For the Sheep in the Pit--May 3, 2023

For the Sheep in the Pit--May 3, 2023

"[Christ] himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.  For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls." [1 Peter 2:24-25]

You cannot care for animals and hold grudges against them.  The shepherd goes after the lost sheep no matter how many times that same one has gone off missing, and the shepherd keeps yanking it out of the ditch even if it just jumped back in again after being freed the last time.  Rescue for the sheep trapped in the pit is not a reward for the animal's good behavior but a response of care because the shepherd is good.

I realize many of us don't necessarily have a lot of experience with herding literal sheep.  But I'll bet you know something about the grace required of keeping a dog, or a cat, or something more exotic.  From one vantage point, the dog in our house is a constant source of frustration--barking at cars [or mail carriers or birds or rabbits or anything] that might come into her field of view out the window, or awakening us in the night because she has to go out, or pestering us when we need to get work done, or even that puppy phase of chewing on any toy, shoe, or sock that touched the floor.  We have to keep buying her food and taking her to groomers and vet appointments, and her mere presence causes us to rearrange schedules to make sure she's not left alone overnight or gets a chance to go out before too many hours have gone by.  And we do all this for Daisy Flower Bond while knowing that she is never going to become a contributing member of the household.  She will never earn her keep, and she is incapable of even making amends for all those action figures and socks she got into when she was a puppy, who are now missing limbs or long gone in the trash.  But the relationship is such that she belongs, and we have put aside all those grave sins of puppyhood as well as the ongoing demands she makes on our lives.  To have an animal of any kind in your life is to decide in advance you will not keep a tally of the inconveniences, time, or dollars it costs you.

That said, it is humbling to consider how often the biblical writers go to that sort of metaphor to picture our relationship with God.  And to be honest, it is my understanding that sheep are even less likely to learn from past experience and get themselves lost, stuck, injured, or in trouble than the cocker-spaniel-poodle mix who likes my side of the bed.  That means God has chosen a relationship us that is constantly in need of resetting, renewing, and releasing hard feelings.  God, like any half-decent shepherd, has to commit from the beginning of creation itself to a policy of not keeping score against us or holding onto our wrongs as impediments to coming to our rescue... again.

That's crucial--that is what helps us to see the Christian hope as God's assurance we are forgiven.  It means the cross is a testament to the accomplished fact of our rescue, not merely a conditional possibility for which we MIGHT be eligible if our permanent record has few enough red pen marks on it.  The way First Peter talks about it, God has freed us from the damning power and coercive control of our sins already in Christ at the cross, so that we are freed from their hold on us. It's not that if we get our act together well enough, then God will consider wiping the slate clean.  God has already set our sins aside, and God is committed to yanking us by the legs out of the ditch again when we get ourselves into trouble... again.

Knowing that God has decided to keep us in the household, as it were, regardless of the number of times we've messed up or gotten lost, allows us to tell the truth about those mess-ups rather than hide them.  When I'm no longer afraid that some deep dark secret will be discovered and then I'll be kicked out of God's good graces, I can bear to bring all that I've been hiding into the light and can deal with it.  When I'm afraid that someone's love is conditional, I will want to cover up the things that I've done wrong--and then they'll never get addressed and dealt with.  But when I know that love is unconditional, I can at long last tell the truth and quit trying to pretend I'm a perfect peach.  That's part of the beauty of the way First Peter says it here:  "you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd."  We can own up and admit to the ways we've gotten ourselves in the ditch again, because we know God won't give up on us no matter how many times we find ourselves there again.  Grace, in other words, makes truth-telling possible.  And because I know that God won't keep the record of my wrongs to weaponize against me, I can tell the truth about them out loud, so that I can be freed from them.

These days, it is tempting to want to hide, censor, or silence the histories of ways we have messed up in the past--whether us ourselves, or the institutions, communities, and systems to which we belong.  It's tempting to say, "Can't we just move on and never talk about these things?" whether we're talking about generations of reinforced racial prejudice, mistreatment of those with physical or mental disabilities, or patterns of abuse within organized religion.  It's tempting to say, "Nothing good can come from making this public, and it will only make people lose faith in our institutions.  Let's just not talk about it."  But make no mistake--that's not what First Peter or the rest of the New Testament are suggesting.  Rather, just the opposite: we can be brave enough to talk about failures, mess-ups, and wrongs in which we may be complicit, precisely because grace makes it possible to face them.  Knowing that God will not let our worst actions be the end of our story is what allows us to tell even the most terrible chapters and to admit to our most nefarious deeds.  We can tell the truth, because we know God's love will not let go of us even when the truth makes us squirm.

Today, we are invited to see ourselves as sheep whom the shepherd will not give up on... and to let that give us the courage to tell the truth and start again.

O God our Shepherd, pull us out of the trouble we keep getting ourselves into... and lead us along your pathways.