The Shepherd Calls Us: “Love Your Mother”

Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd.

“A sheep is a particularly vulnerable creature, especially when on its own… Sheep have no defense against predators except for flocking, yet their instinctive flight response to danger can also cause panic and scattering… Indeed, sheep must be able to see each other in order to graze without agitation, and the loss of that visual contact can lead to further panic and flight. A lost sheep is, if you will, a sitting duck.”

So begins theologian Elizabeth Webb’s commentary on the 23rd Psalm, on this Good Shepherd Sunday, on the eve of tomorrow’s 54th annual Earth Day. It initially seemed like a stretch to bring these two observances together, until I read this passage. I was drawn by her use of the gerund, “flocking”, to describe a protective mechanism. And the fact that sheep need to be able to see one another so as to graze peacefully; all of this led me to think of the importance of connection. 

Connection.

Sheep are creatures that need each other. Their safety depends upon their connection with each other. So flocking is vital; otherwise sheep are vulnerable to the predations of the wolf and to neglect by a careless hireling. Which is why the voice and guidance of the shepherd is so critical to the well-being of the flock.

It is the shepherd’s vocation to ensure that the sheep remain connected; guiding them in and out of the fold and from one pasture to another. It is the shepherd who sets themself between the flock and predators. It is the shepherd who seeks the lost. It is the shepherd whose voice calls them each by name.

The images of God as our Shepherd, and of Jesus the Good Shepherd, may seem archaic today; flocks of sheep aren’t as ubiquitous in the industrialized world as they were in first- century Palestine. Even so, when we hear these passages from the Psalms and from John’s Gospel and sing about a pastoral God, we instinctively know what that means, don’t we? God protects us and leads us to green pastures. Jesus gathers us all together. Jesus calls us his own.

But who is “us”?

Well, that seems like a stupid question, doesn’t it? “Us”, means— “Us”—people, God’s children, humanity; you know, Us! 

Consider this observation from astronomer Carl Sagan: If we were to look at a cosmic calendar that begins with the Big Bang—or what people of faith would call the moment of Creation– on January 1st at midnight, humanity would first appear at 10:30 p.m. on the last day of that year. He says, “We humans appear on the cosmic calendar so late that our recorded history occupies only the last few seconds of the last minute of December 31st.”

Which gives one pause. God’s Creation has been around for a lot longer than we have. It is a Creation that God was calling “good” well before humans arrived on the scene. Which prompts us to ponder the possibility that we are not the center of Creation that we have always thought we were. Barbara Brown Taylor observed in a sermon on Creation that on the Sixth Day God created humankind after “the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind.” God called all of that “good”, and then God created humans. 

After the cattle.

The point of all of this is not to show how low homo sapiens ranks in the natural world, but to point out that even the writers of the Scriptures didn’t necessarily put us at the center of Creation. So this reading of Genesis frees us to see that we are part of a wonderfully interconnected and interdependent web in which all species affect the well-being of one another.

Naturalist John Muir (whose birthday is today, by the way,) wrote: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

Connection.

Jesus said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” 

The writer of John was speaking of Gentiles as well as Jews being part of the Way of Jesus, but perhaps we can dare for a moment to widen our perspective radically; to hear the Shepherd introducing us to an even broader flock that encompasses all of Creation, not just the human part of it.

Good Shepherd, meet Earth Day.

More than 54 years ago Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin looked around and saw, not only the Vietnam War still raging, but that a huge oil spill had devastated the coast of Santa Barbara, California. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio was on fire from intentionally spilled factory chemicals. Rachel Carson had published her landmark book, Silent Spring. And Apollo astronauts took a photograph of our fragile island home and called it “Earthrise”; a beautiful blue marble spinning in space. All of this inspired Nelson to put the first Earth Day in motion. It is now a worldwide event, but on April 22, 1970 it was centered in the United States, and—without the help of social media–20 million people turned out for it.  And most ironic: The major financial contributor, without which the first Earth Day would not have happened, was the United Auto Workers.

Even in the most unexpected places; connection.

Barbara Brown Taylor says that we alone of all species are capable of expressing our thanks to God for what God has created and given us. But my curmudgeonly corollary to this is that we alone of all species are the ones who have intentionally, greedily, and thoughtlessly, screwed it up. We are the wolves in our own pasture; the hired hands in denial of what is happening to our planet. How many more green pastures must become wasteland, how many more still water streams must be clogged with plastic waste or catch fire before we get it? God gave us dominion over the Earth, but I think the word, “dominion”, doesn’t mean what we think it means. It doesn’t mean that we can use and dispose of our world however we please. It means that we are to treat Creation with the same care and respect as does the One who created the universe. God calls us to a dominion of love, not domination. A dominion of relationship and stewardship.

Actually, I think that, deep, deep down, we still get this. We are, thankfully, still capable of wonder, and of feeling connection with our non-human siblings in the world around us. I have seen the faces of people transformed by awe—stopped in their tracks by the sight, smell, sound, or feel—sometimes all at once– of something wondrous in the natural world. I pray that you will take time today to look back on such a moment of heart-pausing Oneness, and remember that joy. 

And the eclipse last week: Talk about connection to creation—now I wish I had made the trip north to see totality. I have holy envy of those who got to see it, but I can hear the wonder through the stories and descriptions, and the sheer breathlessness and speechlessness of people’s memories. And the beauty of it is that it was a shared experience—a commonality of realization of how small we are in the cosmos, yet how amazing it is that earth, sun, and moon are so perfectly configured that this spectacle occurs in the way that it does, seemingly just for us. One person told me that he watched the eclipse in the presence of a few strangers, all silent and standing apart in a vacant lot for the entire journey through totality, but after it was over, all they wanted to do was talk about it, and share their life stories in that moment, before moving on.

Connection. 

By the grace of our Shepherd, we haven’t lost our ability to hear the Voice; to feel the call of the Flock. And this is because we and all creatures are the imago dei, in the image of God; all things, animate and inanimate, bearing the divine spark that has united the universe from the first moment. To be in the image of the God who is Trinity—three in one, Lover, Beloved, and Love Sharer– is to be, by our very nature, in an interdependent relationship with everyone and everything around us. 

We are one Flock. 

With one Shepherd, calling all of Creation—“all creatures great and small”—by name.