Church of the Incarnation

Somewhere in the Sunday School rooms of the church where I grew up there was a painting of Jesus the Good Shepherd. You've seen the pictures: freshly-scrubbed Jesus holds a fluffy white lamb, scratching its adorable little chin as the lamb nuzzles his beard. Jesus is gentle and meek and downright cuddly. The Good Shepherd.

So you can imagine my confusion when Jim told me he wanted the Good Shepherd reading at his funeral.

Jim Sarratt wanted the cuddly Jesus?
Of course not.

No, Jim saw beyond the Sunday School pictures and the poetry of the twenty-third Psalm to the reality of the Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd isn't tending fluffy white lambs, he's tending stubborn, short-sighted creatures whose thick, wiry coats hold on to every briar and bramble they pass and whose insatiable hunger causes them to eat their way into all kinds of danger. So the Good Shepherd comes armed with a rod and a staff: the rod to beat off predators and the staff to snatch the sheep back by their necks when they bumble into danger. The Good Shepherd faces down the wolves - real wolves, with ravenous eyes and menacing fangs. But the Good Shepherd doesn't run from the wolves, choosing instead to lay down his life for the sheep, to die to keep them safe, to take on an agonizing, bloody, torturous death for their sake.

That's who Jesus was for Jim. That's the Jesus Jim now sees face to face. And that's the Jesus Jim tried to pattern his life after while he was with us.

Jim faced plenty of wolves in his life, choosing to lay down his life for others rather than to run to safety. He stormed the beach at Normandy to fight off the wolves stalking those he'd never met. And when his beloved Jean was set upon by wolves that ravaged her body, Jim laid down his life as he knew it and learned to become the caregiver, tending to her needs with selfless devotion.

But lately he's been the one the wolves were after, stealing his breath and scaring him in the night. I'm so glad he knew the Good Shepherd. I'm so glad that, at the end, he was able to let go and let the Good Shepherd fight the wolves and feel himself lifted onto the shepherd's shoulders to be carried to safety.

I think Jim would love the picture drawn by an eleven-year-old boy entitled "Smiling Shepherd." The children were asked to draw pictures of God. Little Luke's crayon rendering shows a burly, grinning God. He has shoulders like a linebacker and perched on one sits a little brown lamb (who, frankly, looks more like a puppy than a lamb). The Shepherd wears an orange and white striped T-shirt with the earth on the front of it - because, as Luke says, "God thinks this is the most important place. He cares." God's huge, capable hands hang out of his sleeves, which are rolled up because, according to Luke, he's ready for work. And across his wide face spreads a toothless grin that crinkles his eyes and flattens his nose. 1

That's the Good Shepherd Jim knew and loved, the "mighty fortress" 2we'll sing about as we leave today, who was with Jim here on earth, who held Jim safely as he died, and beside whom Jim is working now. And if I know Jim, he and the Shepherd have the same grin on their faces and the same twinkle in their eyes as they stir up some mischief for the other sheep.

Amen.

References:

1. Luke, Smiling Shepherd in JoAne Taylor, Innocent Wisdom: Children as Spiritual Guides (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1989).
2. Hymn 688, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."