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The
Rev. Christopher Brdlik
April 29, 2007 - Fourth Sunday of Easter
At a Bible study
earlier this week someone said the rural, agricultural metaphors used in
the Scriptures don’t always make sense to us anymore. Here in suburbia,
he said, we are so distant from the life of a farmer that we hardly know
what it means to harvest wheat or herd sheep. I’m not so sure. Even in
the city people are aware of the cycle of life of growing things and
appreciate the blossoms of spring. We plant gardens and trees, or know
others who do. And when it comes to animal husbandry most of us have
raised and cared for a cat or a dog, or some other pet. In other words
we can still understand when, say, the Bible calls Jesus the Good
Shepherd. In fact, it may be the Bible that doesn’t have its details
right. Here’s what I mean.
Thirty years ago, in my
first parish out in Montana, I had an elderly parishioner named Ralph.
As a young man in the 1920’s he’d spent the summers herding sheep in the
high plains of the Big Sky Country, east of Glacier National Park. He
used to laugh, and tell me the 23rd Psalm had it all wrong.
In Montana shepherds do not lead their flocks to green pastures and
beside still waters. The sheep themselves are much more able to smell
good grass and find springs of water. Their senses are sharper than any
human’s. As a shepherd all he’d do was follow along, toting his rifle
and smoking his pipe. It was his job to protect the flock from predators
and to keep them all together (they do have a tendency to wander). But
the directive, authoritarian image of shepherding did not square with
his experience. This did not make Ralph doubt scripture or question his
faith. He was a secure Christian. He thought it was funny that the psalm
got it wrong — just one more irony of life.
According to my friend
Ralph sheep are both independent as well as submissive. They oscillate
between having a mind of their own, and wanting to be a part of a flock.
In this, ovine nature may not be too different from human nature. We
want our independence. We have free will, and seek to assert ourselves
for personal gain or self-sufficiency. At the same time we value the
security of family, tribe and nation. We conform to community norms in
order to fit in with other human beings. We organize ourselves around
lasting human relationships. These twin poles of creativity and intimacy
define human life.
I suppose the good life
must achieve some balance between them, between independence and
security. Yet I think it’s important to note God created us this way,
and must have had sufficient reason for doing so. Blessed with free
will, human beings must have some divine sanction for journeying off in
new directions and creating new visions, new possibilities, in the
development of civilization. Yet we also have been blessed with the
capacity to love, to give and receive a fullness of relationships with
other people. Now: Just how does the Good Shepherd fit in?
The answer is
Oneness. What God does for us is keep us together, when we follow
God. Ralph the Shepherd was charged with maintaining one flock. The
dynamic movement of critters across the dry ridges and coulees of
eastern Montana required some oversight to keep them together, to stay
as one flock. Picture this: We’ve all seen demonstrations of how
shepherding dogs nip and bark at the edges of a flock to keep them as
one mass, as the flock itself moves in independent directions seeking
food and water. I don’t know if Ralph used dogs. But the principal is
the same: The Good Shepherd maintains oneness of a dynamic, moving
body.
Jesus further tells us
he and the Father are One. (John 10:22-30) This is important. Too
much trouble and dissent at large in the world today are from various
tribes of people who think they have competing shepherds. “If you don’t
follow our leader,” they say, “then you aren’t following God.” Religions
make exclusive claims for their story of salvation. Pious Jews emphasize
Torah. Islamists say the Prophet had the final revelation. Hindus,
Buddhists and Wiccans: Each has its version of The Way. Here we remember
that troubling line emphasized by some Christians: “Jesus said, ‘No one
comes to the Father except by me.” (John 14:6b) That sounds pretty
exclusive. Except that those who emphasize it forget the Oneness.
Jesus and the Father
are One. There is one God, Allah. There is the Buddha Way, and it
is One. May I point out to you that there are many routes to the top of
the mountain, many paths leading to the highest peak. Yes, we have to
find one path and stick to it, or else we never will make it. We
probably could benefit by sharing wisdom with each other, learning from
those traveling in a different direction. For it is true that each group
attests to some aspect of the Truth that the others do not see. Yet it
is One God who greets us, One God who welcomes us, when we have finished
the journey. No matter which map we follow, the destination is One.
For a vision of the
future of us all, please note the multitude of the Redeemed in today’s
reading from Revelation (7:9-17). In heaven, there is a great multitude
that no one can count. It is composed of every nation, from all tribes,
all people, all languages. They stand before one throne, the throne of
God. They got there through the Great Ordeal of Life, each one working
out his or her own salvation, through earthly hunger and thirst, through
human grief and trouble. Yet they are one flock, worshiping at one
throne.
I don’t know if God
uses angels as shepherd dogs to get us all there. I cannot imagine that
God totes a rifle or smokes a pipe. But the Good Shepherd keeps us
together. Along with our brother and sister sheep from around the
planet, we are one flock under one God.
© copyright 2007, Christopher Brdlik
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