It Takes All Sorts

sermon by Torin Eikler
I Corinthians 3:5-11 John 21:4-17

Do you love me? … Feed my lambs.

I don’t know how many of you are very familiar with sheep. I am not … though I have petted the odd ewe here and there, and I have the same “aaww” reaction as most people when I see young lambs stumbling around trying to find their land legs. Usually, I think of them (when I think of them) as pretty dumb animals that just follow the herd from food to water to shelter and back again on their way to becoming sweaters for our backs and chops for our tables. But a few years ago, I heard a sermon all about sheep at one of the Laurelville gatherings we attended, and I learned more about sheep in those 30 minutes than I ever really wanted to know.

As it turns out, sheep are actually quite intelligent. They can be trained almost as well as dogs if one has a mind to do it, and they will recognize their names and come when called (quite valuable, I’m sure, though I don’t really see the advantage to having a 300 pound, hoofed animal in your house). They have excellent memories and can return to pastures or water sources on their own even years after they were there before. They know how to stay safe, for the most part, and shelter themselves from the cold or wind by standing in a crowd and taking turns on the inside where it’s warm and dry. They also recognize faces and have been known to reject a shepherd if that person was unwise enough to shave his beard or dramatically change her hair style.

I also learned a lot about shepherds that day. They may be rough around the edges, but they have always been some of the most skilled and trusted artisans in the world of husbandry. The idyllic image of the shepherd boy sleeping away the day under a tree is not at all related to reality. Shepherding is more than just guiding a flock from pasture to pasture. It also meant living of the land as often as not – finding food, water, and clothing in the wilderness areas where the sheep grazed. And then there were the other things that go into taking care of sheep: helping ewes lamb, stitching wounds and treating disease, carrying sheep that went lame, collecting the wool, and helping animals beyond help ease into death. On top of all that, shepherds are often required to put themselves in harm’s way in order to rescue strays or protect the herd from predators or poachers. The job of a shepherd requires a huge range of skills and a lot of love and dedication.

There was a lot more that I don’t remember, but even this much is enough to make me much happier with Jesus’ tendency to call all of us sheep and himself the shepherd. It is nice to know that he doesn’t mean for us to be mindless, placid beasts herded around until it’s time for us to go to the butcher. He loves us and he wants much more than that for and from us, and it’s comforting to realize that the last thing he expressed to his disciples – and Peter in particular – was his desire to have someone take his place, feeding and caring for us in his place.


Do you love me? …. Tend my sheep.

The thing is ... tending the sheep of Christ is a lot bigger job than feeding lambs. It may have started off okay, but as the followers of the way grew in number and began to spread out from Jerusalem, it became harder and harder for Peter to care for them, even with the help of the other eleven disciples (Matthias having replaced Judas to make up the number). It quickly became clear that more people were needed.

It started with the appointment of seven people called to serve the needs of the poor and the widows in the community. Then there were apostles sent out to proclaim the gospel among those who had not yet heard it. Paul came along and was eventually given authority to work with the gentile believers. And as the numbers of the faithful increased, the central council in Jerusalem grew to more than fifty members in order to keep up. Eventually leaders were named in local communities and others were given the task of traveling around various regions, providing oversight, inspiration, and further teaching to the churches under their care.

Seeing to all the various needs of a spread out group made up of people from all classes and all walks of life is more than just a few people who were more suited to lives devoted to prayer and preaching the word of God. Tending an ever increasing flock takes a whole community of people with different gifts and talents spread out among the sheep. Faithfully building up the church on the foundation laid by Christ takes many hands and hearts and voices.

This is nothing new to us. Many of you have heard the saying, “it takes a village to raise a child,” and similarly, it takes a community to build a church – and by that I don’t mean a building. Anabaptists have always been particularly attentive to this truth, but Christians the world over have understood the reality that William T. Ham expressed when he said, “there are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one of them.”

Consider this fable brought back by Mennonite mission workers in Mongolia….
Batzorig lived with his mother and four brothers in a tent on the steppes of Mongolia. They were together all the time, and even more so in the winter when the frosty weather kept them inside most of the day. Batzorig was the youngest of the brothers and the others teased him all of the time. One day it was too much for him, and he stomped out of the tent where he lived in embarrassment and anger.
Outside the protection of the hide walls, the wind was fierce, and in no time at all, Batzorig was shivering, his nose made red from its icy touch whipping past him. Then he heard his mother’s voice calling from behind him, “Batzorig! Come inside; it’s too cold out there! Batzorig!”
Even though he didn’t want to, Batzorig turned slowly and walked toward his mother. She gathered him in through the door flap, and they went inside the warm tent together. Batzorig immediately began to glare at his brothers as they sat around the warm fireplace talking and laughing happily, but before he could say anything, his mother handed him an arrow, which he took respectfully with both hands. Each of his brothers did the same when she came around to them.
“I want you to break this arrow,” the mother told her sons. The crisp sound of arrows breaking filled the tent … snap … snap … snap … snap … snap … as each of the brothers broke his arrow in turn. Then she gathered up the broken arrows. She handed the whole bunch to one of her sons and told him to break the cluster of arrows. Try as he might he could not, and when he gave up, she handed the bundle to the next son, asking the same thing of him. Each of the brothers tried in turn, and none of them could break the arrows.
At this, the mother said, “You all have the same mother. Listen to me. Just as you were able to easily break the one arrow, if you go ahead divided and separate, you, too, will find your strength fails you. But, like the cluster of arrows, if you are together, you will not easily be broken.”

If we are to be the church, the body of Christ, then we must walk together in community, supporting each other, leaning on the arms of brothers and sisters in our times of struggle and offering our own arms to meet another’s need when her path leads down a dark and difficult road. No one of us can make our spiritual journey alone. We need each other. If we are to be faithful to the Christ we follow, the Christ who has loved us and loves us still, the Christ we love, then we must build each other up, tending to one another in love so that, together, we can serve each other and the world as Christ has taught us. It’s not just some Peter’s job. It belongs to all of us.


Do you love me? … Feed my sheep.

Now here’s a question … just who are the sheep? Are they you and me? Are they all of us Anabaptists? All of us Christians? Is it what one believes or how one lives that makes that person a sheep? Who do you think the Christ who lived and died for the sake of all humanity – even all creation – would see as part of his flock?


I think you know the answer. The shepherd spends time and energy, sometimes risking everything to restore even one weak, suffering sheep or to reach the member of the flock that has wondered off into danger and bring it back home. If the people Jesus spent his time and energy … his very life to restore – prostitutes, tax collectors, blind, lame, dirty, possessed, leprous outcasts – are any indication, I think it’s safe to say that everyone is a sheep. And if the task of tending the sheep belongs to all of us – to the gathered body of Christ, then we are called to be caring for all of God’s children.


So what does that mean? It could mean that we are to tend the spiritual needs of those around us. I haven’t spoken much about that this morning, but it’s the traditional interpretation of Jesus’ commission to Peter. We are to bind up the wounds of those who have suffered spiritual injuries. We are to ease the pain and distress of those in despair. We are to comfort and support the weak and the lost, shepherding them – sometimes carrying them - on to those green pastures beside still water. And, we are to help bring forth new life: welcoming brothers and sisters new to the body of Christ, searching out and naming gifts and talents, and encouraging … calling … sometimes even pulling one another forward along new paths in our spiritual journeys.

That’s part of it – a big part, I think … but Jesus used such down to earth imagery and spent so much of his time caring for people’s bodies that I don’t think we can completely spiritualize this tending/feeding/shepherding thing. When people don’t get basic needs like food or love or protection met, they tend to focus their energy on those needs. Sometimes, that includes turning more and more toward God. More often it doesn’t, and if we aspire to tend people’s spiritual needs, we need to meet their physical and emotional needs first … or at least at the same time.

We need to feed people when they are hungry. We need to care for people who are sick or injured or lonely or depressed. We need to help people find safety and security (physical and emotional). That’s the other part of our task – the other part of our calling as followers of the Christ we love.

That’s big – that task of feeding the lambs. This calling to tend Christ’s sheep, when we look at the whole of it, it’s really big and really overwhelming … for any one or two or three of us. But just as there were others to help do the work in Peter’s time, there are more than just a few of us. There is more than just this congregation. The body of Christ spans the globe and reaches out to our communities with myriad hands, and we are all fellow workers in God’s field. We are all fellow workers building up the Realm of God one stone – one person at a time.

The true gift, the grace of God for our mission is that we don’t have to take it all on. We don’t have to start at the beginning. The foundation has already been laid … and by a builder far more skilled than any of us. We don’t have to work alone, for we are many and the Spirit moves and breathes into the work and the workers alike inspiring, refreshing, and steadying all of it and all of us along the way.

Each one of us builds in a different way. Each of us has our own sense of God’s work in this world and our own way to lend it a hand. And we work together as we build; doing what is ours to do as others do what is theirs to do. And we tend the sheep together, offering our own strength and compassion to meet the needs of the Children of God in our midst.

And in the end, whenever our struggles and frustrations threaten discouragement or our successes and accomplishments bring complacency, Christ appears on our shoreline, tends our needs, and asks … do you love me?