John 10:11-18
Today is one of those Sundays that has multiple identities. Formally, this is the Fourth Sunday of Easter. We are in the heart of the great fifty days of Easter. The Fourth Sunday of Easter is also informally known as “Good Shepherd Sunday.” Every year there is a thematic focus on Jesus as the Good Shepherd. You heard reference to it in the collect appointed for this day. And in the Gospel reading appointed for this year Jesus identifies himself as the “good shepherd.”
I know that this will sound like sacrilege, but I’ve never been a real big fan of all of the Good Shepherd stuff. I have very mixed feelings about Jesus as the good shepherd. I do understand the good in this image and why, in particular, we tend to use it with children. It is comforting. It portrays Jesus as a protector and as someone who knows us by name. Those are certainly good messages.
But, as I’ve probably said before, a necessary implication of the image of Jesus as the good shepherd is that we are the sheep. And I really don’t like being a sheep. The stuffed animal sheep we give to children are cuddly, but passive, of course. Not really helpful qualities in life. Real sheep (and I’ve been around real sheep) are dumb, dirty, herd animals. Not qualities I aspire too, either.
It seems even in Jesus’ day the image of a shepherd was more nostalgic than realistic. Most of Jesus’ followers would have been very familiar with the images of planting and sowing, but not herding, as agriculture had become dominant.
But the image of a shepherd is prominent in Scripture… in the Hebrew Scriptures that Jesus would have known. And as I’ve been reading this week I’ve come across a somewhat different slant on Jesus as shepherd. It doesn’t completely get rid of the sheep, but it helps provide a new perspective. It seems very likely that Jesus was drawing upon these Old Testament passages about shepherds. And in those passages, the shepherd is a metaphor for the king. So it isn’t about individual pastoral relationships between shepherd and sheep. It’s about political rule. It’s not about Jesus as caregiver in our church nurseries or individual spiritual care. It’s about the leader of our corporate destiny (See Sloyan, Interpretation Commentary on John).
Ezekiel 34 is important background for John 10. There God denounces the shepherds or rulers who have not cared for the flock (His people) and have plundered it, neglecting the weak, the sick, and the straying. “So they were scattered for want of a shepherd and became food for all the wild beasts… my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth with none to seek or search for them” (34:5-6). God promises that he will take his flock away from these wicked shepherds, and he himself will become their shepherd. “I shall lead them out of the nations, and gather them from the countries; I shall bring them to their own land and tend them on the mountains of Israel… I shall feed them with good pasture… I myself shall be the shepherd over the sheep. … I shall seek the lost” (34:11-16) (Raymond Brown, John).
The good shepherd is a king who does not plunder or exploit his people, but cares for them and brings them together. It seems clear that in John’s time some of God’s people were following other shepherds, other leaders. And these worldly leaders must have been compelling or attractive, drawing the people away from following God.
The same is true in our time. Leaders other than God compel our obedience, seduce our interest and commitment. Who are they in your life? But these worldly leaders, wicked shepherds, hired hands do not truly care for their people. They plunder, scatter, and neglect the people who follow them.
Jesus reassures the people to whom he spoke and us, that he is a good shepherd. A noble or model shepherd some translations say. Jesus will not abandon the people who follow him. He will collect and care for them.
But in addition to its powerful reassurance, this passage offers a challenge to us. As a community led by Jesus, how are we to live in the world? As a parish community or as a broader Christian community who follow Jesus as our leader, what does it mean to live as citizens of his kingdom? Not as sheep so much, but as citizens faithful to his rule and committed to his work in the world.
