To be a good shepherd...

...you have to be half a sheep yourself!

The old shepherd's words rang around the kitchen of the hillside farm in the Lake District.  His companions looked up, fascinated.  "What do you mean?" one of them said eventually.  The apple-cheeked shepherd smiled.  "I think I mean that to be a good shepherd, you have to learn to be half a sheep yourself", he replied.  "You see, sheep are strange creatures, they run away, get lost, fall into holes and crevices, get burrs and thorns in their coats, don't listen to what the shepherd or the sheep dog is persuading them to do, go the wrong way and end up in a slimy pool or a muddy ditch..."  He grinned ruefully. "Come to think of it, they aren't much different from ourselves!" 

"Thank you!" whispered one of the crew of cameramen grouped around the table. The others looked at their host enquiringly. "You really think we are as daft as that!" another said.  "Maybe not", the shepherd replied.  "You appear to be very clever, especially when you point those lens at something that looks like a shrivelled bit of human hair, and when you put it up on the screen later on, it is beautiful - magic!"  The crew sipped their drinks reflectively.  The compliment seemed to be a little two-edged, but they let it pass. "Tell me", a third one asked the old man "how on earth did you find that shivering bundle over there and realise it was your lost sheep?"  "I've told you", said the shepherd, "but I'll tell you again."

"An hour ago, if you remember, you came with me to look for one of my new lambs that had got lost."  They all nodded their heads in agreement.  "You came with me in the storm to film what I did, and to tell the public who watch your programme on the BBC what a real shepherd does in lambing time, and especially what skills he uses to find an errant lamb who is out there, defenceless, cold and possibly suffering from an animal form of hypothermia.  Okay?"  They nodded again. "Well you found out tonight didn't you?"  "Not really" said the youngest crew member.  "It was pelting with rain, the wind was howling fit to blow us all over that hillside, and you want us to believe that you heard that lamb over there," as he pointed to the little new-born creature who was lying contentedly beside the open fire, sucking on a miniature bottle of warm milk "bleating piteously for it's mother!"  "Well, not exactly"  said the old man,  "but yes, I did know that he was somewhere down there, crying out for help.  Call it an instinct, if you like.  I prefer to call it 'being half a sheep yourself'  after fifty years or so working on a sheep farm!"

"Now you are going to ask me again what on earth I mean by that!" the shepherd smiled. "Yes we certainly don't know what that means" the youngest cameraman replied.  "Please tell us. Our viewers would be interested." The old man smiled. "For me, that means knowing your sheep so well that they become part of your family, part of who you are yourself.  To be half a sheep means that I learn to understand them, to protect them, to anticipate their needs, and to really love them.  That way, I can look out for them and guard against any dangers that might come to them. They are my life." 

There was a silence in the room.  "Yes, I begin to see," said one of the cameramen who had not spoken up to this. "You have to think like a sheep, feel like a sheep, know what dangers they are likely to get into, so that you can be a good shepherd to them."  "To put it in a nutshell!" answered the old shepherd.  "Would you like my job?"  They all laughed. "I think it's going to be a good series" said the chief cameraman. "We'll call it  'The Good Shepherd'. "

That BBC production is now gathering dust in the archives of that august organisation, but it made a real impact when it was released.  Many letters were received asking about the work of shepherds and some even made reference to Jesus as the one who called himself The Good Shepherd.  He became the full sheep of course, taking on our nature, leaving behind the glory that was rightly his to live our life with all its joys and sorrows, hopes and disillusionments. 

Did you know that one of the earliest representations of Jesus is that of the Good Shepherd?  I remember being in the catacombs and seeing a rather crude etching of a young shepherd with a lamb across his shoulders carved on the wall opposite me.  It was so vivid and seemed to reach out through the centuries to tell  me something about how those early Christians saw Jesus.  They were imprisoned, frightened of persecution, hidden away from the Roman authorities and the groups of dissident Jews who would condemn them and execute them for their beliefs.  Yet they comforted themselves with the Jesus many of them had known personally by depicting him as the Saviour, the Good Shepherd, the one who would look out for them and lead them to safety.   The Good Shepherd. The words he used must have often been read in those twisting passages of the old Roman cemeteries on the outskirts of the capital city:

"I am the Good Shepherd.  The Good Shepherd lays his life down for his sheep. I know my sheep and they know me.  I have other sheep who are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them too. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one fold and one shepherd."

John 10: 14-17

This Sunday we keep the remembrance of this wonderful image of Jesus as Saviour.  The Resurrected Lord who reaches out through time and space to us, his sheep, his silly sheep, his wandering, unfaithful sheep and offers us that same protection, love and contentment that he first gave to the First Christians. 

Frances Taylor, our Founder,  made her First Holy Communion on Good Shepherd Sunday!  Not in a lovely ivy-covered Church in the safety of the country, but in the kitchen of a military hospital out in the Crimea in the middle of a blood-bath!  She always loved to think of Jesus as the Good Shepherd who took on our life to lead us to his.  Praise him!

Do you like this hymn she wrote to celebrate this feast? Here is the first verse and chorus:

I met the Good Shepherd but now on the plain

As homeward he carried his lost one again.

I marvelled how gently his burden he bore;

and as he passed by me

I knelt to adore

O Shepherd, Good Shepherd,

thy wounds they are deep;

the wolves have sore hurt thee in saving thy sheep.

Thy garments all-over with crimson are dyed;

and what is this wound they have made in thy side?

(Mother Magdalen)

Have a lovely feast day, fellow sheep!  Thank Jesus that he became a whole  sheep to save us and to protect us from the enemy!  God bless.