After a week of Family Camp, one of my children was singing, “I just want to be a sheep” on repeat. I have to admit, from the time I was young, the idea of being a sheep was not one that interested me very much. Maybe it was the time spent at the family sheep ranch and knowing what it is to smell like a sheep, playing a sheep instead of an angel in the Sunday school Christmas pageant, or the idea of falling in line, which if you know me, you know is not my style.
This passage from John reveals the reality of what it means to be both a sheep and a shepherd. The sheep are vulnerable! The shepherd who comes to care for them is not gentle and mild as is so often depicted in stained glass, or out to manipulate, but the one who keeps anyone and anything from trying to snatch us up, the one we see, hear and recognize as being good for us, good to us. And in a world where there is much that tries to snatch us up, it is comforting, freeing even, to hear the promise that we aren’t on our own to protect ourselves.
God, our Good Shepherd, when the world and its forces try to snatch us up, call us back to you. Amen. —