The Fourth Sunday of Easter

It was Easter Sunday, and the rector was greeting the crowds after the service. One woman, who only came to church on Easter, stopped to say good morning to her and added, “It was a lovely service. I’d come more often if you’d preach on something different.”

Similarly, following the church service, a man accosted the rector and said, "Father, this church has been insulting me for years, and I did not know it until this week." The stunned priest replied, "What on earth do you mean?" "Well," said the man, every Fourth Sunday of Easter we’re told that we are the sheep. And I have heard clergy over the years call the congregation, ‘their flock.'

Then this past week I visited the Chicago stockyards. There I discovered that sheep are just about the dumbest animals God ever created. Why, they are so stupid that they even follow one another docilely into the slaughterhouse. Even pigs are smarter than sheep, and I would certainly be angry if my church called me a pig' every Sunday morning. So, I'm not at all sure I want to come to church and be called a sheep' any longer...even God's sheep'."

That man had a point. But whether we like it or not, that is the language of the Bible: both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament. We are called "God's sheep." The favorite psalm of many people is the 23rd, and it begins by saying, "The Lord is my shepherd..." And if "the Lord is my shepherd," then I am one of the Lord's sheep.

But in her book, The Preaching Life, Barbara Brown Taylor offers a very different perspective. She relates a conversation she had with a friend who grew up on a sheep farm in the Midwest. According to him, sheep are not dumb at all. "It is the cattle ranchers who are responsible for spreading that ugly rumor, and all because sheep do not behave like cows.

Cows are herded from the rear by hooting cowboys with cracking whips, but that will not work with sheep at all. Stand behind them making loud noises and all they will do is run around behind you, because they prefer to be led. “You push cows,” her friend said, “but you lead sheep, and they will not go anywhere that someone else does not go first—namely, their shepherd-who goes ahead of them to show them that everything is all right."

“Sheep know their shepherd and their shepherd knows them. Sheep and shepherds develop a language of their own.” He went on to say that it never ceased to amaze him, growing up, that he could walk right through a sleeping flock without disturbing a single one of them, while a stranger could not step foot in the fold without causing pandemonium.

What do we take from this Gospel passage? That we all God’s beloved who are known, loved, and eternally secure in Christ's care and the assurance that no one can snatch us from God’s care and love, even in times of doubt and struggle. But there’s more.

Do you remember that favorite comedy, “Cheers?” It was set in a local pub in Boston and the theme song sung at the beginning talked about how you want to go “where everybody knows your name.”  

It captures the feeling of finding solace in a familiar place when life gets tough. Lines like "Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got" and "Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot" highlight the exhaustion and hardships people face. The chorus, however, offers comfort—suggesting that the bar in Cheers is a place where people can escape their troubles and be surrounded by friends who truly know them.

Now, we may not all want to be in a place where everybody knows our name. But I think we all want the comfort of friends who truly know and love us. I think we find comfort here where everybody knows our name and if it’s a first time visit, we do our best to find that out. Our names are our chief identity.

There is an old story of a census taker who was making his rounds in the lower East side of New York, who interviewed an Irish woman bending over her washtub. “Lady, I am taking the census. What’s your name? How many children have you?”

She replied, “Well, let me see. My name is Mary. And then there’s Marcia, and Duggie, and Amy, and Patrick, and...”

“Never mind the names,” he broke in, “just give me the numbers.”

She straightened up, hands on hips, and with a twinkle in her eye, said, “I’ll have ye know, sir, we ain’t got into numberin’ them yet. We ain’t run out of names!”

I wonder if we have not entered a time where people are thought of as a number—a social security number or cell phone or IQ. Jesus tells us today how we are regarded by him. The image of God as the Good Shepherd tells us that the way it is with God is all about our unique identity because God knows each of us and calls us by name.

Every last one of us beloved sheep.