Views from the Valley

Psalm 23

        The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

                He makes me lie down in green pastures;

        he leads me beside still waters;

                he restores my soul.

        He leads me in right paths

                for his name’s sake.

        Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

                I fear no evil,

        for you are with me;

                your rod and your staff,

                they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

                my cup overflows.

        Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

                all the days of my life,

        and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

                my whole life long.

John 10:1-10

        “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. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

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

In some places, today is called “Christ the Good Shepherd Sunday.” What a comforting image, that of shepherd: one that is so desperately needed in a world full of people who find satisfaction in leading and some who find security in following, with all of us finding security in a bit of both.

        But shepherding has a special connotation. We hear of herding. This is different from shepherding. Not many of us, in the church or elsewhere, like to be herded, unless absolutely necessary. We don’t like being driven from behind and beside by someone or something; forced to go where we don’t want to go against our will. We welcome the more wholistic action of shepherding, in which our guidance and care comes from being led from the front, from being invited, encouraged, even enticed.

        And there’s a difference between the one who herds a flock and one who shepherds it. The one who herds uses pressure from behind, almost behaving in relationship to the flock as prey: you move, or something bad will happen to you. The shepherd, however, establishes a relationship of trust that helps attract followers as they learn that their leader is concerned about their welfare; how they are fed, watered, and the safety and comfort in which they live.

        The one doing the plain herding just wants the flock to get there, come what may. My best experience with this sort of thing happened when I was a child and it came time to ring hogs. Just in case you don’t know what ringing hogs is, I’ll explain. Here’s what Google AI says about rooting hogs. “Hogs root up the ground primarily to search for food, using their strong snouts to dig for grubs, worms, roots, tubers, and acorns. This natural foraging behavior also serves to create cooling mud wallows in hot weather, explore their environment, and satisfy their instinctual curiosity, often digging 2 to 8 inches deep.”

        Farmers hate it when pasture hogs do a lot of rooting, because they’d rather the hogs just graze the grass like sheep do. Rooting hogs ruin the land. Worst of all, they very happily dig their way underneath fencelines using their rooting behavior and get out into places they’re not supposed to go! Thus, the necessity of ringing hogs. This involves the vertical insertion of a wire ring into the top of the snout. It sounds painful, and it is. The discomfort keeps hogs from rooting in the mud with their snouts. But to get rings into their noses requires chasing the hogs into a pen and fenced-in area that funnels them into a box. Corn entices them at the far end of the box, but before the hog gets to the food, a door is closed against their snouts, and the farmer quickly uses a plier-like device to quickly insert the ring on the top of the pig’s nose. There’s a lot of squealing and squalling and thrashing in that box until the ring is finally set in the nose, the door is open, and the pig runs out with a loud snort of relief. For each hog, it’s a quick process, but for the farmer and cohorts like me, it involves chasing and whooping and hollering and running across ruts and mounds to chase the animals in the direction you want them to go. Trails of corn help. But there are always, always, always those most stubborn critters who manage to evade the process. Many choice words are said before they finally get their snouts slammed into the chute. Not a hard a slam, mind you – but firm enough, and you have to watch out that the chute door is adjusted so as to not let the hog run right on through. They’re pretty wily creatures, those hogs are. The older they get, the more rings there are in the nose, as the snouts eventually grow over the edges of the old rings, and some do fall out.

        But then there is the shepherd. A shepherd doesn’t need to ring the noses of the lambs, though we know that sheep are shorn from time to time. A different procedure. Maybe a little tense and confining, but possibly even pleasant at the relief from the burden of all that wool on the skin. There’s one thing I especially like about the shepherd, that guide, that good leader. It’s based on what Jesus said in the text about the gatekeeper – which seems to me to be, in some ways, a combination of the shepherd himself and the one who watches the gate. He says, “The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

        This sermon is titled, “The Mark of a Good Shepherd.” This suggests, then, than there can be bad shepherds, which would make a person wonder if they could be called shepherds at all. Call them herders, wranglers, drovers, cowpunchers, or buckaroos, but maybe don’t call them shepherds. (Not that wranglers and others are all bad.)

        In Greco-Roman literature, writers such as Homer, Plato, and Aristotle depict political rulers as shepherds. The entire book of Ezekiel is an entire essay devoted to God’s commentary about “the shepherds of Israel,” and how their actions as God’s appointed leaders were NOT pleasing to God at all. Here’s what Ezekiel claims God’s words were in regard to those so-called shepherds of Israel: “Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.”

        Can you honestly say in respect to the many rulers and leaders you’ve known of throughout history, that if you thought of a label for political or religious leaders, would you have ever considered using the term, “shepherd?”

        Probably not in the way the word “shepherd” applies to the actual people who tend sheep in the hills and valleys of their lands. And especially not in the way we are encouraged and taught to think of Jesus, or own Good Shepherd.

        When I reflect on the familiarity of Jesus’ voice as one who guides us in our faith and life, I think of this kind of scenario: I’m in a large room, crowded with people, some I know and many I don’t know. It’s a strange place, and I’m ill at ease. I’m nervous, feeling alone among strangers, who seem so busy chatting with the people they know. I stand with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes darting to and fro, trying to decide whether to find a quiet bench at the edge of the crowd, or maybe even a breath of fresh air outdoors. And then I hear it: the voice of my mom, calling my name. Oh, the relief! You can’t miss that voice anywhere! Mom is here! I’m not alone. And there she stands, off in a short distance, a smile on her face, a warm greeting of welcome as she walks my way.

        It’s like tiny babies whose faces turn at the sound of their mother’s voice, and maybe even smile.

        It’s a sensation of warmth inside. Of relief. Of relaxation. Of safety. Of confidence.

        And that, I pray, is your feeling, and your experience, as well as my feeling and my experience, as we live our lives as Christians in this world, when we think of Jesus as our Good Shepherd. That warm voice of love, who is calling our name, and when we hear it our hearts swell with the peace, joy and comfort of the knowledge of his utter love. His deep desire to guide us into right paths, into places in which our needs are met, our ills are healed, or insecurities soothed, our questions heard, our insecurities are held in safe hands, even if we don’t have all the answers.

        Jesus, our shepherd, our gatekeeper, who welcomes us in and allows us to go out, always watching, willing and trusting in our safety. He does not wrangle or coerce us to move, running behind us, nipping at us with bared teeth though we might need it! There is always utter love there. Firm love. Love that admires us, takes pride in us, and feels our sorrows and struggles as we negotiate this great pasture we call life.

        But we have heard of the sheep who managed to find their way into the fold who are indeed thieves and bandits. How do they get here? Who might they be?

        We can speculate, and we get some clues from the Ezekiel passage. So-called shepherds, who purport to have the authority of God on their side as they seek to lead, though one might imagine them in the dog-tooth herding mode. Deceitful shepherds, perhaps wolves in sheep’s clothing, whose intent it is to fool the sheep, but instead plunder and eat the sheep’s food; clothe themselves in wool, benefit from the fruit of the sheep’s labor; guiding the sheep into lost crevices, onto rocky hills, and into deep, tangled, thorny underbrush. Not a care about the actual welfare of the sheep, just a care about their own benefit, their own wealth, their own power, their own advantage. Not a care for the sick or the weak or for those at a disadvantage, but only for those with the kind of strength that can empower the shepherd’s own selfish wants.

        Where, in our world, do we see this sort of so-called shepherding going on? In my opinion, we don’t have to look far. We see those who claim to know our own Good Shepherd, Jesus, using his kind and strong name to entice the lambs. Like the kernels of corn on the path toward the hog-ringing pen, bringing them along with dribs and drabs of Bible verses and utterances of the name of the Lord, using fake Bible verses and real ones to justify ill treatment and exclusion of others, using the Word of God to justify wars that may not have holy purposes whatsoever. Wars that, inside and behind them, are fought only for power, for wealth, for prestige, for pride, for protection, for deceit. Not for the welfare of the lambs who live in their lands, who depend on the shepherd for kind and virtuous guidance. Not voices that, when heard, speak words of comfort and familiarity and true, utter love for the welfare of even the tiniest, most helpless lamb.

        These are not the mark of a good shepherd.

        But inside our hearts and minds, as we pray daily and live our lives, and reach out in our souls for the love of God, we have access to the voice of Jesus, our good and loving Shepherd. When we hear his voice, we hear love. We hear comfort. We hear a beckoning, and it is a voice that leads us to want to be near him, like a magnet, or a warm, soothing breeze. A voice that doesn’t speak of riches and power and control and retaliation. A voice that holds no grudges against others and seeks no retribution. A voice that opens his arms to the lowliest and neediest, as well as the mighty, and regards each one of them, and us, as utterly precious and equal in value, regardless of physical qualities, inclinations, heritage, oddities, quirks, weaknesses. A welcome, warm voice of love. Not a haughty snobbish ruler who lives in high social clubs surrounded by all the wealth a person could ever imagine. Where is the warmth, the comfort, and the love in places like that?

        And so even if there are some who have come in by another entrance, and claim to be a part of Jesus’ flock, but live in selfishness and deceptive kindness, only to bring the most innocent of the flock to ruin, all for the sake of their own enrichment, they will be seen, and recognized, and have their time of reckoning before God. For are they truly happy? Do they truly know the peace and comfort that comes from hearing the real voice of the Good Shepherd who brings the peace that passes all understanding and leads into sweet, green pastures, by still waters?

        This is their lack, and their loss. For us, it is our peace, our wealth, our gain. Knowing our shepherd will never abandon us, ever, with his rod and his staff, and his comfort. The One whose voice we know, is so familiar, and is only a sweet, warm, comforting heartbeat away. That is Jesus. He bears the mark of a good shepherd, and he is our good shepherd, so full of love. What a blessing it is to follow him! May we pray that the love we know, as his sheep, be such a love that leads others to likewise want to follow.

        And may God grant us the wisdom and discernment to see the bad shepherds, the deceptive sheep, the ones who claim to have our best interests at heart, but as we look at their fruit and we listen for comfort in their words, we find emptiness, doubt, and loss.

        May we, the followers of this Good Shepherd, Jesus, live our lives in such a way that we advocate and care for one another, for the lowest and poorest among us on this earth, those who are hurting and in need, those who are friendless, strange, foreigners, lost, and alone. Jesus is our eternal shepherd, indeed, and for this we are comforted. Let us be empowered by him to be a part of this flock on this earth, now, as friends and neighbors of all. Let us be comforted, invited, and delighted to be a part of his fold this day, so that for this we may say a grateful “Thanks be to God.” Amen.