Well, some of you know that before I became a pastor, I was a high school English teacher, and to this day, I just love playing around with words. I especially love “mash-up” words, which is when you put two words together to create a new word. The official name for it is “portmanteau.”
Most of you are familiar with portmanteaus like “brunch” — which is a combination of breakfast and lunch — and words like “smog” — which is a combination of smoke and fog.
More recent mash-up words are “blog” — a combination of web and log — and “dramedy” — which is a combination of drama and comedy.
In recent years, we also heard another new mashup word called “sheeple.” Sheeple is a combination of “sheep” and “people.”
On cable news shows, people on the left began calling people on the right “sheeple,” and people on the right began calling people on the left “sheeple.” The word got used so much that it’s now in the dictionary!
Dictionary.com defines the words “sheeple” as: “People who are easily persuaded and tend to follow the crowd.”
Sadly, our churches are not immune from this. There seems to be this sheeple behavior – this herd mentality – in many Christian churches in our country today, where conformity and blind obedience are practiced.
Where individuality and critical-thinking are discouraged. You’re either part of the herd, or you’re considered part of the problem.
Now, I share this with you today, because in the gospel passage from today’s lectionary, Jesus refers to himself as the shepherd and to us as the sheep, but he is in no way, shape, or form calling us to be sheeple.
As I told you earlier this year, people who blindly follow without thinking for themselves belong to cults. Jesus wasn’t forming a cult. In fact, he wasn’t even forming a church or a new religion.
What Jesus was doing was calling for a new Kingdom — a New World Order — one in which, he said, the last would be first and the “least of these” would be given the most importance.
Notice, he gives today’s “Parable of the Lost Sheep” in response to the Scribes and Pharisees’ denouncing him for associating with the “least of these,” with the marginalized and the oppressed.
The Scribes and the Pharisees were the “upstanding” people of Jesus’s day. They had strict rules about who was in and who was out. Who was worthy and who was unworthy. Who was clean and who was unclean.
Anyone who didn’t “fall in line” — anyone who didn’t believe what the Scribes and Pharisees believed — was considered an “outsider.”
That’s why the Scribes and Pharisees are condemning Jesus for sitting at tables and sharing meals with “unclean” people.
So, Jesus responds to the Scribes and Pharisees — not by condemning them, not by arguing with them — but by sharing a story with them.
Jesus was such a remarkable teacher. That’s why his students called him “Rabbi,” the Jewish term for teacher.
And, Jesus’s most-used teaching method was sharing Parables, simple, made-up stories to illustrate a point.
He knew that most of his students were not well-educated and that most of them couldn’t read. So, Jesus used metaphor and terms with which his students were familiar, like the imagery of a shepherd and his sheep.
Now, most of us love the image of Jesus holding a cute baby lamb in his arms. It is so very comforting to us.
But, you know, in Jesus’s day, sheep were considered unclean by the religious authorities. Therefore, being a shepherd was not a very well-respected profession back in Jesus’s day.
Being a shepherd was kind of considered a last-ditch option for men who couldn’t find any other ways of earning a living. Shepherds smelled and they were dirty, both literally and morally.
And, that is why it is so remarkable that Jesus refers to himself as a shepherd. He, once again, is aligning himself with the “outcast,” with the “outsider,” with the “least of these.”
One of my favorite contemporary spiritual books called, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, which was written by Pastor Philip Keller. Before he became a pastor, he was a shepherd.
In in the book, Keller tells us from his experience as a shepherd that in order for sheep to find rest they must meet four requirements. He says, “It is almost impossible for sheep to lie down unless these four requirements are met.”
He says, “They must be FREE of FEAR. They must be FREE of FRICTION with others of their kind. They must be FREE of PESTS. They must be FREE from HUNGER.”
My friends, the same is true for us. Our souls will never be at rest if we’re fearful of one another, agitated with one another, resentful of one another, and always hungry for more.
When we are feeling these things, it’s our signal that we have “gone astray,” that we have “gotten lost” from our true nature.
When we are feeling these things, we are not following the Voice of the Shepherd, the commands of the Shepherd, the Way of Love.
When we’re feeling these things, it’s our signal that we are listening too much to the outer voices of the world, rather than attuning ourselves to the inner voice of the Shepherd, which is always guiding us back home.
Some have referred to this voice as your INNER G.P.S. (your God Positioning System).
Just as the voice of the GPS in your car will lead you to your desired destination, the Voice of the Shepherd will lead you back home, where your soul will find rest.
We, in the United Church of Christ, say, “God is Still Speaking,” but are you taking the time to listen?
Are you attuned to the Divine Voice (the inner Voice of Love), or are you attuned to those other voices, the voices of fear, resentment, separation, and lack?
When you follow those other voices (the voices of cable news and social media), your soul will never find rest.
But through the practices of mindfulness, prayer and meditation, you can attune yourself more and more to the Shepherd’s Voice –to that still, small voice within you.
The voice that says, “I have come so that you may have life, and have it more abundantly.” The voice that says, “Come, follow me, and I will give you rest.”
So, this week, my friends, I encourage you to find time each and every day to attune yourself more fully to this voice of the inner shepherd. The voice of wholeness and peace.
And, then, when you leave the meditation chair, take that Peace and that Love and that Light, and share it with the world that is desperate need of it.
So, that, together, we can continue to build the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth. A place not of SAME-NESS, but of ONE-NESS.
May it be so. Amen.