One Sunday morning, following the church service, a layman accosted the pastor and said, "Tom, this church has been insulting me for years, and I did not know it until this week." The stunned pastor replied, "What on earth do you mean?" "Well," said the layman, every Sunday morning the call to worship in this church ends with the words, ‘We are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.' And I have heard ministers over the years call the congregation, God's flock.' Then this past week I visited the Chicago stockyards.  There I discovered that sheep are just about the dumbest animals God ever created.  Why, they are so stupid that they even follow one another docilely into the slaughterhouse.  Even pigs are smarter than sheep, and I would certainly be angry if my church called me a pig' every Sunday morning.  So I'm not at all sure I want to come to church and be called a sheep' any longer...even God's sheep'."

The man had a point.  But whether we like it or not, that is the language of the Bible: both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament.  We are called "God's sheep." The favorite psalm of many people is the 23rd, and it begins by saying, "The Lord is my shepherd..." And if "the Lord is my shepherd," then I am one of the Lord's sheep.