Sheep

I was watching Down from the Mountain again last night. As a kid, I heard more bluegrass than rock-n-roll, and I guess that's probably what makes it sort of a "comfort" music, kind of like fried chicken and mashed potatoes are my comfort food (even more so than chocolate -- which is part of the reason I give up meat every year for Lent). So, anyway...it struck me how many religious songs, and sermons for that matter, focus on us being "sheep". (Ok, I must confess that I giggle every time I hear Handel's Messiah and hear the men sing "we like sheep" over and over.)

I know you're probably thinking, "but it's in the Bible"...and it is. But if the Bible is, as I believe, a collection of documents that were written to tell us about God, then wouldn't it stand to reason that the analogy, even the part where it describes us as sheep, isn't about us? Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people I would describe as both sheepish and sheep-ish (can I get an amen from the language hounds for making the distinction?)...but in the words of the cliché, "it's not about you."

So, I guess what I'm proposing is that all the references, both the images of God as shepherd and us as sheep, describe God as being like a shepherd and really don't say much about us.

So, what does it mean to be a shepherd? Most of us today are pretty separated from such pastoral lifestyles, so I'm not sure the image really means much to us. I, growing up behind the back of God, knew a few kids in school that were shepherds...or at least the modern day American equivalent...so I guess I might have some insight.

A shepherd is someone who cares for sheep. They protect them as best they can, but they know that there are all sorts of problems they can't prevent or remedy...but they bind the wounds as best they can, and sit with their animals. They're a little like a parent should be to a child...leading them while giving them the freedom to explore on their own to find the greener grass and caring for them always.

So, remember, in those times when you're feeling sheep-ish, and even those times when you're not, this image...one of care-taker...is the most powerful image of God that we were given. It's much more powerful than that of sovereign...or even that which Tillich referred to as the gound of being, because while their might be, in the words of that old hymn, "power in the blood of the lamb", their is much more power in the love of the shepherd.