Sheeple?

The scriptures referred to are Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 23 and Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56.

“Sheeple.” It's an insult people hurl at folks who blindly follow a leader or a group. Well, actually it is an insult hurled at folks who blindly follow a leader or a group that the insult-hurlers dislike. So it doesn't apply to them and whoever or whatever they follow. And, yes, there are such people, primarily in cults, who do whatever the person they've elevated to god says. Think Jim Jones or David Koresh. Or Hitler. People turned off their critical thinking and, in one case, literally drank the Kool-Aid. Or Flavor-Aid, to be accurate.

But to say that none of them ever speak up or object is to ignore the evidence. After all, the Jonestown massacre took place after Jones had the 14 people who wanted to leave gunned down along with California respresentative Leo Ryan and his entourage. And some of the cult members, rather than swallow the cyanide-laced drink, ran for the jungle or hid under a bed or lay in a ditch pretending to be dead. Because even sheep do not uniformly follow a leader. Dogs are more likely to show that kind of obedience.

Sheep do exhibit flocking behavior, keeping close together, but only when there are 4 or more of them. And “in regions where sheep have no natural predators, none of the native breeds of sheep exhibit a strong flocking behavior.” [Wikipedia] And sheep have a dominance hierarchy, maintained through aggressiveness, competitiveness and even fighting. As for intelligence, they are about as smart as cattle. Maybe smarter. They do display some problem solving skills. People in West Yorkshire have reported a flock that figured out how to get past cattle grates by rolling over them on their backs!

The Bible, reflecting an agricultural background, has sheep right: they do tend to flock and they do follow leaders, but they also can stray, or else why do they need a shepherd? The issue then is not so much the sheep as the shepherd. If the shepherd is good and is looking out for the sheep, it is a good thing that they follow him. Jones, Koresh and Hitler are extreme examples of bad shepherds.

It's Good Shepherd Sunday, though you wouldn't know it by reading the passages in Track One of the Revised Common Lectionary. In the Old Testament, Psalm and Gospel selections there are a grand total of 3 references to shepherds. Whereas in Track Two, we have Jeremiah's denunciation of the bad shepherds or kings of Israel, as well as Psalm 23, which pictures God as a shepherd. They make a good contrast between what a bad shepherd and a good shepherd do. That's why I included the Celebrate in the bulletins and read them rather than those on the Episcopal insert.

Right off the bat, Jeremiah lists 3 things bad shepherds do: destroy the sheep, scatter or drive them away and neglect them. Let's look at each.

The primary duty of a shepherd is to keep the sheep alive and intact. Destroying them is therefore the worst thing you can do. It seems absurd to even call a person who would do that a shepherd. But at the beginning of this sermon, we mentioned 3 leaders whose actions ultimately led to the death and destruction of their people. In the case of Jones, it was the mass suicide of more than 900 people, including about 300 children, “the largest number of American civilian casualties in a single non-natural event,” up until 9/11. However, with Jones' armed guards overseeing it, there is a disagreement as to whether drinking the poison could be called voluntary on the part of most of the people. Koresh would rather his people fight it out with the overwhelmingly better armed government forces, who had tanks, than for him to simply surrender and face a trial. 76 Branch Davidians died. Hitler kept overruling his generals and when his defeat became inevitable, he blamed the German people for not being more loyal to him and not fighting harder. It is estimated that as many as 2 million German civilians and 5 million German soldiers died in World War II. None of these men took any blame for what happened nor did they choose alternatives that would let their people live. They failed to protect those who followed them. Contrast that with Jesus who let himself be arrested in return for letting his disciples go. (John 18:8)

Jeremiah accuses the bad shepherds of scattering the sheep and even driving them away. Remember that sheep together follow the leader if kept in a large group. Smaller groups do not flock. Also fear of predators keep them together. Even bad shepherds know this and use the fear of enemies to keep people in line. But their leadership also creates defectors, people who cannot stand the destructive and self-destructive ways the leader displays. And this makes dissenters enemies as well. Bad leaders are just as paranoid about enemies within as they are those outside the group. And the loyalty tests and purges that result create divisions. Hitler also created a tremendous brain drain in Germany as Jews, as well as other Germans who could not in good conscience support the Nazis, left the country before the war. Many joined the Allies.

Now people do leave and even betray good causes and good shepherds as well. One of Jesus' twelve closest students led those who arrested him. And a large number left him after his Eucharistic speech about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. John tells us, “After this many of his disciples quit following him and did not accompany him any longer. So Jesus said to the twelve, 'You don't want to go away too, do you?' Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.'” (John 6:66-68)

But Jesus did not run after those leaving, nor put out a hit on them, as Jim Jones did on the 14 who wanted to leave Jonestown with Ryan. David Koresh let 51 children, all fathered by other men, leave his compound before the siege. But 25 children, fathered by him through various women, were herded into a central room to die along with him and his original wife and 2 pregnant women. After Rudolph Hess' unauthorized flight to Britain to broker a peace, Hitler went after anyone in the Reich whom he felt he couldn't trust to obey him above all. Bad shepherds are such narcissists that they simply cannot let go when someone leaves them.

Finally, Jeremiah says that the bad shepherds “have not attended to” the sheep. They haven't paid attention to them. Because with the bad shepherd it is all about him, his needs, his fears and his desires, not those of his people. Contrast this with Jesus in today's gospel passage. The disciples have returned from the mission he gave them and they are sharing what happened. “He said to them, 'Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.' For many were coming and going and they had no leisure to eat.” Jesus himself would get so worn out he could sleep through a storm. (Mark 4:37-38) And he realized his disciples needed to eat and to rest as well. Bad shepherds don't have empathy for their followers.

Much of Psalm 23 is about how the Lord as a shepherd supplies the needs of his sheep. He leads them to green pastures and good water. He protects them. Faced with predators, sheep will charge and butt or stamp their hooves, especially ewes with newborns. But that doesn't worry a predator much. So as the psalm says, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” The rod was a cudgel that was tucked into the shepherd's belt. The staff was his walking stick. Both were used as weapons to fend off predators. Remember how David told Saul that he could handle Goliath because he had rescued sheep from lions and bears by striking them. (1 Samuel 17:34-36) I imagine the sling was used to chase them away before they got too near the flock. If one actually got hold of a sheep, it was clobbering time. The staff extended the shepherd's reach, keeping him out of the range of claws and jaws, and the rod came into use when he moved in for the kill. The sheep knew that the shepherd would deal with threats.

As Jeremiah says of those with a good shepherd over them, “they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.” This recalls Jesus' parable about the shepherd who, despite having 99 sheep safe, will nevertheless go and look for the one sheep who has gone astray. (Matthew 18:12-14)

Again the bad shepherd only cares about himself, not his followers. Jones, Koresh and Hitler only committed suicide to spare themselves the humiliation of falling into the hands of their enemies and having to face the consequences of their crimes. The only thing more precious than their lives were their egos. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11) And indeed he did. He let himself be taken and humiliated by his enemies. Crucifixion was a humiliating death, hanging naked along a major road, unable to do anything except die.

The reason he did this is found in Isaiah: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned each one to his own way; and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6) It's not just one of us Jesus needs to seek out and find; all of us were lost. Without a good shepherd our situation is like the one we find in the period of the judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) In other words, chaos. Unfortunately, to avoid that, people are willing to put themselves under the crook of any shepherd, even a bad one, as long as he promises order and stability. That's how a Hitler or any would-be dictator gains power. He plays on their fear of disorder and of the “Other,” however he defines it. He says he will deliver them from that fear. Little do they know they are exchanging that fear for fear of the shepherd himself and his whims, once they are revealed.

But the good shepherd, while offering protection, also offers goodness and mercy, as the psalm says. The Hebrew word for “goodness” means “pleasant, agreeable.” It is used of things pleasing to the senses, like sight, smell and taste. It is used of good times, good places, good people and good news. Bad shepherds don't want you to hear good news. That might make you feel less afraid and feel less need for them. Cal Thomas left the Moral Majority in part because of their fearmongering, like Falwell saying one of the Teletubbies was designed to make kids gay. When Thomas asked someone in charge of their media messages why they didn't highlight the good things they were doing, he was told that good news led to a dropping off of donations. Both robbers and bad shepherds know that you are more likely to give them your money if you are afraid.

The other quality the good shepherd offers is mercy. Bad shepherds are not forgiving. Both Jones and Koresh would publicly discipline and humiliate their followers for breaking the rules. It goes without saying that Hitler was without mercy. But 3 times Peter denied Jesus, even as the man he had called the Christ, the Son of the living God, was being interrogated by Caiaphas. So what does Jesus do after his resurrection? He asks Peter 3 times if he loves him. Each time Peter says he does, while getting increasingly upset at Jesus' question. And each time Jesus responds with “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17) The good shepherd forgave him and called him to be a shepherd to his sheep.

We should not be insulted to be called sheep of the good shepherd. The idea that people make better decisions when not totally free of the influence of God or government has been disproven over and over by history. It's called anarchy. And anarchy is simply letting many people become tyrants, like the warlords who rule various parts of failed nations. Even in a democracy someone has to set goals and give people direction. It's not a matter of there being a shepherd or not; it's a matter of whether you follow a good shepherd or a bad one.

One advantage Jesus has is revealed right after the verse we quoted in Isaiah about us being like sheep gone astray. It goes, “He was treated harshly and afflicted, but he did not even open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughtering block, like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not even open his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7) In real life a shepherd has never been a sheep. But Jesus did become one of us. He knows what our lives are like. He willingly gave up his power to be a working man of an oppressed people and a religious minority, under bad shepherds where there was no freedom and no mercy. He ended up nailed to a cross, powerless to wipe the blood and sweat from his eyes or to raise a cup to wet his parched lips. We humans come into this world helpless and we die helpless. And Jesus has done both and knows exactly what it is like. That helps make him a good and merciful shepherd.

Sheep can learn to recognize the faces of individual humans. They can learn to respond to their names. We need to learn to recognize good shepherds and especially The Good Shepherd. And we need to listen for his call and follow him. Though he takes us through the valley of the shadow of death, he will guide us along the right pathways. He will feed us and tend us and protect us and we will dwell with him forever.