Sent

Jeremiah 25:30-38

and shout, like those who tread grapes,  against all the inhabitants of the earth.

I’m not sure why this struck me. I wanted to know why the grape-treaders were shouting. It sounds from the context as if it was the usual thing, that grape-treaders were expected to shout. I found some sources that said that they shouted to encourage each other and keep their energy up. Seems a little disingenuous. I found an illustration that showed one of the treaders playing a double pipe, and the other treaders appeared to be dancing. There seems to be a split in the Bible between the images of the happy grape harvest, and the wrathful trampling of the grapes. So then I tried to figure out why such a happy festival and mutual enterprise would ever be wrathful. I found this in Isaiah 3: “I have trodden the wine press alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath… The emphasis in Isaiah seems to be that no-one came to harvest the grapes, and so the solitary soul that showed up had to do it alone. “I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold…”  So the whole point seems to be that if we show up to help with the harvest and nobody comes to help, it’s an appalling thing. If we do not uphold one another, if we leave people to struggle alone to take care of things that were never meant for people to have to do all by themselves, then of course the abandoned person will be angry and resentful. What’s worse, such wrath and resentment spreads, and people get infected with it. It’s right there in Isaiah: “my wrath upheld me, I trod down the peoples in my anger, I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.” I can’t help but see a connection to the state of our society now. It often seems that nobody cares about anybody, and people feel abandoned and taken advantage of, and so they get angry, and the anger carries over into a sense that retribution can be justified, and rage vindicated. How do we turn away from such futility? Well, shucks, I think Jesus might have said something about how to do that…..

 

Romans 10:14-21

15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?

“Sent.” In one of my journals I was free-associating possible religious names, and “Sent” was near the top of the list. I like that word, it echoes in my soul. I like to think of being sent; sent on an errand; sent to do a job; sent with a message; given an assignment, charged with a duty, called upon to help.

 

John 10:1-18

I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture……I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

(Zechariah 11 15 Then the Lord said to me: Take once more the implements of a worthless shepherd.  16 For I am now raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering, or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.)

This is an old and well-worn set of associations for me. I never liked the image of “the Good Shepherd” very much, it seemed a bit sentimental and sappy. I never liked thinking of myself as a sheep either. Sheep are stupid, and have almost no sense of self-preservation. But, after I found the description of the ‘bad shepherd’, and set it in contrast, well then, that made a whole lot more sense. The bad shepherd doesn’t care for the perishing, or seek the wandering, or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy, but instead preys on the flock he is set to guard; slaughtering the trusting creatures and eating them all up right down to the hooves. (A note about first century Palestinian shepherds: they were seedy day laborers with a bad reputation; they did not own the flocks, but were hired by the owners to watch the flocks, and nobody trusted them, so a good shepherd wasn’t easy to find.)

Anyway, that’s old hat, so I‘m going to concentrate instead on Jesus’s telling us that he is both the gate and the shepherd. I take that to mean that he is true to himself and his values; that he has his priorities straight, knows how to do the right thing, and has the will to do it.  I also noted the passing mention of the gate-guard. (“The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice.”) So we too must use the gate, and not sneak in the back way to steal and eat a sheep that does not belong to us.  We should introduce ourselves to the Gatekeeper, and keep coming back day after day until those sheep learn to hear our voices over the noise, and the Gatekeeper recognizes us. I keep being struck over and over by how plain and practical the Way of Jesus really is. Even when I get all mystical, I constantly remember the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Maybe I am a bit like a sheep after all…..