I’m sure all of you realize by now that I grew up on a farm in northwestern Minnesota.  Given our gospel text today where Jesus’ sends his disciples out to show compassion on the lost sheep of Israel, whom he describes as harassed and helpless: sheep without a shepherd; I thought I’d share some of my early experiences with sheep.  Of all the farm animals I grew up with, sheep are by far the most helpless.  They are totally dependent creatures, stubborn to a fault and often foolishly reactive.  Until you live with sheep, herd them and care for them you cannot imagine just how frustrating as well as lovable they can be.

Every spring, our whole family was summoned to gather all our sheep from the pastures and herd them into a corral so my father could shear off their heavy wool and give them their vaccinations.  It was NOT a fun day!  Dutifully, we would take our spots surrounding the herd of sheep, spread our arms wide, and shout and whistle to get them moving.  Inevitably they would become frightened and begin to panic until one frantic sheep would try to bolt toward escape.  The bolting sheep would race toward escape…any escape, and charge right at whomever looked like the most hesitant herder.  We had to hold ranks and not let the fugitive break free because if one got through, the whole herd would stampede toward escape, and nothing would stop them.  It meant that we had to start the process all over again, only this time, we had skittish sheep that were even more helpless to our perceived harassment.  They…AND US…would finally get worn down and we would force them into the enclosure only to listen to their pitiful bleating.  

Now I remember this vividly because it seemed to me that it was such a waste of time, effort and frustration.  For I knew that as soon as my father arrived, he would call out his familiar call to them, “Hey Nanny, Hey Nanny” and the sheep would recognize his voice, calm down and move in his direction.   So why have us kids even involved?  But, like Jesus said to his disciples, the harvest was plentiful…my dad had lots of field work to get done, and he needed to maximize his time, so he sent us out to gather these helpless and harassed sheep expecting us to figure it out.  They didn’t respond to our “Hey Nanny,” so what else could we do but herd them the best we could?

But then, one spring, I learned the secret of sheep herding.  It was SHEEP LOVING!  I call it sheep loving because that’s the only way that sheep will really respond…through love and kindness.  NOTHING else gets through their fear and dependency.  

That spring morning, my dad woke me up early and said he needed my help in the barn.  A first time mother sheep was in the midst of a difficult birth and was too small to deliver the twins that were on their way.  My father often assisted in such births, but his hands were simply too large, so he directed me to insert my smaller hands  into the birth canal and grab onto the face and front hooves and pull each of those lambs into the world.  It was an amazing experience, and I instantly bonded with those baby lambs and was enthralled by the miracle of witnessing new life.  Sadly, the young mother was too weak to survive and those two little lambs became literally, MY LITTLE LAMBS!  Using two large pop bottles, I filled them with warm cows milk twice a day and pulled a large rubber nipple over the neck and fed my babies.  The minute I called out “Hey Nanny,” they heard my voice and came running.  They would be like little puppies nibbling on my pants and fingers with such eagerness that it always made me laugh as I scratched their heads and lowered the milk bottles into their eager mouths.  Their tails wagged with delight as they gulped down their milk, and when they were done feeding, we always shared a few moments hugging and romping around the yard chasing one another.  It became the highlight my days, and I quickly realized I had fallen in love with sheep.

Did you know that the Bible mentions sheep more than 500 times?  Sometimes literally, and sometimes metaphorically.  It is the metaphor of “sheep” that truly captures the heart of the good news…the gospel that Jesus came to bring to all.  John 3:16 makes sense when we see humanity as helpless, harassed sheep in need of a loving shepherd.  How, be might ask, could God LOVE such a sin-sick world?  So much s…it seems, that he incarnated himself in His Son and Holy Spirit to bring a LOVE that not only intervenes, but stops our disunity and self-destructive nature with a kind grace, says the apostle Paul,  that brings peace.  A peace anchored in love to endure and build character, hope, and a love that never ends, The psalmist today sings with joy that WE ARE GOD’S PEOPLE…THE SHEEP OF HIS PASTURE, AND HIS LOVE IS EVERLASTING FROM AGE TO AGE.  

But a knowledge and love of sheep wasn’t my only lesson I learned on our farm.  I also learned much about “harvest.”  That old adage that a “farmer is out standing in his field” is absolutely correct.  I would watch as my father would walk almost daily through his growing fields checking on the progress of his crops.  When we raised potatoes, he would pull up a plant every few days as they matured and count how many small potatoes were developing so that when they became just the right size we would cut the tops and bring in the harvester.   Similarly, he would check the oats and barley fields, the corn rows, and the alfalfa blossoms until each was at it’s peak for harvesting.  And when it was time, we had better plan on working long hours to bring it in.  There was an urgency, an excitement, and a joyfulness to my father’s step during harvesting days, and I remember those exhausting days as moments where we rejoiced together as we counted the bushels and filled the granaries with our bounty.

But one spring, shortly after the potato plants were just emerging out of the ground, we experienced several days of heavy rain.  It rained, and rained…and just didn’t seem to stop until there were lakes of water all over the fields that were literally drowning the plants.  I remember that my father’s face was strained with worry. In the middle of the night it got much worse when we awoke to another round of heavy rain and this time, followed by large hail stones.  Soon our entire family was up and assembled in our front porch watching the skies and the final and total destruction of all our crops.  I remember tears rolling down my father’s face as he shared that we had just lost $30,000 worth of crop and he didn’t have hail insurance to cover the loss.  Yet, he also said, “The Lord is Lord, even of the harvest,” and I somehow understood exactly what he meant.

As I was preparing to work on this sermon…or rather avoiding it until the last minute, I was scrolling through the instragram videos that come up one after another and are hard to resist.  My algorithms focused on some kindness videos that I had started sharing with my kids.  Videos of stories of people seeing someone in need, and gently, with dignity and kindness, offering something that another person needs.  There were several videos of someone asking for help on the street and being turned away until finally someone, who had very little themselves, responded and gave what little they had to this person in need.  Then the begger would reveal that they were actually there to give money to the most kindhearted persons they could find, and tears would flow as stories of struggle and need were met with help and hope.  The message?  Kindness.  Seeing, really seeing the lost, hassled, fearful sheep along the byways of life and simply being KIND. 

We, my friends….ALL of us, every home, every community, every city, every nation…AS WELL AS God’s incredible creation whether sea, sky, land or animal have one very important reality in common.  WE ARE ALL HELPLESS…OFTEN HARRASSED AND TOTALLY DEPENDENT.  SOMETIMES WE ARE AMAZINGLY ABUNDANT WITH GIFTS OF LIFE AND PRODUCE GREAT HARVEST…SOMETIMES WE ARE BROKEN AND IN NEED AS MORTAL BEINGS….BUT ALL ARE LOVED.  ALL ARE WORTHY.  ALL ARE SENT OUT FOR ONE OUTCOME ONLY!  COMPASSION AND HEALING.  Jesus doesn’t say go out and SAVE damned souls.  He says go out and heal the sick…raise to new life for those in darkness and death…cleanse human sorrows with renewed hope…bring justice into light…and GIVE without payment.  Did you also notice that the disciples are named in pairs?  We aren’t sent out alone…but together, as community, as friends and neighbors.  

So your call today and this week….and into every tomorrow is not some fancy description of radical discipleship…but a simple request to be KIND.  COMPASSIONATE.  AND SHEEP LOVING.  Amen.