The Wool We Carry

Hebrew Scripture: Psalm 23

Epistle: 1 John 3:16-24

Gospel: John 10:11-18

Sermon Transcript:

Good morning! Thank you so much for inviting me to preach today. I heard that the PNC committee has chosen a new pastor, Marty Neal! Congratulations! Marty and I are good friends. We went to seminary together, were next door neighborhoods, and even traveled to Nepal together. We’ve had many conversations about our call to ministry, and I assure you that Marty is one of the most genuine and knowledgeable people I’ve ever met. I’m so happy for both of these congregations and for Marty! [Pause] A shockwave rippled through the sheep farming world in 2015. In August of that year, Chris the sheep was found in Australia. Now, Chris is no ordinary sheep. He had been lost and was wandering the Australian countryside for seven years. He had somehow gotten separated from the fold, unable to hear the voice of his shepherd. Does anyone know what happens to a sheep when it gets lost for seven years? It doesn’t get sheered. Yes, Chris the sheep had accumulated seven years-worth of wool while being lost. Picture with me what Chris looked like with that much wool. Chris had 18 inches of wool all around his body. His faced was covered so much that all you could see was the very tip of his snout. All of this wool weighed 89 pounds – 89 pounds! – and it took 42 minutes to sheer all of it off. By comparison, a typical sheep has only 11 pounds of wool that it takes 3 minutes to sheer. Chris’ wool was massive! It broke the unofficial world record for the amount of sheered wool in one sitting. The previous record was held by a sheep from New Zealand named Shrek who had a 60-pound wool coat. The before and after photos of Chris are striking. It’s amazing that such a little body was underneath all of that wool. In fact, Chris’ wool was so heavy that he could barely walk when they found him. Sheep that aren’t sheered regularly face numerous health issues, and it’s a miracle that Chris lived so long while being lost. On top of this, even though the wool was record-breaking, it was virtually useless on the market. It was so mangled and dirty that it couldn’t be sold. [Pause] I got a good chuckle out of this story when I first came across it. The pictures of Chris are pretty funny, and if you have time later today, they’re worth looking up for yourself. However, as I thought more about Chris and his stint in the wilderness for seven years, I realized that his story provides a powerful illustration for this week. This week we’re celebrating Jesus as the Good Shepherd. We’re given the beautiful imagery of Psalm 23 and the comforting description of Jesus’ pastoral role in our lives. This week’s scripture brings assurance and affirmation in life with God as we’re all sheep in Christ’s flock. But what about sheep like Chris? What about all of those who are lost – lost from the church, lost from family, or lost from society? What if each and every one of us is the lost sheep? As we meditate on Christ as the Good Shepherd today, I invite all of us to consider times when we’ve been the lost sheep. And I say all of us for a reason – I believe that being lost is something that we all experience at some point in our life, and I believe being lost is an important part of faith. So, before we jump into the flock and revel in the green pastures, lets slow down and imagine ourselves as Chris the lost sheep. What wool have you carried? What wool are you carrying now? What journey have you gone through to be part of the fold? [Pause] Chris the lost sheep is a powerful illustration because his distance from the flock could be literally measured through his wool. For us humans, our distance from our communities is a bit trickier to measure. While we certainly don’t grow wool, we all carry wounds or brokenness that may prevents us from being fully part of the fold. I think this is the root of today’s lesson. In order to understand our sense of belonging to our church, our family, and our community, we must first understand the times that we felt like we haven’t belonged. We have to understand when we’ve let our wool grow too long, so to speak. We have to understand the parts of our soul that prevents us from being authentically vulnerable with each other. To be Christian means that we are part of the body of Christ, and in order to be unified members of the body of Christ, we must understand how we experience disunity amongst ourselves. Just as it’s natural for sheep to grow wool, it’s natural for us to have spiritual wounds or brokenness that affects our presence in the body of Christ. It’s part of being human. Our experiences of mistrust or hurt causes us to construct walls or boundaries between us and other people. And this actually isn’t always a bad thing. Boundaries are perfectly healthy and sometimes we have to protect our vulnerabilities. It’s when these walls or boundaries prevent us from being intimate with our family, our church, or our communities that we have problems. Imagine Chris the lost sheep. The more lost he became, the more wool he grew; and the more wool he grew, the more difficult it was for him to move and find his flock and for his shepherd to find him. It’s kind of the same for us. We have a tendency to build higher and higher walls between each other. The more comfortable we become behind our walls, the harder it is to cross over and meet the other person. We risk become like Chris; the higher walls we build, the harder it is to be intimate and authentic members of the body of Christ. [Pause] Now, to imagine ourselves as a lost sheep is not meant to be derogatory. Sheep often get a bad rap in our culture, as they’re often seen as being dumb or docile, so to be a lost sheep may seem even worse! However, this is a myth. Sheep are actually intelligent animals who congregate together for survival and their flocking behavior is pretty complex. While you’re looking up pictures of Chris the sheep later on today, look up videos of flocks of sheep. It’s mesmerizing to watch them all run together. They’re like a wave that flows in and out of crevices between hills. It’s truly a beautiful sight. While cows have to be pushed from behind, sheep have to be led. It’s not that they are too dumb to figure out where to go; rather, they’re programed to move as a group and to be led. Their leader can be a single sheep, a sheep dog, or a shepherd. Once they get this leadership, they’re loyal. Sheep can even recognize human faces and remember them for years. And, as our gospel reading tells us, they recognize the voice of their shepherd. We, too, recognize the voice of our shepherd, Jesus Christ. We will always hear the voice of our shepherd. Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the good news for us today. No matter how lost we have been – no matter how lost we may be now – we will always hear the voice of our shepherd. We will always be part of the fold. We will always be unified in one body, from this time and forever more. This good news is certainly difficult to realize and live into sometimes. When I say we will always hear the voice of our shepherd, it does not mean that we will always listen or that we can always audibly hear Christ’s voice. Sometimes we don’t even know that we’re hearing it. We don’t know how the voice of our shepherd – the Word of God – works on us, but it is working. It is working deep within our souls, healing our most vulnerable wounds and our most fractured brokenness. It is working to deconstruct the walls that we put up around us so that we may one day be fully authentic and intimate members of the fold. So that we may one day be a visibly unified body of Christ. This is a magnificent promise that we all have as part of our identity as members of God’s fold. It is both right now and yet to come. It is timeless. Verse 14 from today’s gospel says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” I know my own and my own know me. What a beautiful statement for us to live into as Christ’s sheep. As we follow God, together, we will know God more and more from now into eternity. No matter how lost we may be, and no matter what wool we carry with us, we are known. We are loved. We will always be found by our Good Shepherd. Thanks be to God. Amen.