Chetwynd Shared Ministry
April 22, 2018
Scriptures: John 10:11-18 and Psalm 23
So in listening to this morning’s readings and songs and prayers, you may have noticed a bit of a theme running through them. The fourth Sunday of the season of Easter is traditionally recognized as “Good Shepherd Sunday” and that is the focus of the readings assigned to today.
But if I’m being
completely honest with you, the image or metaphor of Jesus as the Good Shepherd
is not one of my favourites. Please
don’t hate me if it is one that you love!
I know a lot of people love the idea of a Good Shepherd and find comfort
in the idea of a shepherd; and there are loads of churches that are named Good
Shepherd Church. It’s just an image that
I have trouble getting in to, possibly because the image of the Good Shepherd
has been so sentimentalized by the church over the centuries that the metaphor
has lost its power for me.
But I wonder what
Jesus might have been trying to say when he said that he is the Good Shepherd?
What image comes in to
your mind when you think of Jesus as the Good Shepherd? I know for me, the image that pops up first
is the picture that decorates the wall of Sunday School rooms across the
country – you know the one. Pretty Jesus
wearing a robe of white or blue, light brown or blonde hair, blue eyes,
surrounded by clean fluffy white sheep.
Maybe he is cradling a lamb in his arms, or maybe he has a lamb draped
over his shoulders. It is a peaceful,
pastoral scene.
The thing is though,
it isn’t historically accurate. In
Jesus’ world, shepherds were people who lived on the margins of society. They lived far away from people or towns, and
often far away from their families. They
didn’t have the social graces that would allow them to fit in to polite
society. They were out, exposed to the
elements, fighting off danger, likely sunburnt, wind-blown, and dirty. They smelled like the sheep that they looked
after. When they came in to towns, they
would have been the sort of people who might have made you feel uncomfortable –
who might make you cross over to the other side of the street if you were
passing them. They were itinerant,
always on the move, keeping their flock together and always moving towards
fresh pasture.
I read one commentary
this week that suggested that if we were to translate the good shepherd
metaphor into contemporary times, it is as if Jesus is saying to his listeners,
“I am the good migrant farm worker.”[1]
And so I wonder if, in
one layer of meaning, Jesus might be saying to his followers that he identifies
with anyone who is on the margins of society, anyone who is rejected by
society. How would this change our
understanding of who Jesus is?
(pause)
I wonder what else
Jesus might have been trying to say when he said the he is the Good Shepherd?
Jesus lived as a
Jewish man in first century Palestine, and the scriptures that he would have
known were what we call today the Old Testament. And the Old Testament is full of shepherd
imagery. We read the 23rd
Psalm today, and this may be the best-known shepherd-image in the whole
bible. The psalm writer compares God to
a shepherd – a shepherd who gives us food and keeps us safe from all danger. In addition to the well-known 23rd,
there are also many other psalms that compare God to a shepherd, including
Psalm 28, Psalm 77, Psalm 80, and the list goes on.
Then in chapter 40 of
Isaiah, written to a people who were about to leave exile and return home,
Isaiah writes, “God will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the
lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother
sheep.” As the people were preparing to
make the long and dangerous journey back to the home that none of them had
known, they could be comforted by knowing that God was with them, guiding them
and keeping them safe the way that a shepherd does.
And so when he says
that he is the Good Shepherd, I wonder if another layer of meaning might be
that Jesus is God. Jesus will lead and
protect us in the same way that God led and protected the people, because Jesus
is God.
(pause)
I wonder what else
Jesus might have been trying to say when he said the he is the Good Shepherd?
I was really struck by
the comparison in the reading from John between the Good Shepherd and the Hired
Hand. Because what would have been the
difference between a shepherd and the hired hand? It is unlikely that either one was the actual
owner of the sheep. Think of the most
famous shepherd in the Old Testament – the boy who would become King
David. He was tending the sheep of his
father that would some day be inherited by his older brother; and yet he is
still considered the shepherd. So it
doesn’t seem to be a matter of ownership.
Instead, I think that
the difference might come down, not to title, and not to ownership of the
sheep, but rather intention towards the sheep.
Does the human want what is best for the sheep, or are they in it just for
the salary that they are earning?
Again, the books or
scrolls of the Old Testament were the scriptures that Jesus was intimately
familiar with, and if you were to turn to Chapter 34 of Ezekiel, you would find
a very vivid description of two different types of shepherds – they are both
called shepherds here. But the so-called
False Shepherds are in it only for what they can get from the sheep – the meat
and the wool. They don’t ensure that the
sheep have food to eat; they don’t care for the sheep when they are injured;
they don’t protect the sheep from the wild animals. In this parable, the God’s people are the
sheep, but the False Shepherds are the corrupt leaders of the land. In contrast with this, God is named as the
True Shepherd. God seeks out the sheep when
they are lost, protects them from their enemies, and leads them to good
pasture-land for grazing.
If we turn to that
famous 23rd Psalm again, the final verse is often translated, “For
surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”; but an
alternative translation to this reads:
“For I am chased down by goodness, pursued by mercy every day of my
life.” The Good Shepherd, God-in-Jesus,
not only looks after us in a passive way, but actively chases us down with all
of the goodness that is God!
And so I wonder if yet
another layer of meaning to Jesus as the Good Shepherd is this relentless
pursuit and care of us, even when we turn away.
God loves us, each and every one of us, not because of anything that we
have done or haven’t done, and not because of anything that God could get out
of the bargain because isn’t that a laughable idea; but God loves us simply
because we are ourselves and God is a God of love.
(pause)
I wonder what else
Jesus might have been trying to say when he said the he is the Good Shepherd?
Often when we speak
about Jesus as the Good Shepherd, the metaphor implies that we must then be the
sheep. But I wonder if that’s all there
is.
Not that I have
anything against sheep! I admittedly
haven’t spent much time with sheep, but everything that I have read about them
tells me that they are very intelligent creatures. But I’ve always chafed a bit at being called
a sheep. Sheep follow, unquestioningly. In a herd of sheep, each one may seem the
same. And, quite frankly, I would prefer
to be a human being than a sheep!
But when Jesus calls
himself the Good Shepherd, the Greek word that is almost always translated as
“good” – kalos – actually means
something more along the lines of “model,” “ideal,” or “proper.” And so if Jesus is the Model Shepherd, whom
is he modeling it for? Who is called to
follow the model of Jesus?
I think that the
answer to that question is… all of us.
We are all called to tend to one another and tend to everyone in the
world in the same way that Jesus tends his flock as the Good Shepherd. By virtue of our calling to be children of
God and the body of Christ, we are all called to look after all who are
vulnerable, we are all called to look after anyone who is sick or injured, we
are all called to make sure that everyone has enough food to eat.
And today, April 22,
is also celebrated as Earth Day, a day when we celebrate all of God’s
creation. We are, as humans, called to
be stewards of all of creation, and I see a strong connection between being
stewards and being shepherds. We are to
consider all of creation and celebrate it for its creator. We are placed in a position that carries the
responsibility to care for all of creation.
We are, in that sense, shepherds of all of creation.
And so I wonder if
another layer of meaning to this story is that Jesus is the model for us to
follow of how we are all to be shepherds to the world – both the human world
and the non-human world.
(pause)
I wonder what else
Jesus might have been trying to say when he said the he is the Good Shepherd?
One final layer of
meaning that I see in this image of a Good Shepherd is when I hold this image
up with one of Jesus’ other titles – Lamb of God. Jesus is the Shepherd, but Jesus is also the
sheep, the lamb, who is destined to die.
As Jesus says in our reading today, “I lay down my life in order to take
it up again.”
This is a Jesus who
knows that he is going to die; but who knows that resurrection will follow
death, and that this resurrection will be the hope for the world.
And so yes, we are
called to be shepherds to the world, modeling ourselves after Jesus; but I
believe that we are also called to be sheep – sheep who listen to the voice of
our Shepherd, sheep who trust in the one who leads us. I don’t think that we are called to lay down
our lives in the way that Jesus was called – after all, the work of Easter is
already done; but I do think that we are sheep in the sense that we listen for
and follow our shepherd, and trust that our Shepherd will lead us safely, even
when the path doesn’t seem to make sense to us.
And so I wonder if we
can be both shepherds and sheep, just as Jesus was the Good Shepherd and the
Lamb of God
(pause)
And so, while the Good
Shepherd image may not be my favourite metaphor for Jesus, by digging into it,
I’m able to find some meaning and relevance for the world today.
I’m still probably not
going to buy that Sunday School print of pretty, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus
to hang on my office wall; but when I think of Jesus the Good Shepherd, I can
think of those shepherds living on the fringes of society; I can think of how
they sacrificed comfort and company, and their own safety in order to take care
of their sheep; I can think about how it was those shepherds living on the margins
who were the first ones to hear the good news of the birth of Jesus; I can
think about how Jesus, the Shepherd, is also the lamb; and I can think of how
we are called to be like Jesus, the Good Shepherd, our model for shepherding.
Let us pray:
Holy God, who is the
Shepherd of all people,
help us to trust in the guidance of
our Good Shepherd,
and empower us,
by your Holy
Spirit,
to
be shepherds of the world;
so that your love and
care might spread
into every
corner of creation.
We pray this in the
name of Jesus Christ,
the Good Shepherd.
Amen.
[1] Nancy R. Blakely, “Pastoral Perspective,”
from Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume
2, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville: Westminster
John Knox Press, 2008), 450.
“The Shepherd”
© Neha iitb /
Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-4.0
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