Today I want to focus on this Sunday’s Gospel text from John 10. There are three readings on this theme from John, but they are read over the three years of the lectionary cycle (on the Fourth Sunday in Easter) rather than over three consecutive Sundays. For this reason there will be some overlap in the discussion of these texts from year to year. In some traditions this Sunday is know as Good Shepherd Sunday. The psalter for each year is Psalm 23. The image of the Good Shepherd is a common one, gracing the stained glass windows of many places of worship. The image of Christ as the Good Shepherd is a common motif of artists. Do a Google Image search on “good shepherd” and see how many depictions of Christ, the Good Shepherd you will find.
I want to thank Michelle Haller for the comments she made to yesterday’s introduction to the texts. Many of the comments she made will be reflected below.
Our image of the Good Shepherd is usually not influenced by modern practices of shepherds since we are just not exposed to them (at least here in the US). We tend to have a romanticized view of shepherds based on the Sunday School images we have learned and applied to King David and Jesus. But, that image is probably not so far from the practice of shepherds in biblical days...
The good shepherd was especially concerned for the condition of the flock, careful that the animals not be overdriven ... and would sometimes carry helpless lambs in his arms ... or on his shoulders.... The work of the shepherd was essentially to keep the flock intact, counting each animal as it passed under his hand.... (Vancil, 1187).
I want to come back to this notion of Vancil’s of the shepherd’s work to “keep the flock intact” since I believe it to be a major part in understanding the Gospel reading. The role of the shepherd is further elucidated by Golding.
The primary roles of a shepherd with his sheep were guiding, providing food and water, protecting and delivering, gathering scattered or lost sheep, and giving health and security. The needs of sheep are primarily physical. Not being abundantly endowed with intelligence and lacking the capacity to find food and water for themselves in marginal environments, they require a benevolent and capable human leader who will guide them to places where these essentials can be found. Since sheep tend to wander, a concerned shepherd must search for them and bring them back when they become lost or when for some reason the flock has become scattered. A sheep’s lack of natural defenses leaves it susceptible to the attacks of predators. (Golding, 22).
In the Bible, the metaphor of shepherds and shepherding is applied to God, political and religious leaders (especially in the Hebrew scriptures) and to Christ. Shepherds may be described as good or bad.
Scott (Scott, 412) points points out that the term Shepherd is rarely applied to God, but the language of shepherding is often used of God, such as “I will restore Israel to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel” (Jeremiah 50:19, ESV). In Ezekiel 34, God states he will seek out and gather his people who have been abused by bad shepherds who fed themselves instead of the sheep.
I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. (Ezekiel 34:15-16, English Standard Version, ESV)
We have often traditionally applied the shepherd metaphor to clergy. Hence the title, pastor, meaning “shepherd; one who has the care of flocks and herds” (Webster’s Unabridged of 1913). But clergy should be seen not so much as shepherds as fellow sheep. Peter carefully advises the elders to...
...shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. (1 Peter 5:2-4, ESV)
Note that Peter places himself with the other elders. He is not a Chief Shepherd (Reicke, 128-129).. To clergy, Peter is saying to remember that the flock is placed in your care, but it is not your own. Peter Gomes puts it this way:
I want to suggest that the connection in this text on Good Shepherd Sunday, particularly for the clergy, is not that we are the shepherds, good, bad, or indifferent, but that we are among the sheep. That puts a slightly different perspective on this text for us, because when we preach to our people as fellow sheep instead of as shepherd and sheep, they may actually be inclined to hear the text somewhat differently than we are accustomed to giving it to them and they are accustomed to receiving it. If we think of ourselves as among the sheep, as opposed to belonging to the Shepherds’ Union, we may actually gain a new insight into the relationship that we have with one another. It is not the only one, but it may be a useful and a mildly novel one. (Gomes, 295).
It is Jesus who is the Good Shepherd. He is the incarnate God who will “ seek the lost, ...bring back the strayed, ...bind up the injured, ...[and] strengthen the weak” (Ezekiel 34:16). By claiming the title, Jesus is making a political statement as well as a theological and religious one.
Jesus, in describing himself as “the good shepherd” (John 10:11-16), echoes the images of Ezekiel 34 ... This divine shepherding turns out to be exercised through a restored Davidic kingship ... Is it any wonder that Jesus excited messianic speculation by claiming to be the good shepherd? (Hays, 395)
Remember that Jesus makes this statement during the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22, better known to us as Hanukkah) a celebration that recalls the liberation of Israel from the Syrians in the Maccabean revolt. It is a feast day of religious and political significance. His statement (“I am the Good Shepherd.”) would not only be threatening to the religious and political leaders of his own day, but should also serve as a warning to the flock today to be wary of “hired hands” as well as “thieves and robbers” who only look out for their own needs and come to “kill and destroy” (see John 10:8,10,12). Combine this with people clamoring to know if Jesus is the Messiah (10:24), that is the anointed one who would come and liberate the people of God (Sloyan, 133). “[T]he messianic implications of Jesus’ claim to be the shepherd were apparent to the Jewish authorities” (Brown, 406).
Jesus is the Good Shepherd who has laid down his own life for the sheep. He gathers us. He protects us. We belong to him and recognize his voice as he calls us by name (John 10:3-4).
The belonging is God’s ownership of us. We are God’s sheep, irrevocably bound to the divine and held there by a power too great for any force which might threaten to grapple us out of the divine grasp. We belong to God! That means that our identity is determined—we are Christ’s sheep. We are known—our lives are no longer private and secret, for belonging in this case means being known. We now have a quality of life (“eternal life”) that survives all that threatens us, including death. (Kysar, 69 – emphasis Kysar’s)
Finally, I want to revisit the idea of unity. Just as Jesus, the Good Shepherd gathers the scattered sheep they cannot be taken away from him (John 10:28-29). He speaks of having “other sheep that are not of this fold” that he must gather into “one flock” with “one shepherd” (John 10:16). The role of the Shepherd in protecting the unity of the flock is best expressed in the priestly prayer offered up by Jesus in the garden...
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:20-23, ESV).
The unity of the church becomes an important sign to the rest of the world that Jesus is indeed who he says he is – a shepherd of one flock.
References
Brown, Raymond E., The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John (i-xii), Doubleday, 1966.
Golding, Thomas A., “The Imagery of Shepherding in the Bible, Part 1,” Bibliotheca Sacra 163 (January-March 2006), 18-28.
Gomes, Peter, “Good Shepherd, Good Sheep,” Currents in Theology and Mission 30:4, August 2003, p. 294-6. Also may be found here.
Hays, Richard B., “Shepherded by the Lamb,” The Christian Century 109:13, (April 15, 1992), 395.
Kysar, Robert, “John 10:22-30,” Interpretation 43:1, 66-70.
Reicke, Bo, The Anchor Bible: The Epistles of James, Peter, and Jude, Doubleday, 1964.
Scott, Bernard Brandon, Hear Then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus, Fortress Press, 1989.
Sloyan, Gerald, Interpretation: John, John Knox Press, 1988
Vancil, Jack W., “Sheep, Shepherd,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 5, Doubleday, 1992, 1187-90.
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