In ‘The Sheep Detectives,’ we find mixed metaphors for God
Photograph by Michael Fousert
Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf
“The Sheep Detectives,” Amazon’s latest entry into major motion pictures, has a simple schema that fans of the 1995 movie “Babe” will appreciate. Talking sheep are forced by the death of their shepherd, George Hardy, to investigate a murder. Luckily for them, George has been reading them detective stories at night for years, so they might just have what it takes to solve it.
While the mystery itself has plenty of twists and turns, the film is rich from a theological point of view. Besides the obvious metaphor of George as the shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, our ovine friends also grapple directly with metaphors for God in one scene. When passing by a church, a ram named Sebastian explains to Mopple and Lily what it is:
Lily: What is this?
Sebastian: This is the church, where someone named God lives.
Lily: Who’s God?
Sebastian: It's a bit confusing, God is a shepherd.
Mopple: So he could be our shepherd?
Sebastian: No. Because he’s also a lamb.
Lily: What?
Sebastian: And he’s also invisible. And he’s made of bread. And he damns things.
Lily: Dams things? Like a beaver?
Sebastian: Yes.
Lily: So God is a big invisible lamb beaver, made of... bread?
Sebastian: Yes. And they eat him on Sundays.
Mopple: Poor God.
Rarely have I found such genuine humor in a theological part of a movie, but beyond laughter, this scene made me think about all the different metaphors we have for God, and why we have them in the first place.
If you look in the Bible, you will find God compared to a mother hen, salt, yeast, bread, shepherds, warriors, a vine, living water, a judge, a potter, consuming fire, a bridegroom, a father, a mother, and light. While nowhere near exhaustive, you get the idea about the diverse metaphors for God in scripture.
We are challenged to take metaphors for God one at a time, coming to understand that each of them tells a story about God’s character, nature, and desires. None of them are complete, and each of them is essential.
“The Sheep Detectives” points out something that is worth mentioning. It might make sense that you could place all of these comparisons together at the same time and come to an accurate understanding of God, but when you do that, all you get is a jumbled mess. Rather, we are challenged to take them one at a time, coming to understand that each of them tells a story about God’s character, nature, and desires. None of them are complete, and each of them is essential.
That makes sense to me because God is something wholly other from us. Rudolf Otto, in his 1917 classic, “The Idea of the Holy,” argues that God is supposed to awaken “creature feeling” in us, which he defines as “the emotion of a creature, submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures.” In other words, a true encounter with God is a reminder that we are not God.
As such, we are left with the tools at our disposal - simile and metaphor. Jesus opens most of his parables with “The Kingdom of God is like.” Comparison is our path to understanding, but it is never a complete grasp on what God is. That’s why we need so many different metaphors - both big and small. The creator of the universe is both an infinitely great transcendent reality, and can be known and approached by human beings. That paradox lies at the heart of both the success and the danger of comparison.
The key is that the metaphors that we find in the Bible should not be confused with the thing they indicate. God is not literally a mother hen, and yet God shares some attributes with one. A famous Zen koan (story) instructs its hearers not to confuse the moon for the finger pointing at the moon. The metaphors are only a temporary guide to get us where we are going. They are not the thing itself.
In “The Sheep Detectives,” that’s precisely the mistake that the sheep make. While comical in the context of the movie, it’s one that Christians can make all too easily. We must be careful not to mix our metaphors and to continue our quest for discovering the Love at the heart of all things.
Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf is senior minister, Lake Street Church of Evanston, Illinois. He currently serves as the co-associate regional minister with the American Baptist Churches Metro Chicago. His book, published in 2023 by T&T Clark, is titled “Sanctuary and Subjectivity: Thinking Theologically about Whiteness and Sanctuary Movements.” He is also the co-founder of Challenging Islamophobia Together Chicagoland, an initiative that brings together people of all faiths to counter Islamophobia from a religious perspective.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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