SCRIPTURE

The Good Shepherd and His Sheep

10 “Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. ² The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³ The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴ When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵ But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” ⁶ Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

⁷ Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸ All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. ⁹ I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.^[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

REFLECTION:

My collection of Star Wars LEGO sets has increased about 400%—an unintended, though not altogether unwanted, side effect of the ongoing pandemic. I tell myself it’s all for my two daughters. My wife knows better.

One of the many sets I’ve acquired depicts Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Tatooine hut—his home in exile in those years between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. It consists of 200 tiny, mostly sand-colored pieces.

One of those pieces is a tiny black square that has even tinier buttons painted on it. It’s meant to be the keypad that grants entry to any would-be visitors to old Ben Kenobi’s home.

Mostly, I see it as a choking hazard and destined to be lost under the couch. It is meant to stay exactly where the instructions dictate: safely nestled on the outer wall of the hut. Why would anyone think differently?

“But I need it.”

My four-year-old daughter truly does enjoy playing with Star Wars LEGOs. She particularly likes to hide very small pieces in little LEGO boxes—treasure chests, as she says.

“You don’t need it,” I replied. “It has to stay right where it is.”

“But it’s treasure, Daddy. It has to go in the treasure box.”

I shook my head. “Your sister will choke on it.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“It has to stay where it is.” I kept shaking my head. “If we start taking these things apart, we’ll never get everything back where it goes.”

My daughter doesn’t appreciate my worrying over keeping these sets intact.

I pulled at the hairs on my chin. “Actually,” I began, “we might have another piece like it.”

I scoured the bin of Star Wars LEGOs and—believe it or not—we did have another piece just like it. My daughter was happy, and Obi-Wan kept his hut in pristine condition.

But I stared at that little piece, the one I’d refused even to consider removing, for a few moments, disappointed. Here I was, a father playing with his daughter—playing with toys—and I was too rigid to even consider letting her create the scene her imagination had cooked up.

My mind went to all the things that would go wrong: one more thing under the couch, one more thing for the one-and-a-half-year-old to eat, one more thing to have to fix after the fact. The beauty of LEGOs is in their ability to be broken apart and rebuilt, their ability to reflect whatever stories we desire that they tell.

And I wouldn’t give my four-year-old a little black square.

As we begin our Hole Week, we are invited to reflect on those places in our lives where we are not free. Like a set of LEGOs, we can be rigid, snapped together in such a precise way that nothing and no one will change us. The instructions say we’re meant to be one thing; we aren’t allowed to be anything different.

And yet, LEGOs are meant to be rearranged, mixed up, and turned into something new. They are literal building blocks of imagination.