Bouncy Balls and the Handwriting of 8 Year Olds

"Very truly I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice." John 10:1-4

I've never liked the Good Shepherd portion of John. In general, John is a text I love to read and hate to preach on. Even at that, I've always figured I'd be just fine if John had skipped that particular passage. That probably says more about me than any one or anything else. And I know it. I live in a city to preserve my anonymity, at least if I choose. I don't like having an entire town that can recognize my car, much less always end up in a conversation in the grocery store. Deep familiarity isn't appealing to me.

Except it is. In fact, the familiarity of community is for me one of the deepest, holiest parts of church. On some days, I could drop the "one of." There's beautiful simplicity in community. There's beauty in deep familiarity, someone knowing you, someone welcoming you. Cheers was right: "Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came."

Each Sunday, there are a few people whose footsteps I recognize long before I see them--those bringing walkers and baby strollers in particular. Other voices are distinct. Some even arrive at incredibly predictable times.

The rhythms of my life are tied to their lives in strange ways. On Monday mornings, as I correct attendance taken by a lay leader and sift through a pile of attendance slips, I smile when I see the handwriting of an 8 year old. It's her job to fill out her family's attendance slip each week. I can attest that her penmanship has improved a great deal during 2nd grade. This morning, as I walked out to the mailbox to see if I'd gotten a notice for an undeliverable Amazon order, something red in the dirt caught my eye. I dusted off a red bouncy ball. I'm pretty sure it belongs to a four year old boy who was distraught when he lost it under the bushes. I put it on my desk to give back to him on Sunday.

Before I sat down at my desk this morning, I had to put away the board game he'd taken out of the box while his mom was meeting with worship participants. He currently has a fascination with all the games under my desk, stored there between our Thursday game nights. The pieces are intriguing, but never lost. He always puts it away as well as a four year old can put away a game designed for people a few years older.

Familiarity, after all, means people know what you need. It means safety, in most cases. It means a place where it's easy to be. It's home. It's someone you know, who calls you by name, all in the name of the Shepherd. I like that story more all the time.