A 21st-Century challenge is to describe a sheep to a generation far removed from herding and pasturing. Both testaments of the Bible are FULL of sheep–and so is our cultural repository of simile: “pulling the wool over my eyes”, ” black sheep of the family”, “a nation of sheep”–not to mention assorted nursery-rhymes and Baad jokes. (Where do we get virgin wool?)… So the futile preacher/teacher has her hands full of lanolin trying to talk about Sheep Sunday. (“Daddy, what’s a sheep?”)
This Sunday will conclude for now our exploration of the Pentecost event as remembered by St. Luke in Acts 2. Vv. 42-47 speak of the outcome of this visitation by the Holy Spirit: “All who believed were together and had all things in common…” But this was more than a commune, it was a public community centered upon an active interaction with God! Hearers of this, then & now, are enabled to envision salvation as a flock- event more than an individual revelation. The acts of Acts are almost entirely done through the Believing Community, in response to a Divine In-breaking.
When I was quite little, my sweet Gramma used to call me “Lambie-Pie”. (Yeccch) The First Letter attributed to Peter coulda been her model: written to persecuted congregations south of the Black Sea, this epistle urges them to consider the sufferings of Jesus, the Lamb of God. As good sheep, therefore, they have been called, “because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.” (2:21) This can give some solace, I suppose; it also was stretched into masochism for many ensuing generations of wannabe sheep.
John’s picture of Jesus as the Good Shepherd endures throughout Christian iconography: how many church buildings do you know that don’t have at least one picture of Jesus with sheep? Jesus’ occasion for this metaphor (John 10:1-10) is to assure the Flock that he’s the Real One, the shepherd they can trust for “green pastures and still waters”. Our lectionary group got a bit bogged down with Jesus being the GATE. Just before this he spoke of ENTERING the gate, opened for him by a trusted guard. So who’s this Gatekeeper? You? Me? St. Peter? It may be better to let this alone and focus on the Shepherd…
Being called Sheep is not really complimentary: they’re not at all bright, they tend to wander, and they’ve been known not to come in from the rain. Come to think of it, maybe God’s writers have a point!
God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King
My musings about scriptural passages for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com
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