. Jesus said “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). And when they get to know his voice, they follow him and will not follow a stranger. It is the loving attention and care of the Shepherd that develops trust and draws them to him.
The second point I want us to consider is: The nature of the enemies of the sheep. The enemies of the sheep are dangerous and devious. There are thieves who try to get into the sheepfold surreptitiously. They climb over the protective hedge or fence. The sheep do not belong to them, but they want them. Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).
There are thieves, but there are also predators. Wolves and other predators are always looking for a straying, wayward sheep who is beyond the protection of the shepherd. Everywhere the sheep went there were always predators lurking in the shadows, and watching from a short distance, awaiting their opportunity. They want to devour the sheep. Jesus equated this with those who try to lead people astray and destroy them. Jesus said: “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15). The problem with prophets is that they appear to be prophets. They take on the role of a spiritual leader. They look like the real thing. They are believable. What is interesting about this image of Jesus is that the wolves are still ferocious predators, but they are disguised as one of the sheep. And the disguise is not some cheesy sheep coat with a wolf’s snout sticking out. They really look like sheep. That is the point. In fact, it is impossible to tell them from real sheep. This is what gives them the ability to mix in among the sheep without being recognized. No one would be able to tell until it was too late. The false prophets do not talk like wolves, they say things that sound very spiritual and religious. In fact, their beliefs, words and actions often seem to outdo even the most committed. But in the end, they devour the sheep.
I was amazed recently when I read an account of an interview that Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Church in Chicago, had with screenwriter Richard Curtis. Curtis makes no claim to be a Christian, and his work reflects that. But the article states that part of Curtis’ inspiration to fight poverty around the world came from the Sermon on the Mount, one of the best known teachings of Jesus. Curtis told Hybels in the interview, “All I know is that a guy over there should not be dying when I have so much.” Curtis is co-founder of the Make Poverty History campaign and the United Kingdom’s Red Nose Day, a comic relief campaign which last year raised $130 million in one day, and has become a national day of giving to the world’s poor. His latest effort was “Idol Gives Back” on the popular TV program “American Idol.” “You can’t just pray for people,” Curtis said, “You’ve got to do something now.”
What amazed me was the outrage and vitriol of Christians who wrote responses online. They denounced Curtis for not being a Christian and said his efforts meant nothing. They angrily castigated the character of Bill Hybels for even doing the interview. They denounced doing good works as having no value. Sounding more like wolves than sheep, they said it did no good to help the poor if they were unsaved. They totally missed the point that here was someone who had been influenced by the teachings of Jesus about the poor, and was doing a better job of following those teachings than most of us in the Christian community. And their unloving response reflected badly in contrast to the love and concern shown by Richard Curtis. How is it that people we consider to be pagans often get what Jesus is saying, and professing Christians don’t?
It was Gandhi who said something like, “I love your Jesus, it is his followers I am not so fond of.” Perhaps that is because there are some who are not so much followers of Jesus as they might appear. It is not those who are good at spiritual talk, but those who actually follow Jesus and do what he said who are his sheep. Jesus shocked his hearers when he said, “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did what his father wanted? ‘The first,’ they answered. Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you’” (Matthew 21:28-31). There are many people we consider sinners who say they will not work for the Father, but end up doing what he said. On the other hand, there are many people who make great claims about working for the Father who end up not actually doing what he said.
Finally, let’s look at: The nature of the Shepherd. I am impressed by the love of the Shepherd for his sheep in this parable. He calls them each by name. He knows each one intimately and cares for them. He goes and searches for the wandering ones. Even those we think of as hopeless sinners are still sheep, even though they may have strayed and become lost. Jesus said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). The lost are still sheep by nature — God’s creation — and the good Shepherd is still seeking them. It must have concerned those who thought of themselves as righteous and having exclusive rights to the Shepherd, when Jesus said, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:16).
In the Gospel of Matthew we read: “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:35-36). The Shepherd has compassion. He does not drive the sheep, he leads them. He looks after their wounds. He brings them to places of renewal where they can be refreshed. He provides pasture and water for them.
Jesus says that he is not only the shepherd, he is the gate for the sheep. At first this sounds like a confusing double metaphor, until you understand that in biblical times the shepherd would take the sheep to a cave, or lead them into a sheepfold that was created by thick briars on all sides. Both the cave and the briars had an opening where the sheep could go in and out. The only problem was that predators could go in as well. So the shepherd would lay down in the opening at night and literally become the gate. Nothing could go in or out without going through him. It could be a dangerous position to be in. He would literally lay down his life for the sheep, and many shepherds lost their lives in this way from an attack of predators. The whole life of the shepherd is lived to do good to the sheep. Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).
Jesus, the good Shepherd, has come to give us life. Life. It is unfortunate that we have reduced the Christian life to a moral code. There is a moral code, but it is so much more than that. It misses the point when we present the Christian life as a set of rules, or a body of doctrine. It is tragic when we reduce the Christian life to some kind of formula: Believe these things and say these things in this order, and you will be saved and won’t have to worry about going to hell. It totally misses the point that the Christian life is a relationship. It means loving our Shepherd. Following him. Listening to his voice. Staying near him. Trusting him.
Jesus never gave an altar call, or asked for a show of hands of those who believed in him. That would have been too easy. What he did say was, “Follow me.” Those are some of the most simple and most difficult words ever spoken in the history of the world. It is one thing to confess your sins and ask Christ to come into your life (and that is a very good and necessary thing), but it is quite another thing to actually follow Jesus day by day, hour by hour. Becoming a Christian is not just a crisis event, it is an ongoing relationship with God that results in a new way of living. But for some reason this is hard for us to get through our skulls.
Donald Miller, in his excellent book Searching for God Knows What, tells about going to a Bible college where he taught one of the classes. Speaking to this group of Bible students, he told them he was going to present the plan of salvation, but he was going to leave out one key element, and they were to listen carefully so that at the end they could tell him what it was. He began by saying that mankind is sinful and separated from God, and he pointed out many of the sins of the culture — euthanasia, abortion, homosexuality, drug use, etc. He talked about the need to repent and backed it up with several scriptures. He used a real life example of a bridge being out, and how a man shot flares just over the top of cars to get them to stop and not drive over the bridge to their death. He again quoted Scripture that talked about the wages of sin being death, and how we were to avoid spiritual death at any cost. He talked about the beauty of morality, and told the story of a man who avoided being unfaithful to his wife when faced with the opportunity, and how his marriage blossomed after that and became better than ever. He talked about heaven and how wonderful it would be — streets of gold and gates of pearl with a beautiful river running through it. He said all this could be theirs if they only believed, repented and honored God. Not only would heaven be theirs, but real meaning and fulfillment would be realized in their lives right here and now.
He then asked the students what was left out of the story. There was absolute silence in the room. Now these were students who had grown up in evangelical churches. They attended a Bible college where they had studied theology. They had read the Bible and taken classes in both Old and New Testament. And only weeks before had taken an evangelism class and knocked on hundreds of doors in an attempt to lead people to Christ. Miller said that the students sat there for several uncomfortable minutes. Finally he wrote, “None of the forty-five students in the class realized I had presented a gospel without once mentioning the name of Jesus.”
If there is anything the story of the Shepherd and the sheep tells us, it is that the Christian life is not about going through a few steps so we can avoid hell and get to heaven; it is about a relationship that takes place between the Shepherd and his sheep. It is not about getting into the fold, for that is never mentioned, it is about following the Shepherd.
Jesus said, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Rodney J. Buchanan
September 30, 2007
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
BENEDICTION:
“May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21).
