Shepherd or Sheep

On Sunday both father and baby daughter were baptized. I had attended hundreds of baptisms but had never seen that pairing before.

It was also Good Shepherd Sunday, in which the Gospel reading was John 10 ("Jesus said, 'I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.'") Also read, of course, was Psalm 23 ("The Lord is my Shepherd").

During the sermon the priest asked if we were shepherd or sheep. (Sheep are followers, and it's not an insult to be a follower of Christ, i.e., a sheep led by a Shepherd.) A parishioner from New Zealand rose to announce that we were omitting a crucial component of the sheep-shepherd dynamic, namely, the sheepdog. Sheepdogs bring in a whole new set of metaphors and images. My head began to hurt. Sometimes one can carry on a metaphor too long.

Still unsure of whether I was a sheep or shepherd or sheepdog, I made my way to the Parish Hall for the post-Baptism feast. Filled with food and happiness, I bleated my approval.