Wolves, Lambs, and Lions … oh my!

There’s an old Disney cartoon, that was also a Little Golden Book, “Lambert, the Sheepish Lion.” It tells the story of a lion cub that the stork misdelivered to a flock of sheep. Lambert was, indeed, a lion. But he was raised with sheep. He was raised as a lamb. Lambert acted like a lamb. He hoped when he should have run. He played by butting heads. Lambert did everything he could to fit in as a sheep. But Lambert couldn’t bleat. He’d open his mouth and he’d roar. Roaring scared his family and his friends. Lambert learned to stay quiet.

One day, a wolf came to the sheepfold. Lambert, with all the other sheep, was afraid. Scared. He cowered. Then something snapped. And Lambert remembered who he was. He opened his mouth and he roared. That old wolf ran away. The sheep were grateful and Lambert, the sheepish lion-ram, stayed among the flock … where he belonged.

There’s much ado, during election seasons and the approach to Advent, about wolves laying with sheep, and lions eating like oxen. Generally, that prophesy found in Isaiah 65:25 is preached as a foretelling of an age where the most vulnerable can lay with the most dangerous on an even playing field. No difference between them. The wolf, the lamb, the lion, the ox. But the promise is not simply that everyone will be in the same predicament.

The lamb is the youngest. The lamb is the most vulnerable of the flock. The lamb is the most likely to be prey. And the ewes protect the lambs. (So do the livestock guard dogs but that’s another story.) For the wolf to get to the lamb either the whole flock has been decimated or the lamb is safe with the wolf. The flock has to sense that the lamb is safe. Not protected. Not sheltered. For the wolf to lay with the lamb, the most vulnerable must be safe.

But that’s not the miracle of the prophecy.

For the wolf to be laying with the most vulnerable – and not the rams or other protectors – the wolf must also feel vulnerable. The wolf must see that he, too, requires the protection of the ewes; she, too, requires the safety of the flock. The wolf must give up power.

The wolf doesn’t become something else – it’s still a wolf. It just relinquishes the power of predation and chooses, instead, to be vulnerable, to be at risk, to be in the most unsafe position for the wolf – next to the most protected of the flock.

The hope is not to obliterate the difference between predator and prey. The prophecy is not one of false equivalency.

Sheep are not defenseless. They’re not powerless. They’re vulnerable. The hope, then, is that the powerful see the most vulnerable and become like them.

Who are the most vulnerable in the flock? Where are the predators? Who are the powerful? What would it take for us to insist that those who lead us choose vulnerability over power as a source of their authority? What would it mean for us, in the sheepfold, to know that we have enough power to protect the least among us because we are not so focused on the power outside of us that we forget who we are?

And what of the lion and the ox?
Oxen are ravenous. They eat. Yes, they are vegans – er, herbivores – but their appetites are not quenched. The prophecy that the lion will eat like the ox is not about the lion changing its diet. It’s about the lion having enough food.

We get caught in the binaries. Wolves and lions are powerful predators. Sheep and oxen are weak prey. We miss the hope. The hope is for the wolves, for the lions, for the sheep, for the oxen. Circumstances will change. Safety and abundance will be the norm. Our norm has become fear-mongering, struggling for crumbs (literal and figurative), fighting for position and power that we cannot handle, recasting ourselves in the images of institutions and society, and ignoring our neighbor. Isaiah’s prophecy is a promise of a new world where all of what we have become accustomed to doing is no longer sufficient and no longer needed. The wolves get to be vulnerable, get to be safe in the middle of a flock of sheep who understand their own strength. The lions no longer hunt for food because it’s all around them in abundance. The oxen don’t fall to the hunt because no hunt exists. We all get to simply be who we already are, safely. Freely.

What would it mean to insist on that freedom, to insist on that safety? What would it mean to vote and worship with the level of authenticity and abundance that prioritizes the most fragile? What would it mean to stop consuming fear and dread and calling it nourishment? Wouldn’t that be cause enough for rejoicing? Wouldn’t that be cause enough for the expectant hope that Advent brings?

I long for a world where the sheep know their own power, where the wolf curls up knowing it is safe, where the lion has abundant food, and where the ox doesn’t worry about becoming a meal. I long for a world where serpents can survive on dust… and are not a threat or a concern for those whose lives are in lush lands of bounty.

But, uhm, I have no desire to lay down with those who hate me. The Bible ain’t never said that was a thing to hope for, either. It’s a fantasy of the racist. May their food be dust. (Written in response to Garrett Galvin’s trifling racist commentary on Isaiah 65:17-25.)

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