Thursday in Lent 3

When Israel set out on his journey with all that he had and came to Beer-sheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. God spoke to Israel in visions of the night, and said, ‘Jacob, Jacob.’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again; and Joseph’s own hand shall close your eyes.’ (Genesis 46:1-4)

These few verses link many themes together. Israel (Jacob) setting out on his journey reflects Abram and Sarai setting forth in Genesis 12. Since Israel is also the eponymous personage for the people of Israel we have a figure of all the nation's journeys, including the Exodus, the Exile, and the Return. Attention turns once more to the God of [Abraham and] Isaac. Jacob has dreamed before, most famously of the ladder of angels, and encountered God before, wrestling until dawn. God now speaks in a vision of the night, providing reassurance as Jacob's world was about to change drastically.

God promises to accompany Jacob to Egypt. Here we have the profound "Immanuel" theme, the promise of God with us. There is a reference to Jacob's return, though that does not occur until the book of Exodus and it is Jacob's mummy that goes up out of Egypt to return to Canaan. While Jacob can take comfort that his favorite son (the firstborn of his favorite wife) will be the one to close his eyelids in death, this points to the conclusion of the book of Genesis, which ends "in a coffin in Egypt."

An entire panoply of salvation history is echoed in just a few verses, a tale full of promise and detours.

As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:34)

We all take comfort in the divine compassion expressed in Jesus' emotion on beholding this crowd. It is the setting in which God once more provides food in the wilderness, confirming that God is acting through Jesus as God acted once of old. A new salvation event is taking place.

As I read this verse tonight I thought about how much better it is to be a sheep without a shepherd (and object of Christ's care) than to be a sheep with a bad shepherd who leads the flock astray. Alas, various sides in our ecclesial divides all see the opposing factions as being full of false shepherds. I rather suspect the imagery of shepherd, on the human scale, that once applied more to shepherd-kings in the Ancient Near East than to priestly types, is highly overrated and overused. Would we not do better to use pastoral image less and focus on One Shepherd, our Good Shepherd? He told us not to call folks "father" since we have one Father. Maybe we would do well to use caution calling folks "pastor" or "chief pastor" - after all, we are the sheep of God's pasture and the sheep of his hand but I don't think shepherd-sheep imagery is necessarily healthy in relationships among humans. It tends to infantilize the "sheep" and ascribe agency mostly to the "shepherd." Jesus no longer calls us servants but friends. Perhaps clergy would do well to no longer call the faithful sheep (or treat them as such) and call them fellow baptized ministers of the Gospel. That's my two cents' worth, anyway.



Keep watch over your Church, O Lord, with your unfailing love; and, since it is grounded in human weakness and cannot maintain itself without your aid, protect it from all danger, and keep it in the way of salvation; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

--the BB