Tales from the Field
The Venerable Joan Clark
John 10:11-18
Some of you may have once heard the story of the “City Mouse and the Country Mouse,” one of Aesop’s well-known tales. In the story, two mice have very different assessments of the world, and different preferences of how to live in it. The two meet up and exchange greetings and perspectives. The country mouse invites his cousin from the city to visit him in the country. But upon visiting, the city mouse is disappointed with having to hunt for his dinner and eat sparingly. The city mouse explains that he lives in a plushy home with plenty of cakes and ale each and every day. The country mouse therefore comes to visit his cousin the city mouse. Sure enough, he lays eyes on what appears to be a tremendous feast of bread, cheese, fruits, and grains. But no sooner do they sit down to eat, that a cat appears, and they must quickly scamper away and hide in a tiny, uncomfortable hole in the wall, where they must remain until later. As soon as he is able, the country mouse declares, he is returning home to his field, declaring that the city’s mouse’s “feast and heaven” is an illusion, but in his home in the field, he is truly free.
This story, though Greek, has a biblical equivalent. We call it Babel. In the story of Babel, Babylonian people build a giant wall around the city with a huge watch tower in the centre of it, containing the city to itself. They said, “let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” No longer would they roam the fields of God’s garden world, missionally, spreading the Word and planting the seeds of YHWH worship throughout all cultures and peoples of the world, but they would contain themselves inside their own space with their own people exclusively.
So what does God do? “The Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.” God confused their language so that no longer could they be similar, and God scattered them throughout the entire world, enforcing inclusivity and diversity, fruit-bearing, and evangelism upon all of them.
The word “scattered” in the text is the same word used for sowing seed. In this scripture, God is sower. But we have yet another metaphor for this same phenomenon, and it occurs in our scripture today. But instead of God the sower, we have Jesus the Good Shepherd. Listen to what Jesus says about the difference between fold and flock:
“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”
To understand what Jesus is saying, we need to look at the entire context of the scriptural passage, and the meaning of the language. Listen to the beginning of that scripture, as Jesus spars with some Pharisees:
“The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.”
This all occurs after Jesus had gone against tradition and opened the eyes of a blind man, who had been ostracized from the community for his condition.
Jesus first tells us that he will be opening the gate and leading the sheep out. Then later, he notes that there are many other sheep who do not belong necessarily to this one fold and that all of them are part of his flock. And, as the psalmist says, he will “lead them all into green pastures.”
So Jesus is making a definite comparison between a “fold” and a “flock.” So what is the difference between a fold and a flock?
If you look the definitions up in the dictionary, you see simply that a fold is an enclosed place. Similar to Babel’s walls, an Israeli sheepfold was a square space surrounded by stone walls with a door somewhere to it. While the sheepfold was meant to be a sanctuary for the sheep in the night-time hours, when predators would roam, the sheep were never meant to remain within the sheepfold. But during the day, the shepherd would call them out to join the flock grazing on the hillsides. Sometimes, many folds might join into one flock.
Sheep were meant to roam the hills. Whereas a fold is a place of exclusivity, a flock is not a defined place but an inclusive community.
Jesus’ address to the Pharisees clearly was naming Israel under their thumb the “fold.” No longer a place of protection, the “fold” had become a kind of restrictive, homogenous club, excluding many from taking part due to diseases or family history or genealogy, or misstep of the many enforced monetary and legalistic impositions cast upon the people by the chief priests and Pharisees. This Israel was not defined by their faith or their spirit but by tangible and external walls. Their unity was made of a desire to stamp out difference and embrace sameness, to reject diversity and claim unity of practices and preferences.
Jesus on the other hand is rejecting their idea of fold, saying that as the Good Shepherd, he will lead the people “out of” the fold and into the world to join with other sheep that are not from this fold. And all of them will be His flock. Jesus’ flock is made up of people from all walks of life, from various cultures and peoples, from those of various preferences and skin colors, languages, and traditions. But they are unified in one thing: they are all followers of Jesus. Their unity is in the Spirit.
Jesus’ flock are not subject to specific attributes but dwell in the fields of God’s world together in harmony, all worshiping Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. This is Jesus’ Babel story.
So Jesus I think would ask all of us today….are you a victim of fold-ism? For we know from the beginning of time that human sheep love to build “pens” to separate out those who appear to be different. Jesus however tell us that all followers of Jesus, no matter what they talk like, look like, or act like, are all part of his diverse and beautiful flock, all made in the image of God, unified in their faith.
By keeping our focus on Jesus, we become unified in Him. But the moment we take our eyes off of Jesus, our focus can easily shift onto each other and the differences between us. The inclination of human beings to separate sheep into “folds” is insidious and real. It takes energy, faith, and focus to effect the kind of true unity that comes with focusing on Jesus, as he leads us out of the confines of our walls and borders and into the vast expanse of the world to sow the seeds of the gospel among all people, people like we are, who too need to hear Jesus voice.
We as people of God are called still today to stop building walls. Whether city walls, sheepfold walls, or walls of our churches, the moment those walls confine and separate rather than provide sanctuary, standardize rather than diversify, keep us in rather than sending us out, they have become our idol instead of our home."
The home of Jesus’ flock is on the hillsides of the world, where all people are equal, loved, and free under the sovereign hand of God, flourishing in mission, grazing together in unity.
Today, the question may not be, are you Jew or Greek? But the meaning is the same. Are you black or white? Male or female? Rich or poor? Sick or well? Are you single or married? Do you love rock or country? Are you Labour or national? Liberal or conservative? These are questions that serve what I like to call the “membership fallacy.”
The truth is so much greater. Membership is not a single church or group, a group of same-minded individuals who practice the same or want everything according to their own preferences and desires. But entry into Jesus’ kingdom means freedom from the fold, and entry into a world of difference, where diversity is celebrated, and all people are free in Him to be whoever they were created to be. The only stipulation is to follow His voice.
Follow Jesus’ voice. This is what we are called to do. To follow Jesus into the world, listening to His voice, and living together as one flock.
City Mouse? Or Country Mouse?
You decide.