The Adventure's Of Shrek And Barney

It’s been - what? - a month of lockdown, and some of us, our hair is starting to get rather long. I managed to get my hair cut just a few days before lockdown hit so I reckon I can manage a few more months before I start to look like a yeti. But I know some of you missed that chance and are now starting to feel a little bit panicky.

Well spare a thought for Shrek. This is Shrek, a marino sheep in New Zealand who accidentally wandered off and lost his farmer. Now that new found freedom might have seemed wonderful at first, but Shrek’s fleece did not stop growing. After 6 years he looked like this (slide). Imagine how uncomfortable it is for a sheep to be that covered in wool, barely able to move, almost blind, overwhelmed by the heat. Fortunately after 6 years Shrek the sheep was found - and the farmer swiftly had him shorn, and here he is happy as anything after it is all over.

Today’s reading is about the Good Shepherd. John 10:1-10

10‘Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’ 6Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

7 So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Christianity is about relationship. There are many people who believe religion is about philosophy or a leap of faith or a way of being a good person. But Christianity is first and foremost about a relationship. That’s why Jesus uses the metaphor of the Shepherd. We may think of farmers today as people driving around in jeeps with thousands of sheep who he gets dogs to chase around, but an ancient shepherd had a much more intimate relationship with his sheep. Just as you might call your dog - and she hears her name and comes running over - well an ancient shepherd had names for each one of his sheep and he would call them and they would come running.

“the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

Jesus uses all sorts of different picture language to describe God - a hen gathering it’s chicks under it’s wings, a shepherd caring for his sheep whom he knows by name, a dad waiting at the gatepost for his troubled teenage son to return home. They are all about relationship.

Human beings are desperate for relationships. This little clip from the sitcom How I Met Your Mother shows the character Barney Stinson. In most of the episodes we see him as a rather arrogant Lothario hopping into bed with whatever chick he can bang. But in this clip we see something of the backstory - him as a little boy wondering why he doesn’t have a dad.(1)

[video clip: Little Barney asks his mother “who is my daddy, why can’t you tell me?” “Oh I don’t know, that guy she says, pointing at the TV at the host of The Price is Right”. So the five year old boy becomes obsessed with the idea that the host of the Price is Right is his dad, sitting before the TV showing all his school prizes and photos and everything to the TV screen - so that his “dad” will see them]

Barney is desperate for relationship. As a little boy he is desperate for a dad, as an adult he is desperate for the cheap thrill of a one night stand.

But actually we are all desperate for relationship. Human relationships are important.

It’s interesting that during lockdown people could log on to live stream services from anywhere in the world. But people are not choosing in general to go to big famous churches. They are logging on to their church. We have the most basic of video stuff here - nothing hogh tech like some churches would have - and yet you are logging on to St Barnabas - because you have relationship here. Even when people are logging onto a church they don’t normally go to (which is happening) it’s usually because they have got family members there, or it’s the church where there old vicar went to, or it’s the church where they used to live - of all the churches people log onto in this lockdown, it’s ones where they feel relationship and connection.