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40 All We like Sheep No sheep would ever say, or, all right, think “The shepherd is our Lord.” They are not good with metaphors but, stupid as they may be, they know that the shepherd sooner or later will come with his curved knife and the sheep always run whenever they see him. They run from his dog too, because it bites, but neither one of them means any good to sheep. On the other hand goats, forgetting their native caution, come when they’re called and even learn to nibble out of your hand, denying what’s real for these sentimental moments their herdsman allows them in their foreshortened lives. The knife waits in its sheath for them too, so, if they’re smarter than sheep, they’re also dimmer, not having learned Abraham’s hard lesson. Matthew’s peculiar story about how Jesus sorts out the sheep and goats assumes that it’s hard— they separate themselves, the believing goats on one side and the fearful, atheist sheep all on the other, nervous even there, to embarrass us, which is why there are no scape-sheep wandering the wilderness for our sins. ...

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