Good Shepherds and Sheep Detectives

 

1 The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want;

he makes me down to lie

in pastures green; he leadeth me,

the quiet waters by.

We were at the movie theatre a couple of months ago and saw the trailer for an upcoming film called The Sheep Detectives. It's about sheep who are...detectives. Trailers usually convince us of the movies we don't want to see but this one looked genuinely funny, so we decided to go when it came to town. 

I'm here to say that it is funny, clever, even touching -- sort of Knives Out meets Babe. It has a great cast including Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson as humans, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, and Patrick Stewart as sheep, along with many other strong actors. The animation (animal-ation?) is impressive as well.

Sadly, the good, wool-only shepherd of the flock, Jackman, is murdered and his flock is bereft until one of them steps up to lead them. For years the shepherd has read them cozy murder mysteries each evening, so why don't they solve the crime? 

I'll keep the wool over your eyes in terms of whodunit but there are some moments of a religious nature that I'll share. One of the suspects is the local vicar and we meet him as he introduces the parable of the Lost Sheep during a worship service and we see a Good Shepherd stained glass window.  

Later in the film a world-wise and weary ram attempts to explain to his two sheep-sleuth companions what church and God are. He  admits that it's confusing because God is a Shepherd but he is also a Lamb. But the Lamb is also Bread and humans eat the bread. It is delightfully bewildering and during my ministry I had occasions when I tried to explain all this to children and adults with varying success. 

There are poignant moments in the story as well with some reflection on the nature of grief, avoidance of our mortality, and our hopes for the afterlife. Hey, it has it all, so go and see it! The Lion LAMB blogger signing off for today...