Most of you know that I love Sewanee. I was there this weekend to see the new crop of seminarians get pushed out into the world. But even I have to admit that once the ceremonies and the liturgies and the homework are done, the day-to-day life living in a seminary community on top of a mountain, far away from a city's hustle and bustle, can be fairly mundane, one day blending into the next.
I shared my porch with my best friend, Brooks, and his wife, Becca, in the Woodlands. The Woodlands is a sort of residential housing neighborhood of duplexes. Our particular unit faced the huge playground and park for the community. Half of that area was ringed with similar looking duplexes and the other half was bordered by woods that led back into the vast, undeveloped acreage on the domain.
On most nights, after all the studying and dinner and whatnot, Brooks and I would sit on the porch in the dark, drinking Miller High Lifes (the Champagne of Beers!), watching lights go on and off in other duplexes, signs that our friends and classmates were still up and working or dealing with kids, or maybe just grabbing that snack from the fridge. You know...life.
But eventually, and without fail, if we sat there long enough, over on the wooded border, you would see shapes begin to form, and eyes peering out, golden and bright, catching and reflecting the light from all those apartments. And soon, they would appear. Foxes. And the occasional coyote. And they would skulk and skitter across the playground, headed across the way over to the pond where other classmates lived, hunting ducks and geese.
Occasionally, if the dog was out there with us, he would stand up and begin this low growl, and Brooks would say, “Easy, Cotton.” And the fox would freeze and look our way, but seeing we really weren't going to do anything, it would continue on, undaunted, searching out the easy prey of docile wildlife that have gotten used to living around people at Sewanee.
But they wouldn't stop on the playground. There was nothing there. They had to move on.
I think the image of shepherd and sheep and gatekeeper and gate are familiar to us because we've heard them so much, but still they are a little weird and off-putting. We have a dim view of sheep, and not from a whole food-chain perspective.
In our society, we don't want to be thought of as sheep. They are stupid. They are blind followers. We scoff at people who we think when they do things simply because someone else told them to. We are supposed to have a streak of rebelliousness in us. We are supposed to be individuals. Loners. Foxes on the prowls. If we do things together, we prefer being wolves in a pack, roving along with a joint purpose, striking, then moving on. We certainly are wary of living communally like those original Christians in our first reading. Giving up everything? Come on!
No one wants to be a sheep. Sheep end up in ovens, on plates, feasted on by those able to afford a little meat. Sheep end up being stripped, their hair being turned into clothing for those who can afford more than cast off rayon and nylon windbreakers. The function of the sheep is to be manipulated and used.
It's not for nothing that many talk radio folks will so often refer to voters as “sheeple.”
So, it's hard for us in this country to get really comfortable with the idea of being together, in a flock, not making all the decisions, not bearing all the responsibility, not being the rugged individual. Just living our lives, penned into the sheepfold, with a gate keeping us from where we want to go.
And here's the point. I don't Jesus wants that for us either.
As much as we dislike images of ourselves as sheep, we all have sheeplike tendencies. Sometimes, we create our own sheepfolds. Places we think of as safe because they enfold us and keep others out, others who can harm us.
We make sheepfolds out of our jobs, out of our wealth. Sheepfolds out of our addictions, or lives spent in front of the computer or on our iPhones, lives on the couch, lives in the mall, lives in bed with the shades pulled down, lives of stagnation, lives of isolation and deflation.
And just like real sheepfolds, which are apart from the open grazing fields, these are places where there is ultimately no nourishment, safe for a while, but barren in the long run. Places where even foxes and coyotes will pass over, headed to where real life is.
I rarely talk about Greek and Hebrew words in sermons because eyes glaze over. But consider this. Our translation tells us that, after we have spent the night safe in the sheepfold, “Jesus calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them...”
But most other times the word for “bring” used in the Gospels is better translated as “Drive”.
When he has “driven” out all his own...
That is Christ's purpose, to fill us with such a Spirit, that we are driven out of those sheepfolds of isolation! To go out into the world and engage it!!! – searching for such a fullness of life that we can hardly imagine.
To confront the wolves, the foxes, the dangers, knowing that our Lord drives us out there and is with us there. Confronting evil, not being sheltered from it. Confronting injustice, not blindly accepting it as fact.
But also confronting a world of God's making, and caring for it. Confronting a people of God's heart, and having a heart for them. Confronting people so very much in need of Christ's love, and loving them. Bringing them out of their own sheepfold and into the pasture of God!
I love Sewanee. I always will. I loved the easiness and the mundaness, the slow cycles of a liturgical life in community. I loved the dinners and the new babies and teaching others to love Doctor Who. I loved the learning and hard work.
And I loved sitting on the porch at night, with Brooks and Becca and Cotton, watching the lives lived in the night and the lightning bugs and the foxes and the coyotes.
In many ways I met my family there, a family of my own choosing. But even that sheepfold was not enough, and Jesus drove us out, scattered us with work to do.
But still, he went with us.
And here at St. James, he drives us out to follow his voice out into the world. To follow his voice when he says, “Here, here is a homeless man. Will you wash his feet?”
To follow his voice when he says, “Look at this planet, being used and not treasured. How will you help?”
To follow his voice when he says, “People around the world still hurt. Can you love them, if even just a little?”
To follow the shepherd' s voice out of this sheepfold, all we like sheep, out into the world – in peace, to love and serve the Lord. Alleluia, alleluia.
Amen.