A few years ago, there was a viral video of a shepherd pulling a sheep out of ditch only for the sheep to prance away and fall directly back into that same ditch, just a few feet further down from where it started. Whenever I read the words, “they were harassed and helpless, like a sheep without a shepherd,” I think of that video, and then I realize that we are all like those crowds and like that poor little lamb who just can’t seem to move to where it wants to be.
Jesus knew that while he could accomplish immeasurably more than any other single person, he would function best with others around him. He would need a community of people, and although one of my friends from seminary usually referred to the Twelve Disciples as “the Twelve Stooges,” we can see the reminder in Jesus’s words, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few,” that he knew what was to come. If it weren’t for “the Twelve Stooges,” the early church would not have existed, the New Testament as we know it would not have been written, and you probably would not be reading these words.
But we still find ourselves in the same situation, where we continue to be like sheep without a shepherd. When we look on the world around us, we can feel as though there are so many places that need us to be the laborers at the harvest. We see a war between Ukraine and Russia entering its second year. The divisions within our own country continue to feel as though they seek to tear us apart, and people are continuing to try to figure out what “normal” is in a post-pandemic world. Is Jesus calling you to be one of those laborers? This calling doesn’t mean that you need a fancy-schmancy seminary education; it simply means that you need a heart willing to serve and to listen. Together, we just might be able to help those sheep stay out of the ditch for more than a few seconds.