Tuesday 5th May - Stubborn wanderers

DAILY BYTE

Yesterday, we read a fairly unflattering comparison of humankind to stubborn sheep… and so, as we think about our own ‘sheep-ish’ qualities (excuse the pun…), we remember that while being a shepherd may look idyllic, wearing a bathrobe and rescuing fluffy lambs from bramble, shepherding is actually a terribly difficult job. Battling simultaneously with the tendency for sheep to be both stubbornly individualistic and mob-like, the shepherd’s challenging task is to care for them, which is dirty and smelly enough, but also to unify them. To teach them all to trust, following the sound of one voice, so that no matter what they encounter, they will not wander and they will not be scattered.

Churches talk a lot about how God, through Jesus, graciously rescues the lost sheep, when they wander away. We tend to point fingers at who those lost sheep are… And, we get warm and fuzzy inside when we think about Jesus saving us. But, God through Jesus, as the good shepherd, is not only about rescuing the lost. His greater task is about unifying the flock.

We struggle with unity, don’t we? Unity in politics like the election we’ve recently experienced, in the global church with all its denominational and hierarchical divisions, in the local church, with our personal stubbornness and relational resentments, and even in our families. And we ask ourselves time and time again, how is unity really possible?

Unity is possible because God is stronger, wiser, more patient, and more loving than the most stubborn of sheep.

When Desmond Tutu spoke in Durban a few weeks ago, he described the story of the shepherd who rescues the one lost sheep. And he said that we always picture that sheep as a fluffy little lamb that just happened to wander astray and innocently get caught. But, isn’t it more likely that the sheep who wandered was an old, stubborn ram with a matted, filthy coat, its limbs bleeding and scarred from being constantly stuck with bramble? This is the sheep that Jesus comes to find. He struggles to loosen it from the things that trap it, as it fights bleating and kicking because it rebels against the rescue the shepherd brings, but the shepherd still persists in bringing it back and uniting it with the rest of the flock.

Jesus’ description of himself as this kind of shepherd gives us a fuller picture of who God is. Philip Yancey says that “Books of theology tend to define God by what he is not: God is immortal, invisible, infinite”. God is, of course, all of those things. But they can make God feel very far away so that it seems easy to scatter and wander. But, the image of God we find in the shepherd shows us that God is also a God who is prepared to roll up his sleeves and get our blood on his hands disentangling us from things that bind us and entangling us in unity with him and with one another.

So, do you believe in this kind of God? The kind of God who seeks after all of us, even the people with the most tattered lives and the most resistant spirits?

GUIDING SCRIPTURE

Luke 15:3-6

So he told them this parable: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'

PRAY AS YOU GO

Patient and rescuing God,

You have promised to seek after everyone in your creation. Help us to lay down our stubbornness and fear, instead opening us to your embrace and unifying us in relationship with one another. Amen.