I-YOUniverse

Relates to RCL Gospel John 10.1-10 Fourth Sunday of Easter

As I sit at my computer, my cat Jazzi calls for my attention with short chopped cries: “Myow! Myow!” She wants me to hold her in my lap. She’s mostly black but her left front leg has white and orange markings that remind me of a lady’s long evening glove. That’s why we named her Jazzi, for the night club in The Preacher’s Wife.

People who know nothing about the Bible know the 23^rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd.” As a child they learned it by heart, the pastor read it at Mama’s funeral.

In John 10 Jesus paints potent word pictures of shepherds. The New Interpreter’s Bible connects this chapter with the previous, where the Pharisees put the once blind man out of the synagogue. If you make the link, the images get starker.

The fold is the synagogue, center of village life; to be put out is to be shunned. Isolation meant danger, sometimes death. The sheep are followers of Jesus who pay dearly for their faith; thieves and bandits, predatory religious leaders; you find rulers of their ilk in all faiths, all countries.

Matthew wrote, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” Matt 9:36 (NRSV).

Now frustrated at being ignored, Jazzi draws out her cry to a kind of harangue: “Meooww!” Get with it, Mac!

Confronting David the king who took another’s wife, then his life, Nathan told a parable of a poor man who “had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him.” 2 Sam 12:3 (NRSV)

The prophet Ezekiel condemned wicked kings who neglected their people and prophesied that the caring Lord would replace them.

Jazzi is not yet ready to give up. She hops from the shelf to my chair and rubs against me, making it difficult to type. She purrs loudly and snuggles in my arm, bringing the task of writing to a cease.

We love these images. Trouble is, we’re totally cut off from the sounds of the herd, the feel of wool, the smell of manure. We’ve rarely if ever seen sheep or shepherd. We don’t know that in Jesus’ time animals and humans lived in one structure, sheep on one side, humans on the other.

We buy Serta counting sheep on eBay. Google “good shepherd,” and you get the 2006 film starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, social service agencies, rehab services, and traditional churches.

Many will associate shepherding with Brokeback Mountain, the short story by Annie Proulx of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, two teenage boys who spend a summer herding sheep in the high mountains of the West and a lifetime being in love with each other. Jack snuggles a wagtail lamb in front of him on his saddle as they move the flock to the high meadow on federal land. When he fails to spend one night with the sheep, Ennis finds a bloody carcass of one, left by a wolf or bear.

Playing with images of people on whom animals are dependent and thought of pet lovers; my wife, however, commented she didn’t want to be anyone’s pet (a valid point). Being a sheep, a timid, stupid person, isn’t high-or low-praise for that matter.

Continuing to play with the image I tried my hand at the pet’s 23^rd psalm:

The God of all life, my care-giver, never lets me go without;
creates habitat for me to nest, play and feed;
shows me quiet safe watering places;
is my alpha, taking the lead in forest or flight, migration or hunt.

When I lose ground to humans building suburbs or vacation homes,
when climate changes faster than my kind can adapt,
when I become too old or weak to be happy and free,
when I longer see the face of God,
wrapped in light as a garment,
then I have no fear.
Breath slips from my body,
as if let off a leash or loosed from a trap,
and returns to You.

You prepare a nest, a warren, a den, or a roost just right for me,
You stroke my fur or preen my feathers,
Goodness and Loyal Love look after me
like animal rescuers after a storm,
and I will prowl and play and nap at your place for ever.

I often wonder why God created house cats. Oh, I know you can say a lot for the species. A good cat can keep your house free of mice and rats. But my cats wouldn’t know a mouse from a marshmallow. Though they fancy themselves great hunters as they peer out the screen door at the vast green jungle of the yard, they’ve never been outside. I feed and water them daily.

I think God creates them out of sheer delight. God animal rescuer, animal lover, isn’t a flawless metaphor, but it’s not bad.

What do you think, Jazzi?