If you have a group of sheep, it’s called a flock. If you’re trying to move a flock of sheep around, it’s called herding sheep. If you’re a person who herds a flock of sheep, you’re a shepherd.
But if you have a group of cattle, it’s called a herd, not a flock. And you don’t flock a herd of cattle, you herd them.
But you can flock Christmas trees.
English is weird.
Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
This Easter season we’ve been talking about sheep a lot.
What happens when there is no shepherd?
I’m not a shepherd. I haven’t ever worked on any farm. I don’t know anything about sheep except what I can learn from people who actually work with sheep. So here are some things I have learned:
A group of sheep is called a flock. A really big group of sheep is called a mob.
Left on their own, sheep will gather in small flocks. When a flock reaches about 20 sheep, it usually splits into smaller flocks.
When large flocks of sheep are moved, sometimes these small family groups get broken up, which causes distress to the sheep.
While sheep often flee danger, some sheep will defend their flocks. Some sheep have horns and some do not, but a sheep will lower its head as if to charge a threat, even if the sheep doesn’t have horns.
Sheep have even been known to but wolves off the faces of cliffs.
And a sheep may cry out for help – from the shepherd, for instance – if needed.
So sheep are not the helpless creatures they are sometimes characterized as.
We’re used to this idea of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, protecting us from bad things and leading us to good things. Today we read about Jesus praying for his disciples right before he was betrayed and arrested.
The shepherd is leaving his sheep on their own. The disciples have been taught the ways of Jesus, by word and by example. Still, this is a big change in how the disciples are going to continue.
Without Jesus to lead them, what are they going to do? They’re going to have to do the leading.
So what does Jesus pray for? He asks that those who follow him may be one.
This, by the way, is the motto of the United Church of Christ: “That they all may be one.”
Jesus wants his followers to be a flock.
There are about two and a half billion Christians in the world now, so I think that counts as a mob. But we have smaller flocks, and while the biggest church (Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul South Korea) has 200,000 people in worship each week, most churches have 100 or fewer people in worship each week.
Now, we’re not literally sheep. Sheep is used as a metaphor for people. But sheep and people are social animals, so it makes some sense to make some comparisons. People usually don’t do as well alone as they do with others. And being a Christian is about more than just “a personal relationship with Jesus.”
So while all Christians are followers of Jesus, Christians also gather together. And from time to time we will be called to lead.
Leading worship is the visible kind of leadership, but there are many other ways to lead:
- Being on the church council
- Representing the church at the Disciples Regional Meeting,
and the UCC Conference and Association meetings - Being a deacon
- Leading a team, like
- The green team
- Social justice and outreach
- Buildings and Grounds
- and others
And there are ways to be a leader in a community just be visibly doing the work Jesus calls us to.
In our reading from Acts, Paul and Silas are arrested and thrown in prison, and they are praying and singing hymns to God. The other prisoners are listening to them.
This is leadership.
Living a life that reflects a faith in God is a kind of leadership. Doing the work of Jesus is a kind of leadership. When people see you living a life of love for neighbor, it is a kind of leadership.
So my challenge for us all this week is to consider how we can be leaders. We can help organize a team at church. We can be present to others in how we live our lives and love our neighbors.
We are all partners in the service of Christ.
Amen.
* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.
Leave a Reply