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Psalm 23; John 10:11-18
Rev. Deborah L. Clark
I have just returned from one of my favorite spots in the
whole world. Fran and I spent a week at the
YMCA camp in
Some years ago, during one of her vigils at the salt lick, Fran ended up in a long conversation with a park volunteer. She didn’t see any sheep that day, but she did learn some interesting information about them. Unlike the elk, who will push the most vulnerable members of the herd out in order to protect the larger group, bighorn sheep will never abandon one of their own. Instead they form a circle of protection around the vulnerable sheep. If you are very, very lucky, you can sometimes see a group of bighorn sheep moving as a unit—a circular unit—down the mountain to the salt-lick. In the middle of the circle may be a baby lamb, or a sick, wounded or old sheep. Without the circle, they would be vulnerable to attack from a mountain lion. But when a roaming predator sees the impressive horns and the hefty size of the sheep who form the circle, it goes somewhere else for a meal. The movable circle of protection enables all the sheep to find food and water and salt, and keeps them as safe as they can possibly be amidst the dangers of the wild.
This picture of a movable circle of bighorn sheep offers me a different way of thinking about the scriptures we read today. The beautiful words of the 23rd Psalm provide comfort and assurance in times of struggle. The still waters and green pastures tap into our deep human longing for peace and nourishment; the image of the gentle shepherd leading us through danger touches our yearning for protection and guidance in a sometimes harsh world. Jesus’ promise that he is like a good shepherd who enough to lay down his life for us assures us that we are never out there on our own.
The image of God—or Christ—as a shepherd is one I find comforting and beautiful. It’s the idea that we are sheep that bothers me. The scripture readings seem to refer to domestic sheep, sheep who are constitutionally unable to figure out where they are going, sheep who are constantly wandering off into dangerous territory, sheep who must be prodded and poked and held in pens to keep them safe. Biblical commentaries love to remind us that sheep—or at least domesticated sheep—are pretty dumb animals.
We are not dumb, although sometimes we act that way. The Bible teaches us that we are created in God’s own image, in the image of the good shepherd. We are endowed with the gifts the shepherd brings: the ability to tell the difference between right and wrong, minds which can learn and reason and create, hearts which are capable of tremendous love and even self-sacrifice. To compare ourselves to domesticated sheep seems to denigrate the gifts and abilities our creator gave to us. But if we make the comparison instead to the bighorn sheep, perhaps we can discover a new way of looking at our calling, a new way of understanding how the good shepherd is at work in and through our lives.
Bighorn sheep don’t have shepherds—at least not in the way we usually think of them. There is no creature of a different species fencing them in or leading them to food. Instead, bighorn sheep are shepherded by the circles they form—guided by the larger community, protected by the strength they have when they come together. The shepherd is not a force that comes to them from outside and acts upon them, but rather is a force that comes from within, an instinct to work together, a need to care for one another. These wild creatures are not out wandering around without guidance; instead they are gifted with strength and guidance that emerges from within their community.
Let me invite you to think about this church as a collection of bighorn sheep. We are called to form a circle of love, to work together to offer protection and guidance. When we baptize our children, we promise to encircle them with nurture and care. The protection we seek to offer is not a fence or a pen to contain their movement and constrain their imaginations; instead it is a circle that moves up and down the mountainside with them, enabling them to climb to new heights and explore valleys and ravines. The circle tightens when danger seems close at hand, and loosens to allow freedom and growth. We move as a community in order to allow our children and our youth to explore new places where green pastures may be found, and we gently guide them toward the still waters we have ourselves discovered.
In some ways, the church community is like the outer ring in a pair of concentric circles that shepherd our children. The inner ring is the circle of family. On this Fathers’ Day we stop to honor the nurture and care we receive from that inner circle—and especially we lift up the role of fathers, and uncles, and grandfathers. We celebrate the many different ways those inner circles are configured, and we recommit ourselves as a community to being a ring of support and care around our families as they seek to care for our beloved children.
It is not only our children who find themselves in the center of this circle of love which is our church. This circle is for the protection of everyone who is vulnerable—and that means every one of us. All of us, at times, are in danger of being lost—lost to despair, led astray by temptation, seduced by the promise of power or money into forgetting what really matters. Each of us needs the comfort and protection this circle has to offer: the comfort of friends who won’t give up on us even when we’ve given up on ourselves, the guidance we find as we struggle together to make sense of Holy Scripture, the protection of a safe place where we can bring our deepest needs and fears. And each of us—whatever our age, whatever our personal struggles—also has wisdom and love to offer that can lend strength to the circle.
The circle bighorn sheep create is an inclusive one: no sheep is left behind. The circle of love we form must be even more inclusive—not only drawing in everyone who comes but also stretching to reach out beyond ourselves. Our circle must be both protective and open, always willing to create a new gate through which a stranger may enter, always willing to move together to new places, to go wherever there are people in need.
This is a daunting challenge, to nurture and protect one another. The dangers we face are much more subtle than the stealthy mountain lions who threaten the bighorn sheep. The green pastures and still waters we seek are much harder to find than the salt lick at the foot of the cliff. Our ability to form a strong and open circle is imperfect, limited by our human fears and misunderstandings and insecurities.
But we are not out here on our own. God is our shepherd—not an external force who prods us along, but a spirit of love and wisdom and power who works in and through us to accomplish what we alone could not. When we, as a community, call upon God for guidance, when we listen deep inside ourselves for the spirit of truth to speak, we will discover the paths that lead us beside still waters, and we will find strength and wisdom we didn’t know we had.
Jesus calls us to continue the ministry he began two thousand years ago. Jesus calls us, as a church community, to be the good shepherd—to offer comfort and protection, guidance and love. We cannot do it on our own—none of us is strong enough or wise enough, and each of us is too much in need of receiving that protection and guidance ourselves. Together, inspired by God, trusting that the Holy Spirit is at work in our midst, we can form a circle, a circle that offers protection and guidance, a circle that leads us on paths of righteousness, that nudges us toward green pastures and still waters. Let us come together, shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, to create a sacred circle of love.