Sheep Ain't Stupid (John 10.1-10)

Sheep are part of a flock, they’re social animals, a bit like us. I suppose that’s where the similarities end, I mean I don’t have hooves, at least not yet.

What does being a sheep have to do with abundant life? Abundant life, I think is about being part of the flock.

Now back to sheep, what images come into your mind when you think about sheep? Do you count them to go to sleep? Let’s talk about sheep.

What are they like? Docile, mostly. They’re white and fluffy, they chew the cud, hang around together. We use their flocks to make our clothes. They’re not threatening. They baa loudly and make noise. Maybe, they’re a bit stupid. So then, why does Jesus call us sheep? It’s a bit of a mixed metaphor isn’t it? I mean if you want to attract people surely, you’d call them a strong animal like a lion, or something beautiful and mystic like a unicorn.

Nope, we are plain old sheep. Thanks Jesus!

There’s a lot of bad connotations with sheep, if you’re a sheep you blindly follow what you’re told. You’re stupid or ignorant, you just go along with the crowd.

But Sheep are cleverer than you think.

My Mum grew up in Wales, a place synonymous with sheep. How do the welsh eat their cheese? Caerphilly. Sorry. Anyway, Mum as a small child lived on the edge of Caerphilly, and the sheep were a problem. Why?

They knew when bin day was. Early in the morning the sheep would break out of their pens en masse, like a sheep gang, like westside story for sheep (although they found the clicking difficult, no fingers see.)

They would ransack the town, knock the bins over and cause chaos.

They weren’t stupid, they knew when and where to find what they needed.

It was no good the people of the town trying to gather the sheep together, why? The sheep didn’t know them, or trust them, they were afraid of them. So the shepherds would have to come down to the town, and carefully round them up, and take the sheep back to their pens.

Perhaps the point of this metaphor is not what we are, that we’re sheep, but what God is, what Jesus is in relation to us. The Good Shepherd.

God gives us abundant life because we’re part of His flock.

A shepherd takes good care of the sheep, a shepherd must otherwise the sheep will die. They can’t look after themselves, or at least not as well as if she looks after them.

We can look at other examples in the bible where this metaphor is used Matthew 9:36 or Mark 6:34, where Jesus sees the crowd and has compassion on them, they were “like sheep without a shepherd.”

“The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

What picture does this give us? It’s the picture of a Shepherd who knows his sheep. He knows them by name, He knows us by name. A shepherd that takes a direct and active role in caring for the sheep. God cares for each of us.

A shepherd who keeps us safe from danger and opens the gate for us.

This doesn’t mean that we will never suffer, that’s obvious from what’s going on in the world, or that we won’t come in harms way.

A shepherd can take the best care of their sheep, she can help with the lambing, make sure they’re safe and well fed, but in the end some of them will get sick, or have an accident.

Yet the shepherd still cares for the welfare of the sheep.

I wonder whether you remember the story of Shrek? I don’t mean the film.

Shrek was a sheep that ran away from the fold and lived in a cave for six years. He didn’t want to be sheared, so escaped. When he was found he had over sixty pounds, that’s about 27 kilograms of wool on him. That must’ve been uncomfortable!

Without the care of the shepherds he was lost and was carrying a huge amount of weight around with him. That certainly wasn’t abundant living.

Yet despite running away, the shepherds took him in again. They sheered him, cared for him, and returned him to the flock, brings a whole new meaning to “I once was lost, but now I’m found doesn’t it?” So it is with God, when we run away, I think God understands, when we can’t see him due to fear or isolation, he gets it, but welcomes us always, back into his fold.

We can hear and follow Jesus’ voice. We can know that despite all that’s happening we have a shepherd we can trust, that leads us into good things and gives us abundant life.  

We are sheep. It’s not that we’re stinky, or fluffy (although looking at my hair at the moment…) we’re not stupid, or blind. We are sheep because we try to follow the one that loves us. We trust in the one that cares for us, and that we believe together we are stronger, that we are a flock, and that living in community gives us abundant life.

Jesus is the gate, through which the shepherds reach the sheep. We can go out and in to the pasture as we choose. Why?

Because God gives us freedom. Freedom to be all that we can be, and it is God that saves us.

Put away the voice that tells you you’re not good enough, that God doesn’t love you, or that in this crisis God isn’t there. Those voices are the bandits and the thieves, because they don’t want you to live in liberty or freedom.

We choose to follow the one who gives us abundant life. Because Jesus is the Good Shepherd.

We’ve spoken a lot about shepherds, how they care for the sheep. But Jesus goes one further than them. Not only does he care for us, but he cares for us so much that he lays down his life for us.

God himself lays down His life for the sheep he loves.

So sometimes we might get a bit lost, we might suffer, loose our way, root through the bins (not literally I hope), but God as our Shepherd, the one who loves us is still there, waiting, listening and guiding. Yet giving us the freedom to do what we want.

Because he knows us by name, and calls freedom to us all.