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Editorials: Sheep stealing and other sins
Posted on Tuesday, March 06 @ 10:50:10 CST by TribStaff

Back when I earned my daily bread as a religion editor I got to know more than a few pastors. Most of them did a truly admirable job of hating sin. I think we would all agree that hating sin is one of the necessary qualifications for anyone seriously considering a career as a pastor. Deep down, though, I had my suspicions that a few of the pastors I knew liked sin almost as much as I do.


Back when I earned my daily bread as a religion editor I got to know more than a few pastors. Most of them did a truly admirable job of hating sin. I think we would all agree that hating sin is one of the necessary qualifications for anyone seriously considering a career as a pastor. Deep down, though, I had my suspicions that a few of the pastors I knew liked sin almost as much as I do.
Or did. It’s not really that I like sin any less these days, or that I’ve become particularly more moral than I used to be. It’s just that I’m no longer inclined to pursue it with quite as much vigor as I once did. I’ve learned that sin is a lot like one of those disgusting bugs we stumble upon from time to time. There’s a good chance it will probably bite you if you pick it up and play with it. But chances are if you leave it alone, it will leave you alone.
If there was one sin that just about every pastor I knew hated with a particular passion, it was the sin of sheep stealing. Sheep stealing occurs when one pastor lures the sheep from another pastor’s flock into his own flock. Occasionally, a pastor was deemed to be guilty of engaging in indiscriminate sheep stealing. That is, he would steal every sheep he could get his hands on. More often, however, sheep stealers were more particular. They were led to prey upon only those sheep who were known to contribute heavily whenever the plate was passed. I was never quite sure how the sheep stealers knew which sheep had the deepest pockets, but I suppose these things have a way of getting around. The Lord, as they say, works in mysterious ways.
I was reminded of those long ago discussions about the sin of sheep stealing last week as I sat waiting for the light to change at the intersection of 641 and 5th Street, watching three people with plastic buckets hustle up and down the lines of cars soliciting donations. One of them shoved a bucket at me and asked if I would be willing to help the less fortunate, or some such nonsense.
I started to tell him that I already support an ex-wife who must be among the less fortunate — or else why would the judge ask me to send her half my paycheck every month? Only he wasn’t holding a plastic bucket when he asked. But I doubted this guy was really interested in my problems, so I let it pass.
What I did do was to park the car and return to the intersection, camera in hand, to ask him just which unfortunate people he had in mind exactly and whose plastic bucket that was that he was holding. He gave the definite impression that he would rather I had just tossed a dollar in his bucket and went on.
The man I talked with said his name was James Borders. He said he and the others were members of New Life Church of Louisville. He allowed that while Louisville is a good piece down the road, the church plans to open a “help center” hereabouts. James was a little vague on the details about exactly when the help center would open or where it would be located. But he said that if I ever needed help or wanted to change my life, I could call New Life Church and they would come pick me up. All the way from Louisville. He even wrote “Pastor Sandra’s” cell phone number on the back of a card that said she was the pastor at New Life.
So I called Pastor Sandra. I wanted to see if she would really drive all the way from Louisville to help me change my life instead of just to fill more plastic buckets. That was last week. My life is still about the same as it was, but my finger is starting to get sore because I’ve been dialing, dialing, dialing, but Pastor Sandra still hasn’t returned my calls.
Stop the sheep stealing, Pastor Sandra. Take your plastic buckets and go back to Louisville. There’s more sin in the pews of New Life Church on any given Sunday than you can shake a stick at. If you can’t find it, then you must not have very much experience with sin. While you’re taking money from us poor sinners down here in Marshall County to put $2.50-a-gallon gas in your tank so you can drive around looking for sin, your own sheep are going astray.