A Shepherd? Really?

Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A

Good Shepherd by Sadao Watanabe

Acts 2:42-47 | Psalm 23 | 1 Peter 2:19-25 | John 10:1-10

Sometimes my neighbour Leslie asks me to come and give a hand with her sheep.

Perhaps we will be sorting lambs. Perhaps we will be giving shots to the sheep. Perhaps we will be separating ewes for breeding purposes. Perhaps we will be setting up the pens for lambing, and moving the ewes into those pens.

No matter what we are doing, I know that I will come home pleasantly tired.

And I will come home smelling like sheep: clothes, hands, and sometimes hair, all with a distinct odour of sheep.

Now the people with sheep in my community don’t call themselves shepherds. As one farmer puts it: “I’m not a shepherd because I don’t sleep with my sheep.”

Even so, their life with their sheep is very different than the images of a shepherd with a sheep that we are used to from stained glass windows and Sunday school images. Sheep are not white and fluffy and cute (although the lambs are adorable). They are rambunctious animals, stubborn and sometimes stupid, and being with them is a full sensory experience.

Our preconceptions of sheep and even shepherds often don’t quite match up with reality.

When Jesus began to talk about shepherds and sheep to the disciples, John tells us that they couldn’t figure out what he was getting at. They didn’t understand what he was trying to tell them.

They simply didn’t get it. That might be because he seemed to be beginning with a general discussion of shepherds and sheep. He didn’t start by saying, “I am the good shepherd” (that bit comes after today’s reading). He began by talking about how one gets in the sheepfold: by the gate or by climbing over the fence. 

For the disciples, who were perhaps not thinking about getting in with the sheep by either gate or climbing, the topic seemed a little random.

But to us, in hindsight, Jesus’ words seem pretty clear.

Didn’t the disciples know Psalm 23 by heart? Wouldn’t that have been a clue as to what Jesus is saying here: that he is a good shepherd just like God is a good shepherd?

We all think of God as the shepherd who leads us by still waters, feeds us in good pastures, comforts us when we are distressed, strengthens us when we are weak, and finds us when we are lost. Didn’t the disciples know this Psalm?

And didn’t they know the prophetic books especially Ezekiel 34, where the shepherds are the ones who are supposed to strengthen the weak, heal the sick, and bind up the the wounded? The shepherds are the ones who are to bring back those who have strayed, and look for the lost.

And, in Ezekiel, when the shepherds (or in other words, the leaders) show themselves unable do this – when they reveal that they are unable to care for the most vulnerable - the Creator God will enter the fray and be the one who binds up the injured, and strengthens the weak, and finds the lost, and feeds the hungry. The Creator God will become the shepherd of the sheep.

These are pretty straightforward Hebrew Bible allusions for the shepherd imagery that Jesus uses. 

So why don’t the disciples get it? Why are they puzzled? And, later in the passage, why do the religious leaders think that Jesus is out of his mind for using this imagery? In fact, they think he has a demon.

It’s pretty clear: this is not a straightforward image for those listening to Jesus.

Could it be that in the cultural context of the first century there were other associations connected to shepherd imagery, cultural associations that were more current, and more powerful than the biblical background of Psalm 23 and Ezekiel 34?

And maybe there were associations that were not so positive.

On the one hand shepherds were seen as disreputable —after all, who would take a job where you have to sleep out on the field with the sheep, where you are not home with your family, where you spend all your time outside, cold, dirty, and in danger? Only the most desperate take a job like that.

But it wasn’t just the lack of status that shepherds evoked, but also pagan immorality.

After all, who was the Greek god who was associated with shepherds? The shepherd-god Pan.

And what was Pan famous for, with his cloven goat hooves, and his tail, and his little horns nestled in his curly hair? He was famous for wild parties and excessive drinking, and for his desire for the Nymphs who ran from his sexual assaults.

He was also famous for creating panic, for causing people to be overwhelmed by fear and anxiety when in the woods, for causing violence to erupt when he passed by.

And he was a god also associated with demons, which is why the devil is often portrayed in ways that echo descriptions of Pan: cloven feet, a tail, and horns. No wonder when Jesus began to talk about himself as a shepherd, some people thought he had a demon.

That said, Pan was also revered as the god who ensured that flocks were fertile. He was the shepherd-god, the god that shepherds prayed to in hopes that their flocks would be abundant.

Even so he was a decidedly pagan god, with out-of-control desires; a god that good Jewish boys like the disciples didn’t consider respectable.

Now, Jesus did drink wine with his disciples, and he ate with tax collectors and sinners, and he did share an abundance of food with all; things that might have made some people think that he had more of an affinity with Pan than was healthy for a good Jewish rabbi.

And his language about being the shepherd of the sheep. might have reinforced his already disreputable image.

So why does Jesus do it? Why does he keep carrying on about being a good shepherd? Especially when, as John tells us, it doesn’t resonate with those who are following him?

Could Jesus be undermining this popular god, the shepherd god Pan? Could he be reminding the disciples of the ancient promises of the prophets? Is he perhaps trying to renew their minds with this ancient metaphor, trying to expand their imaginative horizon with these words?

For Jesus deliberately contrasts himself with others who come to steal and kill and destroy.

Unlike the political leaders of his day, who engage in theft and violence, and unlike Pan, who brings panic partly because of his sexual violence, Jesus is a shepherd who is the Life-Giver, the one who ensures abundance and fertility.

Bringing abundance and fertility is not that different than the god Pan.

But Jesus does this not by an excess of desire, but by caring tenderly for the sheep.

Jesus is the one who doesn’t create panic, anxiety and fear, but the one who offers comfort in the valley of death, the one who finds green pastures and clean drinking water, he is the one willing to offer his life for the sheep in his fold, and to offer welcome those who appear to be outsiders.

He is like no other shepherd they’ve met before. For this shepherd does not inflict pain, but is also the Pain-Bearer, willing to suffer for the sake of the sheep.

This was an image of a leader that the disciples could not get their heads around. Who would want to lead on those terms? Who would want to be a shepherd if it means dying for the sheep, if it means laying down your life? Under those circumstances, why would anyone want this role?

The disciples don’t get it. At least not then.

At this point in the story they are still trying to figure out what kind of a Messiah this Jesus guy is.

They are still marveling at the healings and the feeding of thousands of people.

But we know that they did eventually understand.

For our first reading today seems to be a fulfillment of those passages from the Hebrew Bible about what it is to be a leader, about what it is that the shepherds of the people are called to do.

It’s as if now they understand everything that had been taking place: why Jesus washed their feet, why Jesus was willing to carry the weight of evil and violence to the cross and into death, why the resurrection meant forgiveness and healing and the tending and feeding of the sheep.

For what else were they doing as they began their common life together as a new community except walking in the way of Jesus?

Teaching and fellowship, eating together and prayers.

They were healing those who were sick — for what else are wonders and signs but the restoration of health and community?

They were caring for the most vulnerable: selling possessions and goods, distributing the proceeds to those in need.

They practiced generosity. 

What else is this but the fulfillment of those ancient texts where the shepherds were called to freed the hungry heal the sick, bind up the wounded, care for the weak and seek the lost?

It’s as if they realized that if Jesus is the shepherd who brings life rather than death, then they needed to be a community that brought life rather than death.

You see, even though we often read this story as if the disciples were powerful leaders, the reality was quite different. They lived in a world much like our own: they lived in a violent empire, where women and slaves were viewed as bodies to be exploited and used.

They lived in a society where the rich called the shots and had all the power, and where theft and the arbitrary death of the innocent was common (don’t forget that Pilate knew Jesus was innocent but handed him over to death anyway).

And these disciples, called to be leaders in this new resurrection community didn’t really have any power that mattered. They were repeatedly thrown in jail. They were repeatedly arrested and beat up. 

And so they did what all of those without power have done throughout history to challenge the violence and power of those in control.

They created a community of life and abundance. They created a community that embodied the shepherd calling that Jesus called them to.

This was a community, remember, that had recently gone through the traumatic death of their leader. A community that knew what it was to have a broken heart, a community acquainted with grief. 

And after the resurrection of Jesus, they knew that against all the evidence, that mourning and grief would lead to new life.

And so we have a glimpse in Acts 2, into what happened when the disciples finally understood what Jesus was saying.

In the face of the thieves who steal and kill and destroy; in the presence of the gods of empire, like Pan, who promise abundance, but create panic and anxiety and fear, Jesus is calling us, like the early Jesus-followers, to be a different kind of community.

A community that knows mourning and grief, but also joy. A community that bears each others burdens, that helps those who are in need —whether that be because they can no longer afford food, or gas, or health care, or whether that be because they are afraid to go to work or school because ICE is in their neighbourhood.

In Jesus’ day it was the image of the shepherd that was confusing for those who longed for new life. In our day, it is the image of the christian that is confusing for those who long for new life. Just as Jesus challenged the fear-laden imagery associated with shepherds for his followers, so may we challenge the toxic imagery associated with christians in our culture, and show instead that we are a community of Jesus-followers that shares life and shares it abundantly.

Amen.