One of my favorite classic Sunday school songs is the Sheep Song. I discovered this week that most of you don’t know the Sheep Song, so it seems important that we remedy that right now. First, the most important part of the Sheep Song is the ears. Take your hands, and hold them up by your head like this, to make some ears. Now the song goes like this:
I just wanna be a sheep. Ba-ba-ba-ba.
I just wanna be a sheep. Ba-ba-ba-ba.
And I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
I just wanna be a sheep. Ba-ba-ba-ba.
Now that I’ve taught you all the song, I should warn you that this little earworm is quite catchy, and you will be singing it for the next week. You’re welcome. This song is great because if your Sunday school lesson went short, it’s got like five verses, all based on bad puns. Like, I don’t want to be a hypocrite, cause they’re not hip with it. I don’t want to be a Pharisee, cause they’re not fair, you see. I don’t want to be from Babylon, cause they just babble on and on and on. The song can go on forever.
It’s a great song, and there really is nothing cuter than a room full of five-year-olds making sheep ears, but I do wonder how true it is. Because I have to wonder, do we really want to be sheep? I like the romantic notion of being Jesus’ sheep, like it’s portrayed in the Sunday school posters, with fluffy white sheep on rich green grass, under a crystal blue sky. It’s always sunny in Sunday school posters; do you notice that? And the sheep are frolicking around, and Jesus is watching them, with a gentle smile on his face, and everything has this bucolic calm.
The problem, of course, is that expectation almost never matches reality. Take the kindergarten Sunday school class singing the Sheep song that I described. I bet you imagined them all sitting quietly in their seats, hands up to their ears, singing in their sweet, high voices. The reality, if you’ve ever taught a kindergarten Sunday school, you know, was closer to me singing the sheep song by myself while two of them tried to hit each other with their sheep ears, and a third ate glue. Sheep life is closer to that. We imagine calm, serene pastures and following a shepherd who’s leading you clearly and is easy to follow. But sheep life is closer to rough, dry scrub grass, storms that blow off the Mediterranean out of nowhere, and straining to hear the voice of your shepherd over the bleating of sheep. Sometimes you can’t see or hear the shepherd, you’re just following the sheep in front of you, hoping it’s going the right way. I don’t like blind following, I don’t like being at the mercy of someone I cannot always see, I like to control my own route, my own destiny, and I’m pretty sure I don’t, in fact, want to be a sheep. I think I would find the experience out of control and terrifying.
Misplaced expectations and a feeling of being out of control is I think what’s driving the interaction between Jesus and the crowd in our Gospel reading for this morning. The text again says the Jews, but remember this is Judea, everyone, including Jesus, is Jewish. Based on the location in the Temple, I think the distinction being made with the term Jew here refers to the religious leaders. People who would have understood themselves to be shepherds in their own way, responsible for keeping the people of Judea safe from the wolves of the Roman Empire. Every day of their lives they walked a fine balancing act, trying to keep the people faithful to their religious traditions while flying just enough under the radar to escape the attention of Rome. Their tradition had taught them that a messiah would come from the house of David, and he would deliver them from their enemies and raise them up to greatness again. And as the wolves of Rome crept closer and closer, their fear that the messiah would not come in time grew and grew. So when the leaders came across Jesus in the temple, they were fed up with his confusing mixed messages. How long will you keep us in suspense, they asked. If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.
The leaders couldn’t tell who Jesus was, because what he was doing was so different from their expectations. They expected a conqueror king in the model of David, someone who would raise up a mighty army, charge into Jerusalem, and topple the corrupt leadership, bringing about a great day of peace and prosperity. Jesus was doing a lot of great things, performing signs, healing, and teaching, but he wasn’t raising an army, he wasn’t charging the gates of the city, and the leaders were getting sick of waiting.
Jesus responded, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. No one can snatch them from my hand.” If you read further along in chapter ten, you’ll notice that this really did not satisfy the religious leaders. In fact, the end part when Jesus told them he and the Father were one, really ticked them off. They didn’t understand because their view of what Jesus was doing was too small. They wanted a conquering king who would save them from their current reality, but Jesus was a savior coming to deliver them for all eternity.
The leaders missed what Jesus was about, but that didn’t stop Jesus from continuing his journey to the cross, that didn’t stop Jesus from giving up his spirit, that didn’t stop Jesus from defeating death and rising again, so that the promise Jesus made to never lose a single one of his sheep would be fulfilled.
That is the good news this morning, dear people of God. That no matter how off our understandings may be, how far we may miss the voice in front of us, how dark the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus promises that nothing can ever snatch us away from his hand. Like the Jews in this Gospel, there is a big scary world out there. A world that wants to tell us that it is in control and we are not, that it has power and might, that it and it alone can protect us. You’ve heard those voices. They blast over news coverage, they whisper in the stillness, they are insidious and they can feel overpowering. And to those voices, the overwhelming, overpowering good news of Jesus Christ is that those voices are wrong. Because Jesus, the Good Shepherd is before us. Even when the rush of sheep is thick and we cannot hear his voice, still the Good Shepherd leads us on. Like we will sing in our psalm this morning, in valleys of the shadow of death and in the midst of our enemies, the Good Shepherd goes alongside us, guiding us, guarding us, protecting us, and leading us.
Being a sheep can feel out of control, but in this Gospel we have the promise that Jesus is always in control. However far our sheepiness may wander, Jesus promises that he will guide us, protect us, hold on to us, love us, and accompany us through life and even in death. Unwilling sheep though we may be, nothing, nothing will ever snatch us from his hands. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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