The Parable of the Wandering Sheep
Today’s focus is on intimacy between the shepherd and the sheep. What does it mean that god knows our names? What does our name mean to us?
The concept of god knowing our name is a rich part not only of the metaphor of the parable of the lost sheep. Isaiah also talked about it. Even in the Garden of Eden, God calls out Adam’s name when Adam hides.
Names are a very important part of every culture. Sometimes naming is delayed so that society can first find out something about the personality of the child, and then name him or her accordingly.
We place a great emphasis on the names of God. [David addition: here’s a website that lists all the names/attributes of God: http://www.smilegodlovesyou.
Lloyd: There is nothing that identifies us more than our name. We can change our physical appearance, but our name remains. So when God says he will call us by name, it is the most personal… the most intimate way of identifying us.
Pastor Ariel: The shepherd doesn’t ask the sheep to tell him their names. On the contrary: He himself named them, according to their temperament and personality. And that name is a sound the sheep recognize, though it has to be imprinted on us through repetition.
David. That explanation clears up a concern I had that Jesus was using the parable in the way marketers sell us their bill of goods: By appealing to our ignoble ego: “Never mind everybody else—only you matter.”
Ramesh: Yes, the 99 are irrelevant but only in the sense that the message of the parable is addressed to the one, but the one is every reader of the message.
Robin: The 99 were the accepted and the favored; but that does not mean the one (I) was “the one” only because I was not good enough to be part of the 99. The parable tells me that I am the one only when, and because, I am lost.
Don: That reminds us that when we realize we are in trouble all we need to do is just stand there. When we are lost, there is no need to keep going—we should wait for help to arrive, not stumble blindly forward and risk stepping off a cliff.
Harry: The parable transcends culture. We get into trouble when we think it’s our culture, or our church, that’s keeping us on the straight and narrow and close to God. The message is that God transcends the culture.
Alice: The name gives the character of the person, but God already knows us from the inside. The name is more for our benefit than for his; it lets each of us be called out to the green pasture.
Harry: Exodus 3:14: God said to Moses, “I am who I am. (Or I will be what I will be.) This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” In other words, God is a mystery. We know nothing about him except what Jesus has taught us.
Lloyd: We need to remember that the one that got lost could just as well have been any other of the 100 sheep.
Robin: Having been in church for many years, I have seen that sometimes the one who is separated from the flock has been ostracized by the 99.
Rimon: As God names us through our experience with him, so too we can develop a personal name for God to guide us on our personal journeys.
Robin: We are drawn to the [attractive] characteristics endowed by a name.
Rimon: There has to be a deeper meaning when God says “I Am”. What is it? Is it related to the concept that we are all One in God?
Harry: John 8:53-58 suggests that “I Am-ness” is should be in all of us:
Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?”
Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
“You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”
Pastor Ariel: Indeed, we have God’s imprint in us. It is what brings us to Oneness with God. We have lost it through sin, but he has not abandoned us – instead he became one of us in order to redeem us. Sometimes “image” and “name” are synonymous in the Bible.
David: I like the idea that naming is the only way God can get our attention, and get through to our tiny minds, and also the idea that ultimately we are all part of a unity—a flock—where names normally don’t matter. The name becomes important only when we are lost, or we stray, from the flock.
Don: If we are in serious trouble and hear a rescuer calling our name it is immensely reassuring.
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