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The Lord is our Shepherd. We are His beloved sheep. We hear His voice. He knows us by name. He calls us by our names. We follow Him as sheep follow their shepherd.

We are all so familiar with the paintings and stained glass windows that depict the Good Shepherd and His sheep. Normally, he's holding an innocent looking lamb to His bosom with one arm and He's holding His shepherd's crook in His other hand. His flock appears to be relaxed and at peace. There's a tendancy to think of the sheep almost as His "pets". When we see those images, we tend to lose sight of the fact that a shepherd's purpose in raising and leading sheep is very different from the purposes of a pet owner - very different for example from my own purposes in being the owner of two cats. I really do love those cats - but a shepherd - no matter how attached he is to his flock - has a completely different purpose in mind for them than you or I have in raising a cat, a dog, a budgie or whatever kind of creature we like to have in our homes.

For a first century Jewish shepherd - the aim in raising a sheep was primarily economic. They were bred, raised, fed and nurtured that they might bring profit to the owner - the same as any farmer who raises live stock of any kind at this moment in history. Of all the animals raised by farmers, I suppose it's easier to develop an attachment to sheep than to - say - cattle, chickens or pigs. Funny you should mention pigs! Let's have a look at the biblical symbolism of sheep as opposed to the symbolism inherent in the pig. For the purposes of Good Shepherd Sunday - I think it's highly relevant to study and compare the significance of what is symbolized by both of those animals - the sheep and the pig.

The Christian faith is a religion of contrasts. Light - darkness. Good - evil. Heaven - Hell.. Did you ever notice in the first chapter of Genesis that as soon as God had executed His first creative act - as soon as He had said, "Let there be light" - he didn't just leave it at that! He separated light from darkness - and the light He called day and the darkness He called night. And the imagery of day and night, light and darkness subsequently runs through the entire Bible and the light is used to portray truth as opposed to falsehood - the light of Divine Revelation as opposed the darkness of satanic deception. Virtue as opposed to wickedness. Death as opposed to life. "This is the condemnation", says St. John, "that Light (in the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ) has come into the world - but men love darkness rather than Light - because their deeds are evil."

The Law given by God on Mount Sinai is chock full of sharply contrasting dos and donts. There's not much optional behaviour to be found there. God's people absolutely "must" do this and absolutely "must not" do that. There is no area of life in which "musts" and "must nots" are not present. Every aspect of human behaviour is ruled by extreme dos and donts. The light of God's nature is manifest in a dark and evil world by obedience to the do's - and to disobey His holy commandments is to identify with the darkness which is natural to fallen, sinful human nature.

Among these extreme dos and donts are the laws of Kashruth - the laws governing what may and may not be eaten - what foods are "kosher" and what foods are "not". The lamb is set aside - not only as a food that "can" be eaten - but as something that "must" be eaten in the great feast of Pesach - or Passover. Not only is the lamb "kosher" when it comes to food - but the very blood of the creature is absolutely indespensable. It is the blood of a "spotless" lamb that was placed on the lintels and doorposts of the homes of the Israelites. That blood distinguished the homes of God's people from the homes of the Egyptians. With the lamb's blood properly in place on the entrance to the Israelite home - there was a guarantee of life - as opposed to death - on the night that death was visited on every home where that blood was not found on the lintels and doorposts. The lamb drained of its blood was not discarded! It had to be consumed. It had to be eaten and it had to be the nourishment of God's people as they began their long journey from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. Indeed, the lamb is the creature which signifies Our Lord Jesus Christ and the shedding of His blood for the sins of the world. We - His Church - have been released from the slavery of sin and death through the blood of the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. And yet, we are not wafted off to Heaven at the moment of baptism. We have a journey to take - a pilgrimage to make - through the dark and inhospitable lands filled with spiritual and sometimes physical enemies - before we arrive at the Promised Land of light, wherein is no evil - no darkness at all. And along that dangerous and circuitous route we are sustained by heavenly food - by the very body and blood of the Lamb of God - and this Holy Food we receive here at the Altar.

On the other hand - there is food which God's people were required NOT to eat. There is quite a list of creatures forbidden to be consumed - but somehow the pig is the animal that has come to stand out more than any other in the eyes of those who watch Jews and Moslems keeping their dietary laws. We all know that devout Jews and Moslems never touch pork. Indeed the thought of eating it tends to make them feel ill. When Antiochus Ephiphanes desecrated the Jerusalem Temple - he understood that no greater insult could be rendered to the Jews or to their God than the offering of a sow on the Altar of Burnt Offering - which he did in 169 B.C. In place of the required spotless, kosher male - the anthithesis of God's requirement was placed on the altar - something that was forbidden, unkosher and female.

And how does all this relate to Good Shepherd Sunday? I'm glad you asked! As I mentioned earlier - the Good Shepherd does not raise sheep as pets. He raises them - that is - He raises US - to be much like himself. It was in Antioch that we were first called "Christians" - and we weren't called that in a complementary spirit. "Behold, the Christians!, the 'little Christs'!", the pagans at Antioch would say. Although it was said in a spirit of derision it was in fact a complement of which we are not now and never were - worthy. We are the "little lambs" in the image of our Shepherd Who is the Lamb of God. We are being tried in the fire of our earthly pilgrimage that we might be pure and spotless like Him. And like Him we are being nurtured and groomed for sacrifice and death. Jesus doesn't get to do all the dying. We who have been born anew through water and the Holy Ghost must be His disciples - following Him - in the putting to death of the old nature - and it is at this very point that we find ourselves struggling - because that which is unholy and unkosher still asserts itself in our still-mortal bodies.

I am not of the school of thought that interprets God's Law to Israel in humanistic terms. I hear it said again and again, "The Jews picked certain creatures - like the pig - as "unclean" creatures - because 'in those days' pork couldn't be preserved properly and therefore was more likely to cause illness and disease than some other kinds of food.'" Nonsense! The Jews picked nothing that was in the Law. It was given to them by Almighty God - and it was He - not the Jews who understood the NATURE of the pig as contrasted with the NATURE of the lamb. Then as now - those two contrasting NATURES can be easily observed.

The Jewish Christian Arthur Katz provides a profound and troubling illustration of this in his book, "Reality". In the summer of 1974 there was a gathering of 300 people - mostly Jews who had come to faith in Jesus Christ - in Minnesota. For food - they decided to slaughter a lamb and a pig. The Brooklin boy, Art Katz was to learn that the two animals couldn't be more different in one significant way. The lamb was very easy to kill. In that respect - the lamb is a lot like Jesus. He steadfastly set His face to go to His Jerusalem to die there on the first Good Friday. He willingly sacrificed His life for us and for our sins. He endured the cross - despising the shame. The pig is not like that at all! Compared to the pig - the lamb is almost suicidal - it yields very easily to the blade and its blood is drained with little fuss. Here's what Art Katz says about the death of the pig.

"...as minimal as the apparatus of intelligence is in the pig, the principle of survival is unbelievably tenacious. It took four men to get that animal down, and each able-bodied man was hanging onto a leg as that stubborn thing jerked. It wasn't at all like a lamb; it was definitely NOT going to lay down its life. Somebody had his foot on its head and neck, and that fat thing was still squirming and jerking. At that point, one of the brothers looked at me, handed me the knife, and said, "Art, would you like to ---?" There was a sudden and intense repulsion in my soul that took me by surprise. This shrinking back sprang from a strange kind of identification with that animal, down on its face, squealing and writhing and fighting for its life. The perception was clear and frightening: I saw too much of Art Katz in that animal.

"I passed the knife to a brother who was experienced at this sort of thing, and he knew exactly where to put it.

"Later, when we had that animal taken apart, all the entrails removed, he took out the heart and showed it to me. The knife had gone right into it, slitting it deeply, and yet the animal did not die immediately. It squealed and made a ruckus and writhed and contorted until practically the last drop of blood was out of its body. I never saw anything DIE so hard as that stubborn, filthy pig, squealing to the end. I had an unsettling thought: "My goodness, that's US! Decorous, quiet, well-behaved Christians, sitting nicely in our pews, giving to missionary endeavor, attending Bible studies and all sorts of lovely church functions, BUT deep inside there's a squealing pig, writhing, full of life, stubborn; and God is standing with His foot on its neck, and it's still not willing to give up the ghost."

William Law - whose day we celebrated yesterday, wrote, A Serious Call To a Devout and Holy Life, published in 1728. The thesis of this book is that God does not merely forgive our disobedience - He calls us to obedience, and to a life completely centered in Him. He says: "If you will here stop and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but because you never thoroughly intended it."

Is there a way in which all that can change? Is there a way in which the pig in us can be put to death and that the lamb planted in us by the Spirit of God can finally produce in us the fruits of obedience to God's will?

John Donne - early 17th century Dean of St. Paul's, London provides us with the answer. One must beg of God a Divine invasion into one's life - an invasion into our consciousness and into our habits. We cannot turn ourselves into what God wants us to be and we cannot be happy being what He would have us to be aside from HIM - NOT US doing what is necessary in our hearts - and bringing us into harmony with HIM. It's not something that we can do for ourselves. HE must do it and WE must invite Him to do so.

I first studied Donne's poetry some years back in university. At a certain seminar, I was wearing an ugly, black T- shirt. I wore it sometimes - more to annoy people than anything else. On the front of it was a large, human skull with a hypodermic needle driven through it. Under the skull were the words, "HUGS NOT DRUGS". During his comments the professor peered at my T-Shirt and made the observation that prior to Donne's religious transformation he lived a life style in which there were "lots of hugs and lots of drugs". This poem of John Donne's is one of my favourite poems of all time and it is the cry of an honest heart to God. It is the prayer that invites the Holy One of Israel to invade - and to do whatever is necessary to turn a man or woman into what God would have us to be.

Divine Poem number 14 goes like this:

Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee, 'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new,
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue,
Yet dearely'I love you, 'and would be lov'd faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie,
Divorce mee, 'untie, or breake that knot againe,
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you 'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.