Sheeple
“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!” (Luke 15:4-7)
Sheeple. The word originated in 1950 in an Emory University Quarterly entitled, We, The Sheeple. Wikipedia says “…it’s a term of disparagement in which people are likened to sheep.” So what’s wrong with sheep? Well, they’re not very bright for starters. Rocks have a higher IQ than sheep. Even PETA won’t argue about a sheep’s intelligence because there’s really nothing to argue about. There's dumb. There's dumber. And then there’s sheep.
Next, sheep spend hour after hour eating clumps of grass. Sounds bucolic, but their constant munching leads them from morsel to morsel without ever looking up. Focused only on the next bite to eat, they seldom notice that the rest of the herd has exited left when they’d spotted a snack on the right. Now they're really dazed and confused, thoroughly lost, but they’re still eating while bleating. Unfortunately, their dining habits lead to intestinal issues because sheep can't digest their food until they lie down. The problem is that sheep don't have enough common sense to lie down even if their stomachs are ready to explode. You have to make them lie down for their own good. (Psalm 23:2)
And then there’s a sheep’s inherent "follower" nature. Sheep life, you see, is one long game of follow-the-leader. And if the lead sheep heads over a cliff, the whole herd follows – assuming they're paying attention. Here’s proof from an article taken from a July 9, 2005, edition of USA Today
ISTANBUL, Turkey (July 8) - First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff. In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned. The estimated loss to families in the town of Gevas, located in the Van province in eastern Turkey, topped $100,000, a significant amount of money in a country where average GDP per head is around $2,700.
Sheep are also helpless against predators. If a wolf gets in the sheep pen, sheep don't fight back; they don't even try to get away. Instead, they form a holy huddle and sing Kumbya, hoping the wolf doesn’t know the words. And if a sheep falls into moving water? It’s Adios and Via con Dios. Their coats, already heavy to begin with, absorb water rapidly and sheep can't swim. And with all of this as a backdrop, Jesus tells a parable – a story about sheep, a shepherd and a rescue.
He says imagine a man with a flock of a hundred sheep and one of the sheep in his portfolio wanders off. What do you do? Well, a good shepherd would get someone to watch the ninety-nine sheep and go find the lost one, right? But if you had that kind of money, wouldn’t you pay somebody else to find the sheep on the lamb? But the shepherd in the parable is a very loving, very concerned, very hardworking, very invested, very involved shepherd. This shepherd takes it upon himself to walk for miles, combing the hills looking everywhere and hoping to find that one lost sheep and then bringing it home. Jesus says that’s how God works. And if God’s the shepherd in the story that means that we’re the sheep, and that’s not meant as a compliment. Sheep stink; sheep get dirty; sheep aren’t very smart.
Furthermore, sheep aren’t even scary; we count them in our dreams, mind you. For instance, let’s say you woke up tomorrow, looked at your phone and got a news alert that said a truck had overturned in your neighborhood and hundreds of sheep were on the loose. You might think, “That’s awesome, I’m going to go out and pet one.” Right? But what if that same report had said hundreds of lions had escaped? You’d probably stay indoors until they found every last one. Yes, we’re the sheep. We tend to wander. We tend to stray. We tend to get into trouble. And you know what sheep do? Nothing. Sheep can’t even find their own way home, and if they’re far away from the flock and the shepherd they’re in serious trouble. And Jesus says we’re like sheep. Even the prophet, Isaiah, said, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way.” (Isaiah 53:6) Sheeple.
The picture here is that we just kind of wander off toward some sort of sin or temptation. We get silly, lazy or even foolish and simply amble away. And that’s when we’re in trouble. We can’t find our way home. We don’t know where our shepherd is. We’re in danger. We’re bloodied. We’re battered. We’re terrified. We’re alone. But our God comes looking for us. Why? Because we’re lost. God’s not lost. We’ve strayed from God since God didn’t do the leaving. We’re responsible when we act irresponsible, and he’s a savior because he’s the “good shepherd.” (John 10:11)
Back in the day, being a shepherd wasn’t some kind of plum job for which you applied and interviewed. It was a job you kind of fell into because shepherds roam, and rather than interacting with people they talk with sheep. They hardly bathe, have limited social skills and sleep wherever the sheep end up eating. In that culture, the shepherd was perceived not so much as a bad person, but as the person who did a job you were grateful you didn’t have to do yourself. And Jesus says, “I’m the good shepherd.” In other words, God became a man and took a lowly job. He wasn’t rich, didn’t live in a mansion or have an easy life. Instead, Jesus humbled himself to identify with a job that was not highly esteemed in the culture of his day so that he could come looking for lost sheep. We don’t find Jesus. He finds us – sometimes after days of walking and hiking and looking and working. And as soon as he finds the lost sheep, he picks it up, puts it on his back and hikes the miles required to get back to the flock.
Can you see your salvation in that picture? The picture of Jesus carrying the cross on his back to bring us back to God because some of us have strayed pretty far; some of us have strayed for years. We’ve walked away from God and his people. We’ve turned our backs on the shepherd and we’re no longer in community with the rest of the sheep. But here’s the good news: the shepherd is right there, ready to pick us up.
We don’t have to walk ourselves back, or work ourselves back, or will ourselves back either. We just need to turn around. And what’s God’s emotional state when we turn around? Well, some of us think that when we repent God has this furrowed brow and pointed finger, wagging his head and just shaming us. But that’s not the God of the Bible. Yes, the God of the Bible is grieved when we sin. Yes, the God of the Bible is grieved when we stray. But the God of the Bible is also filled with joy when we repent. When we repent, God rejoices. God is happy to love. God is happy to save. God is happy to pursue. God is happy to forgive.
That’s exactly what it says in the text. “There is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away.” (Luke 15: 7) In other words, it’s like Jesus looks at the religious people and says, “You guys don’t make God happy at all because you never repent.” God isn’t made happy because of our religiosity; he’s made happy by our repentance since religiosity and repentance seldom mix. That’s because religiosity, like a vaccine, inoculates us from having to confront our sin. The religious want law and not grace because grace, on our terms, leads to the frightening prospect that God’s grace may be insufficient to forgive the sins we would rather forget. Thus, unsure of who they could be if they repented of their sin and moved toward holiness by God’s grace, the religious wallow in their old selves in order to avoid the new.
All of this is what the Bible calls “good news,” i.e., the gospel. Religion, on the other hand, has no good news to offer. Religion comes up to a lost sheep and says, “You’re dirty. You’re stinky. You’re lost. You’re a little beat up, and bleeding.” And the sheep says, “Yeah, I know. What do I do?” “Well, here’s what you need to do. You need to clean yourself up. You need to get your act together. You need to reincarnate, or go to Mecca. You need to do better. You need to try harder. You need to find your way back to God, and you’ve got to walk all the way there. God bless, and good luck.”
That’s not good news. That doesn’t help a sheep at all. “I don’t know where the shepherd is.” “I can’t clean myself.” “It’s dangerous.” “I’m not very tough.” “I’m lost, I’m bleeding and I can’t find the flock.” Religion comes along and says, “You blew it. Good luck fixing it.” Jesus comes along and says, “I’m here. I’ll pick you up. I’ll carry you home.” Now, that’s not only good news, that’s great news!
Sheeple? Maybe. But Wikipedia’s got it all wrong. It’s not “… a term of disparagement in which people are likened to sheep.” It’s an honest assessment by a loving God who loves the lost and found.
Grace,
Randy
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