As regular as clockwork, as predictable as Royal Poincianas’ bursting forth into riotous red bloom each May, as completely expected as my dog’s meltdown every time a peacock walks in front of our house — so too it is that every fourth Sunday of Easter of every year, year in, year out, we hear shepherd stories. In fact this Sunday has been nicknamed “Good Shepherd Sunday.” And once again we hear the 23rd psalm and some version or another from St. John’s Gospel in which Jesus refers to himself as “the Good Shepherd.”
And perhaps our eyes glaze over…
Perhaps they glaze over because all those saccharine images of blonde, blue-eyed Jesus with a baby lamb slung over his shoulder that peered down at us from Sunday School classrooms of long ago. Perhaps our eyes glaze over because if Jesus is the shepherd that, of course, makes us the sheep. And who wants to be a sheep? They’re stupid, they’re dirty, they smell bad. Perhaps our eyes glaze over because the idea of shepherds is so impossibly foreign, distant, and remote to us. Shepherd? How quaint. And perhaps your eyes glaze over as mine do because of the underlying and quite unsettling realization that the job of a shepherd is to keep sheep safe — until he or she leads them off to slaughter.
Perhaps all of the above.
And yet, here we are again, the fourth Sunday of Easter and we’re hearing I am the good shepherd and we’re hearing that we’ll be led beside still waters where even the threat of death ultimately can’t harm us.
So of course we do have to sit up and pay attention.
But here’s something that may put the “Good Shepherd” analogy of Jesus in a whole new light:
By Jesus’ time, shepherds as a class had slipped to the very bottom rung of the social caste system in first century Palestine. At one time they had been held in rather high esteem — back when the children of Israel were nomadic people. But over the centuries as they became more settled, as they relied more on farming, the rank of shepherd became the lowliest of the low. In fact, it was often a job done by women and young girls — and we all know that women were also not held in particularly high esteem back in the first century.
Here are some FAQ’s about shepherds in Jesus’ time:
- In Christ’s day, shepherds stood on the bottom rung of the Palestinian social ladder. They shared the same unenviable status as tax collectors and dung sweepers.
- By Jesus’ time The religious leaders maligned the shepherd’s good name; rabbis banned pasturing sheep and goats in Israel, except on desert plains.
- The Mishnah, Judaism’s commentary on the Scriptures, described shepherds as “incompetent” and no one should ever feel obligated to rescue a shepherd who has fallen into a pit.
- Biblical scholar Joachim Jeremias noted: In Jerusalem in the time of Jesus “The rabbis asked with amazement how, in view of the despicable nature of shepherds, one can explain why God was called ‘my shepherd’ inPsalm 23, verse 1.” (FAQ’s from Randy Alcorn’s Eternal Perspective Ministries website).
How indeed…?
And on top of all that, Jesus refers to himself as the “Good Shepherd” — which would have sounded completely oxymoronic to the 1st century ears of those religious leaders. The “Good” shepherd! Ha! As if such a thing were even imaginable!
And yet there we have it. The Good Shepherd — one of the more enduring images of Jesus still around with us today, even though we have precious little connection with what that all meant back in his day.
So what does it mean?
Well, what are some other ways Jesus could have referred to himself? “I am the Good King?” “I am the Good Messiah?” “I am the Good Ruler of the Universe?” Yes, of course — because he was/is those things also. But “I am the Good Shepherd?” Wow… “I am the good person down there on the bottom rung of the social ladder, right down there with tax collectors and dung sweepers.” “I am the one banned from shepherding sheep and goats — except out there in the wilderness.”” “I am the one no one should feel obliged to rescue if I fall into a pit.”
Yes — that one. The one who casts his lot with the lowliest of the low. With outcasts and sinners. With those no one else has any use for. With the marginalized, the unloveable, the unloved.
In other words, the one who casts his lot with us. With us! For which of us has not at some point felt so low that our lives felt stuck at the bottom of a pit? And which of us has not at some point felt like an outcast? And which of us, despite our best intentions, has not strayed off into that territory called “sin” — that existential reality in which we find ourselves cut off from God, from each other, and from our true selves Because that, my sisters and brothers, is what the true definition of “sin” actually is. Not the “don’t do this” and “don’t do that” that we associate with the word. Sin is an existential condition of being cut-off, estranged.. And which of us has never spent time spiritually wandering in a wilderness? And which of us has never felt marginalized? Or unloveable? Or unloved?
Yes, Jesus casts his lot with the cast out, the lowest of the low, the marginalized, the unloved; Jesus casts his lot with us.
And we listen for his voice. Yes of course with listen for his voice — because he speaks our language.
Yesterday a group of us, along with members of Plymouth Congregational Church, participated once again in our yearly “Churches in the Grove” AIDS walk. Today members of our St. Stephen’s community are participating, once again, in the wider Miami AIDS walk.
We walked from Plymouth across the campus of Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart and down to the bay where we had a brief prayer service. The Prayer of Confession was based on the 23rd Psalm with verses of the psalm interspersed with reflections. It concluded:
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.In Christ we behold God’s goodness and receive God’s mercy. We give thanks that God, our good shepherd, pursues us, embraces us with his steadfast love, and never lets us go.
We give thanks that God, our good shepherd, pursues us, embraces us, and never lets us go. And that’s why we listen for his voice. Because he speaks our language.
But listening for, and hearing, Christ’s voice doesn’t end with the comfort and healing he provides each of us personally. No, listening for and hearing Christ’s voice also compels us to then respond with action. Respond by seeking out others who may be lost, marginalized. Others who may feel like they are stuck in the bottom of a pit. Or cast out. Or in a spiritual wilderness.
This past Wednesday night our vestry began discussing our 2016 stewardship campaign. And through our discussion a theme began to emerge: “You belong here.”
You belong here, to be part of a community. To experience firsthand Christ’s love for you. To feel uplifted and supported. To share in the sacrament. To know that you are not alone. To know that you are loved.
But our vestry’s emerging theme did not end there. “You belong here…to make a difference in Christ’s name.”
In other words, we each belong here for what this community provides us, but then as we listen more closely for the voice of the Good Shepherd, we hear him sending us out into the wider community to make a difference — just as those pounding the pavement at the AIDS walk are doing today.
In Christ we do indeed “behold God’s goodness and receive God’s mercy.” We do indeed “give thanks that God, our good shepherd, pursues us, embraces us, and never lets us go.” And we then seek ways to share those gifts with a wider world so hungry to receive them.
Christ said: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” And ours is the voice through which others will hear — and then also respond. AMEN.