From the Gospel according to John:
So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 10:7-10 (NRSV) – March 20, 2013.)
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” This sentence really hit me today for a lot of very personal reasons I won’t get into. As I was doing my morning ablutions, I thought of the thieves who have stolen in and taken away loved ones, family members, and friends. I thought of how obvious those thieves were about it, and yet we passed those thieves off as simple eccentricities and odd behaviors.
The thieves of which I speak have names . . . names like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, glioblastoma, alcoholism, bipolar disorder, drug abuse, and the list goes on and on. When I think of these thieves and the havoc they wreak, I think of my cousin who served honorably in the U.S. Navy and then, after his discharge, slipped away from the family into the embrace of schizophrenia never to be seen again. I think of my father whose alcoholism led him away to death in a one-car motor vehicle accident. I think of my brother whose slightly strange behavior in speaking Italian to his spouse – who didn’t speak Italian – was the first sign of the glioblastoma (brain cancer) that took his life. I think of my mother-in-law whose occasional lapses of memory were the first steps of a slow downhill dance into the darkness of Alzheimer’s Disease. I think of the people I see in shabby clothing pushing supermarket trollies down the street muttering to themselves. They have all been stolen away by thieves, leaving behind families who grieve their loss and who may be in ignorance wondering where their loved ones are.
These thieves slip into the fold under the disguises of eccentricity, oddness, unconventionality, quirkiness, and peculiarity, none of which are the least bit objectionable in themselves. But in someone who isn’t or hasn’t been eccentric or quirky, they are the warning signs, the masks warn by the thieves.
In Nevada where I was born and raised, there was a thriving sheep industry at one time. (There may still be; I haven’t lived in Nevada for many years and really don’t know.) That is the reason there are so many people of Basque descent in Nevada and neighboring states; the Basque shepherds came to tend the flocks. I remember years ago reading that one of the things the shepherds had learned was the use of llamas as guard animals for their flocks. Llamas are accepted by the sheep as one of their own; the sheep are much more comfortable with the llamas than they are with sheepdogs. The llamas can mingle with the sheep and not upset them.
Llamas, however, are very different from sheep. Sheep, of course, are timid and easily frightened; sheep will run from something or someone strange. Llamas, on the other hand, are intensely curious animals and when something unknown approaches the flock, they will go toward it to see what’s up. If a coyote (the most common predator in the Nevada desert) approaches the flock, a llama will move toward it. Predators find this behavior disconcerting and even deadly! They will run away and not bother the sheep.
Llamas react to coyotes threatening the flock in a variety of ways. They begin with with an alert and attentive posture which alarms others in the herd or flock. The animal then makes a special alarm cry and often runs toward the threat. If the llama closes with the coyote, it will place itself between it and the flock, and even kick at the predator. Coyotes have been injured and even killed by llamas. Many shepherds who use llamas as guard animals have reported a 100 percent reduction in predator losses after employing the llamas.
We need to be like llamas. When we observe eccentricity, oddness, unconventional behavior, and peculiar conduct, deportment that is out of the ordinary in friends and loved ones, we need to move toward it, take a good look at it, figure it out. Is it just quirkiness? Or is it the mask of the thief of mental or physical illness.
Our Shepherd has come to give us life and give it abundantly, but there are thieves and predators prowling around – substance addictions, brain dysfunctions, emotional illnesses among them. They threaten to take us and those we love away from the abundant life our Shepherd promises. We can be the llamas in the flock, vigilant, curious, on guard, working with the Shepherd to prevent them from taking away his sheep. Be a llama for your loved ones! Be a llama in the Lord’s flock!
====================
A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!
====================
Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
In Ainm an Athar, agus an Mhic, agus an Spioraid Naoimh. Áiméan.
There were two things about which I was unaware when I wrote yesterday’s meditation referring to the folk chorus Abba, Father. First of all, I didn’t know that today’s readings would include Paul’s comments to the Romans on that form of addressing God. Secondly, I had no idea that the modern day Romans (in the form of the Papal Conclave) would have elected a new pope by today. 
St. Paul wrote some great stuff. He’s treatise on love in the thirteenth chapter of the first letter to the church in Corinth is brilliant! He wrote (or, at least, is blamed for) some incredibly stupid stuff, too: telling women to be silent in the very next chapter of First Corinthians, for example, or sending Onesimus back to Philemon without clearly denouncing the institution of slavery. 
According to 
Scholars and commentators seem to agree (and a computer search of various translations confirms) that there is no single verse of the Hebrew scriptures saying what John says Jesus quoted. It seems to be an amalgam or summary of several different bits of the prophets. When I read this story of John’s, however, it isn’t a prophet that comes immediately to mind. Instead, I think of a portrayal of Lady Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs:
Some years ago, during the summer of 2000 to be exact, I was one of about a dozen adults who chaperoned 87 teenagers on a ten-day tour of northern Italy. One of the pieces of advice given our group by the organizing tour guide was that the young ladies would not be allowed into Italian cathedrals wearing shorts or tank-tops. She suggested that they take with them, and always have on hand a light-weight over-blouse and a large scarf that they could tie around their waist to form a sort of skirt. This caused no amount of amusement among our group 17- and 18-year-old, Twenty-First Century, American girls, but it only took one time being escorted out of a church by a stern Italian nun for them to realize how serious the advice was and to never again forget to put on their overshirts and their wrap-around skirts. 
Despite the tradition that the Psalms were written by King David, any good commentary will tell you that this Psalm was written probably in the first decades of the Sixth Century BC, at around the time of the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians circa 598 BC. Some scholars would even suggest that it was written as late as the Maccabean era (circa 165 BC). Personally, I tend to go with the earlier date; the Psalm’s description of wide spread destruction of religious meeting places seems more in line with the pre-Exilic invasion.
These two verses have probably caused any number of people to scratch their heads in bewilderment over the centuries. Those who read them in English without looking behind the translation to the original language wonder, “What on earth does this mean?” Those who read them in Hebrew wonder, “How can God have such a terrible sense of humor?”
Several years ago – 33 to be exact – Bruce Dern starred in a little-remarked movie entitled Middle Age Crazy; it dealt with the main character’s midlife crisis of turning 40 years of age. 
