Wander to Be Found

 My dad’s whistle was notorious in our neighborhood. He can do one of those really loud whistles, you know, the kind where you put two fingers in your mouth and blow like when you’re at a Neil Young concert and you don’t want to shriek “whoo hoo!” like a little girl, not that it’s bad to sound like a little girl, but anyway, he doesn’t even need his two fingers. Somehow, he just magically curls his tongue in just the right way, blows, and out comes a piercing sound that bounces off of the building of the grade school across the street from our house. Everybody knew the Frayer whistle, and so, everybody knew when we were having dinner, or when it was time for our baths, or when we hadn’t finished all of our homework. And we Frayers knew that if we heard that whistle, we had about two minutes to race home, or face the consequences. 

But as long as we were in earshot of that whistle, the neighborhood was fair game. We raced our bikes through the streets, we climbed trees, we played kickball in the parking lot. We performed dance routines on the steps of the grade school, dug in the dirt underneath the giant oak, and searched for buried treasure and dinosaur bones among the weeds and wild onions next door.  After a brief lecture about avoiding windowless vans and never taking candy from a stranger, we could wander and roam all day. We were free. And that whistle was our tether that brought us back home. We were the sheep. And Dad, or maybe Dad’s whistle, or maybe my mom’s homemade Mac and cheese was the shepherd.

There are some pretty funny stories out there on the internets about sheep that have gone astray. There was “Shrek,” who hated getting sheared so much that one day he just up and ran away. On shearing day, when all the other sheep were lining up for the shearing shed, Shrek was nowhere to be found. Somehow, no-one knows for sure, he got out of his pen and went to live alone in a cave in the nearby wilderness. I suppose, he’d just had enough of flock life, and wanted to see what the great world out there had to offer. He escaped capture for six years, until his owner came upon him one day. At first, he didn’t even realize that Shrek was a sheep, let alone his sheep. But maybe it was the look in Shrek’s eye, or maybe it was Shrek’s response to the sound of his shepherd’s voice, but somehow he finally recognized this sheep as his. He took him home and finally had him shorn. They took over sixty pounds of merino wool fleece off of him, enough to make twenty men’s suits. Shrek had so much wool surrounding him that there were old wives tales going around that he’d carried evidence of wolf attacks, but never got a scratch. He became an icon, renowned throughout the land, and even got to meet the prime minister. Then there was Baarack (get it?!) who also ran off from his flock, and when they found him, he could hardly see, he was covered in so much overgrown fleece. And of course there was Shaun and Ewenice (get it?!) And Pickles, all domesticated merino sheep who wandered from the fold and were eventually found, carrying massive amounts of wool on their bodies. All of these, of course, pale in comparison to Chris, who wandered on the lam (get it?!) In the wilderness for over seven years. When they finally found him, they had to give him a sedative so that they could shear off over ninety pounds of fleece while he slept, enough to put him in the Guinness Book of World Records. He was terribly weighed down by the stuff, he could hardly see for it covering his eyes, and he would walk with a limp in his back legs for the rest of his life because he carried all that wool on his back for so long. 

There’s not much difference between kids and sheep. Or adults and sheep. Prone to wander, lord, I feel it.

But see, I think we need both the sheep and the shepherd. The sheep aren’t much without the shepherd. And the shepherd needs his sheep. We need the adventurous spirit of the fifth grader testing her boundaries, streamers flying from her handlebars and glow-in-the-dark spokey dokes clicking on the rims of her tires, and we need her dad with his special whistle to tell her when it’s time to come home. We need the adventurous spirit of Shrek or Pickles or Chris, so that we can break out of our pens and take our chances in the wild wild world. And we need to be found so that our good shepherd can finally take some of that weight off of us that we’ve been carrying around for so many years. I mean, it’s heavy and we’re starting to limp and bump into trees, after all. We need a shepherd who can recognize us when we’re filthy and full of sticks and shards and shreds from years in the woods, when we’re so covered in our own wool and muck and grime that we can’t even see straight. And we need to listen hard for the sound of his voice so that we can trust that he is here and has come to take us home. We might even need a mild emotional or spiritual sedative so that the shepherd can do his work to free us from so much junk so we can frolic and play in the pasture with our friends once again. 

The point is - where can we go from God’s spirit? Where can we hide from this Shepherd? We can come to him. He can track us down.

We’re given freedom to wander, and freedom to be found.

It’s been a long pandemic. It’s been a long winter. And it keeps coming back for more. It snowed on Wednesday and Covid keeps coming at us with new variants. And it occurred to me that I think I’ve preached 41 sermons in a row. I’ve talked and talked for 41 Sundays straight. And I think maybe it’s time I shut up a little. I think maybe it’s time we ventured out into the wilderness and out into our neighborhoods and wandered around for awhile. It’s time for me to set you loose. You don’t always need a lowercase s shepherd to show you where to go. Jesus the big S Shepherd will find us. We can explore and take risks and eat what’s provided and sleep when we need to and even find ourselves a little bit lost for awhile. We can do this because we know the Good Shepherd’s voice. We can hear him when he calls. Or, at least, we can know that when we hide in caves and in layers and layers of our own protective but heavy wool, when we climb trees and scrape our knees, even when we ignore the whistle to come home, there’s someone out there looking for us, and he will come to us. It may take awhile. But he’s out there looking, always searching, and will give up his whole life searching for us, if that’s what it takes. So I guess today I just want to invite us to play, to explore, to take risks, to wander into the forest, to grow our fleece thick and see what we can see. Jesus will send his shrill whistle when it’s time to come home. Jesus will find us as we’re caught in our own brambles and thorns, and he’ll gently lift us out and take us home where he can tend to our overgrowth, relieve us of our burdens, and free us to run freely once again. 

So today I want us to try something a little strange. Or maybe it will at least feel strange to us. It’s actually pretty deeply rooted in our Christian tradition. Rather than sit and listen to me talk and talk, I want us to break out of the pen and go on an adventure. I want us to take a moment, or rather three, and listen hard. I want us to take three minutes and just listen for Jesus’s voice. I want us to listen for that whistle telling us that it’s time for dinner or we have long division to finish or that our bath is ready. But in the meantime, I want us to stretch the limits, explore the caves, let our hair go flying behind us as we try to petal our legs as fast as we can down the neighborhood streets. It’s going to be awkward. It’s not easy to sit still for such a long time with nothing else to do other than just listen, and breathe, and listen again. But I want us to try. Go wherever your mind takes you, whether that’s serious or silly, adventurous or safe as a warm quilt. Just sit for a while and listen for Jesus. Maybe you will hear his voice. If you do, you will surely recognize it. What is it saying to you today? Did he remind you of something? Did he show you something new? Is it time to come home? Or is it time to break free? Is it time to let go? Or is it time to keep going? 

Let us listen now. If you fall asleep, listen. If you get anxious, listen. If you get distracted, listen. If you get lost or scared, come back and listen to your breath. If you want to get up and walk around, go for it, and listen to each step you take. If you hear something, follow where it leads. If you hear nothing, let it be. There is no doing this right. There is no doing this wrong. Let us listen now.

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The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside still waters;

He restores my soul.

He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil.

For you are with me; your rod and your staff — they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

Thanks be to God.