“Feeling a Little Sheepish?”

John 10:22-30 and Psalm 23

May 2, 2004

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

Bow Wow is dog language for, “Hey, how’s it going?” Though there are some language experts who argue that it might also mean, “Hey! Where have you been all day?” You may find this hard to believe, but there is new technology that can actually translate your dog’s bark into English. So now you will finally be able to understand what Rover and Ginger are actually trying to tell you. The technology is called Bow Lingual and so far it works only for dogs. I apologize to the cat people in the congregation this morning. I am admittedly, not a cat person. Maybe if I understood them better I would be and so I will wait for Meow Lingual in hopes of understanding cats.

For a long time, our world has been fascinated with trying to communicate with animals. Marine biologists have tried to figure out what the high pitched sounds that whales make really means. And of course, Hollywood has given us shows and movies for years about talking animals. You will remember Mr. Ed from the 1960s and Eddie Murphy’s rendition of Dr. Doolittle in two different movies. How did the theme song to Mr. Ed go, “A horse is a horse of course, of course. And no-one can talk to a horse of course - that is of course unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed. Go right to the source and ask the horse - he'll give you the answer that you endorse. He's always on a standing course - talk to Mister Ed!” Back to the technology. Bow Lingual is made in Japan and it’s purpose is to try and tell you what your dog’s yap means. Here is how it works. A simple electronic transmitter is placed on your dog’s collar. Every time that he barks, it is activated. It sends a signal to a transmitter that you keep close by. The transmitter interprets the barks into previously set patterns that have six moods associated with them. These moods are happy, sad, frustrated, needy, on guard, and assertive. So, when the pizza guy pulls up in your driveway and makes his way to the front porch, you should be able to immediately tell what is going through your dog’s mind. Ginger might be saying, “Look out for this guy. I am not sure about him!” Or she might be saying, “The pizza’s here! The Pizza’s here! I love pizza!”

So, canine clamor as unintelligible as it was, is now a thing of the past. The Bow Lingual also counts the number of times your dog barks while you are gone useful perhaps if you have been wondering who has been making those unauthorized long distance phone calls while you are away! For one hundred and twenty dollars, the Bow Lingual can be yours. The reviews are mixed. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not work. And, when you get down to it, who really wants to spend one hundred and twenty dollars trying to determine whether your dog is happy or not. If you have lived with them at any time at all, you can already do that. Still, we have been interested for some time in communicating with animals.

Which, I think, is a nice lead in to our two scripture lessons for this morning from the twenty-third Psalm and a few verses from John’s tenth chapter. You will know this. One of the lasting images of Jesus that we have in our Bibles is that of Jesus as the shepherd. Just eleven verses before we arrive at our lesson for this morning, John, the gospel writer, has Jesus calling himself the Good Shepherd. I can remember the pictures that hug in the Sunday School classes of my growing up years. There, with a green meadow in front of him, and sheep grazing near him, is Jesus, the shepherd. In one of his arms is a shepherd’s crook. In the other is the smallest of a lamb. I like that image of Jesus. I don’t mind thinking of myself as one of his sheep. In John’s gospel, when Jesus speaks of people, one of the images that he uses for us is sheep. In his day, sheep were as common around town as dogs are in our own. Good shepherds, like good dog owners, would never need the aid of a Bow Lingual or a Sheep Lingual. I guess that you could say that sheep and shepherds understood each other because of the amount of time that they spent together.

What do we know about sheep and shepherding? We have been taught. In fact, I have taught that sheep are not the brightest animals in the animal kingdom. Some commentators have said that they are dumb. I have read that sheep cannot take care of themselves. I have heard that they have the tendency to nibble themselves lost. With their heads down, looking only at the grass, sheep eat. When they look up, the herd has left them all by themselves. I have read that sheep never have a destination in mind. Instead, they wander aimlessly and blindly. I have heard that if a sheep makes his way into water, that she will drown, unless the shepherd comes to her aid. I have heard that when a terrain changes, sheep are not smart enough to notice that and fall down. And, again, without the aid of a shepherd, they would not be able to get up on their own.

Sheep, I have heard, are defenseless. They do not have fangs or claws to defend themselves. Sheep will never bite you or outrun you. I do not know if all that is true or not, but it is what I have heard. I wish that David had compared us to something other than sheep. I wish that Jesus could have thought of us in a different way.

I have heard all of these things about sheep. I have taught these things about sheep. But this week, there are a couple of new things that I have read about sheep. I guess that these are things that every shepherd knows. First, sheep are outgoing and friendly. They will always stay together, not because they like one another, but because they find strength and security in numbers. In the sheep herd, separation from the flock causes extreme stress. Now stay with me, there could be a sermon in these words. When sheep are separated from the fold, they scream out in a high pitched sound called a bleats. That is the first new insight that I have gotten about sheep. Here is the second. It is a radical one. It may be different from anything that you have heard about sheep. Sheep are intelligent. I will say that again if you would like for me to. Sheep are intelligent. A study done in England revealed that sheep are just below the cows and the pigs on the list of the brightest. The study says that sheep have remarkable memories. Their memories help them to pick out a particular face in a line of pictures, if the image is one that feeds them. Some of the sheep could remember up to fifty images for as long as two years. Again, if they associated the image with one who feeds them. In addition to their memory, sheep also have sharp hearing. This gift enables them to detect the voice of their shepherd from among many others. They will go towards the friendly voice, especially if they have food. There is a trend in their wanting food, I guess. Friends, sheep are not as dumb as we think that they are, unless they are scared. The problem is that they are afraid of just about everything. All animals, us included, do not show signs of intelligence when we are scared. I told you that there would be a sermon in these words this morning.

We catch up with Jesus and his disciples in Jerusalem this morning, at the temple. John tells us that it was the time of the festival of the Dedication, the Jewish remembrance of the time when they recaptured and rededicated their temple. John says that Jesus was walking around the Temple, when the Jewish authorities came up to him and said, “How long will you keep us in suspense (the word here shows us that they are aggravated and agitated). If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Just before we arrive at this scene, Jesus is talking about his relationship with sheep. I will admit that his words are confusing. I, too, would like for Jesus to tell me plainly what he is talking about. Listen to what Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me...no one (and I wish that he said nothing) will snatch them out of my hand.” Could it be that this call of Jesus for us to follow him is a actual way of leading us out and away from danger. Jesus knew that it was his voice to which his sheep would come running, no matter how far we have strayed. Listen again to what Jesus says, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me...” Well, sometimes we do and sometimes we do not.

So the shepherd knows us. He knows when we are scared. He knows when we are in trouble. He knows when we are straying. He knows when we have fallen and cannot get back up on our feet again. He knows all of these things. The problem, friends, is not communication between the Good Shepherd and us. The problem is with us, hearing his voice, and following him. You see, we like to go our own way. Isaiah puts that this way, “We all have wandered away like sheep; each of us has gone his own way.” Why is it that we who need a shepherd resist him so? There are times when we do not have any trouble listening, especially when Jesus is offering us comforting words. I have found that people in the emergency room, at an ungodly hour, hear the words of comfort and encouragement more readily than they do at other times. In the early morning hours, it is easy to hear, “I am the Good Shepherd. Listen to my voice. In those moments it is hard not to listen. I am no Jesus, Susie will attest to that. But I do consider myself a shepherd to this flock. Sometimes my job is to lead us where we do not want to go. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, asks us to follow Him through the valley of the shadow of death. He asks us to follow him through a time of obedience. Sometimes Jesus asks us to forgive when we do not want to forgive and to sacrifice when sacrifice is the last thing on our minds. It is then that we do not hear so well. I think that it is that way because we are scared. And, like sheep, when we are scared, we do not make good choices. We take wrong roads. We live a way that everyone who knows us says we should not be living. We follow other shepherds. Maybe you will like this next line. When we follow those shepherds, most of the time we discover that they really are wolfs in shepherd’s clothing. Listen again to what Jesus says, in another version of the Bible: “They are protected from evil. No one can steal them from out of my hand.”

It is communion Sunday, so I do not have as much time to preach as I do on other Sundays. I have one more thing that I have to say I’ve got to say just one more thing. We can learn something from our friends, the sheep and their staying together in a flock. I like the size of our church. It seems to be perfect for this shepherd. Go home with this. We need the flock. We need each other. And we need the Good Shepherd to guide us. Let us pray.