In the name of our Risen Lord and Good Shepherd: Jesus Christ. Amen.
“I am the good shepherd,” says Jesus. There are a lot of ways of understanding Jesus, but here, in his own words, Jesus tells us who he is. Because of the easy association of the Good Shepherd with Psalm 23 and the renowned shepherd-king of Israel, King David, along with the sacrificial elements of sheep, this Good Shepherd image is one of the most common and cherished in our faith. But, for the vast majority of us, the metaphor is a bit abstract and antiquated. When was the last time any of us saw a shepherd? I mean, sure, we can guess that a shepherd tends a flock of sheep – but what does that actually entail?
More
than knowing that Jesus is a shepherd though, this particular way of
understanding Jesus includes the modifier “good.” It’s not just that Jesus is
the shepherd of our souls, but that he is the Good Shepherd. There’s anessential
passage from the prophet Ezekiel that helps us to understand both what a
shepherd ought to do and what separates the good ones from the bad. Ezekiel
receives this word from God: “Say to the shepherds of my people Israel, ‘Ah,
you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds
feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you
slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not
strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the
injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost,
but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because
there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild
animals.’”
Jesus
puts it a bit differently, calling them not bad shepherds, but “hired hands.”
They’re not even worthy of being called “shepherds” because what they are doing
isn’t for the sheep, but for themselves. When danger comes, they run and leave
the sheep to the wolves. As Ezekiel prophesied, these bad shepherds are happy
to use the sheep for financial gains – selling and using their meat and wool,
but they don’t take care of the sickly sheep, they don’t dress their wounds,
they don’t seek out the lost, they don’t give adequate food, shelter, or
protection. And the result is the dissolution of the flock.
Clearly,
these are metaphors – Jesus, as far as we know, did not have a flock of literal
sheep that he was caring for. This tells us that the bad shepherds or hired
hands are something other than negligent agriculturalists. If the shepherd
metaphor is about having someone that cares for God’s people, defends them,
feeds them, and guides them, then these bad shepherds are those who do the
opposite. So, who are the bad shepherds for us to worry about?
I’m
sure you can think of some. Sadly, the church can be one of these hired hands.
When the church cares more about its prominence in the community or the size of
its budget or membership, then bad things can happen. Witnessing to the radical
and transforming nature of our faith is sometimes pushed aside because it will
be considered too divisive or controversial. Instead of caring for God’s flock,
too often the church is concerned with its own ability to exert influence into
politics or to have a role in legislating morality. The sheep are not served
when the church acts based on its own self-interest.
Certainly,
capitalism is a hired hand that does not care for the sheep. To be clear, I’m
not an economist, so I can’t tell you what economic practices would be better
for the flock, but I know it’s not what we have – where the earth is polluted,
the poor are oppressed, and everyone else is left to fight it out while the
super-wealthy buy and sell sports franchises as investment opportunities.
Our
legal system is another bad shepherd. I’ve just finished reading an interesting
book called How Rights Went Wrong about the uniquely American obsession with
personal rights. The author, a Constitutional law professor at Columbia, notes
that our legal system is about producing winners and losers instead of finding
solutions and reconciling differences. And this is most obvious when it comes
to the questions of rights. Rights have become a hired hand that promise to
give us the things we need, but more often than not they just end up framing
our lives around what we are allowed to do instead of what we should be doing. The
result is that flock is often at war with itself.
The
so-called justice that the criminal justice system has promised often ends up
coming out crooked, as one of the prophets puts it. While it was a relief to
see our legal system hold the officer who murdered George Floyd accountable for
his deeds, as people of faith, we make a grave error when we turn to the legal
system for justice instead of doing the harder, and more important work, of
creating a more just society starting with our own families, communities,
schools, and workplaces. Confusing a hired hand for a shepherd can be
dangerous.
I’m
sure you can think of plenty of other bad shepherds, so I’ll mention just one
more – violence. We’ve never met a problem that violence, or the threat of
violence, doesn’t appear to be for us a solution. Whether it’s excessive
spending on the hired hand of our nation’s military budget while we have
underfunded schools and aging infrastructure, or a firearm bought under the
guise of self-defense that ends up being used in a domestic dispute,
depression, or found by a curious toddler, violence promises to protect to us,
to be a good shepherd, but almost always getting turned back on the sheep.
Whether
the promise of security is financial, physical, emotional, or social, we are
surrounded by bad shepherds who tell us that our best interest is their
priority, that they will always take care of us, that we can trust them and
hand over to them our livelihood, our allegiances, our money, our children, our
identity. And sometimes these hired hands whose flocks we willingly join make
good on their promises – at least on some of them. In the short term, being a
greedy, violent, and selfish person can get us what we want. Churches that
focus on being the biggest can enjoy the fleeting, but still real, successes of
being popular and trendy. But bad shepherds, just like idols and false gods,
always demand more than they will give.
Yes,
using the image of a shepherd from Psalm 23, we might say that a good shepherd
guides us, is present with us, refreshes us, and nourishes us. Indeed, Jesus as
our Good Shepherd is with us in the valley of the shadow of death, through the
Eucharist he makes our cup to run over with grace and mercy, he allows us to
encounter his peace that passes all understanding so that we can lie down in
green pastures beside still waters. And I am thankful for these things. But these
things, as wonderful as they might be, are not what makes Jesus the Good
Shepherd. Those things make him good at being a shepherd. But what makes Jesus
the Good Shepherd is, in his own words that “the good shepherd lays down his
life for the sheep.”
Unlike
the hired hands who run at the first sign of trouble or the bad shepherds who
are more than happy to extract meat and wool from the sheep but really aren’t
concerned with their long-term wellbeing, the good shepherd is so invested in
the sheep that he is willing to give up his own life for theirs. This Good
Shepherd does not run from the wolves, but rather gives himself over the wolves
of Sin and Death so that they might never again prey on the flock.
In
1 John we heard the same sentiment – “we know love by this, that he laid down
his life for us.” If we want to know why Jesus is the Good Shepherd, we look to
the Cross and see there on full display the love of God for us. Those bad
shepherds and hired hands cannot and will not give themselves for us. Violence
begets violence, not salvation. There is no such thing as “enough” when it
comes to money, and so the economy will always seek to extract more and more,
leaving us with less time, less joy, less satisfaction. Being right or having
fame can change just as quickly as the direction of wind, so tying ourselves to
those hired hands leaves us unsettled and uncertain.
Our
Good Shepherd Jesus though gives us so much more than he asks of us. Actually,
he doesn’t even ask us for anything, rather he gives us entrance into the New
Creation of his Resurrection in which we can live in harmony with the deepest
truths of reality, with the beauty of grace and love surrounding us, with the assurance
of forgiveness and everlasting life. This is what the author of 1 John is
beckoning us towards: “Let us love, (and I’d add an “only” here), not only in
word or speech, but in truth and action.” This is what our Good Shepherd does
for us – loves us to the fullest depths of truth and to the furthest extreme of
action: death on a Cross.
This
death was not final though, just as Jesus laid down his life, he picked it up
again by the power of love which is stronger than even death. And in doing so,
Jesus has made the whole creation new and opened to us this way of love. And, as
our Good Shepherd, he calls us into the green pasture of Resurrection through
the still waters of Baptism.
The
question for you and for me is “whose voice do we follow?” Certainly, there are
the Siren songs of fame, glory, self-righteousness, wealth, power, revenge,
being right. But there is another voice that calls to each of us. It’s a voice
that tells us “be not afraid.” Yes, that
voice might call us to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but our
Good Shepherd will be with us as we walk that way. It is a voice that will say
“The Lord is risen” and compels us to go and tell others what we have seen. It
is a voice that knows us better than we know ourselves. It is the voice of our
Good Shepherd who calls us to trust that we are known, loved, forgiven, and
redeemed. It is the voice of he who said “This is my Body, this is my Blood,
given for you.” It is the voice of the One who has laid down his life for us
and has risen again. Maybe this voice doesn’t offer us the too-good-to-be-true
promises of those hired hands and bad shepherds, but this is the voice of one
who leads us into refreshment of living in the holy and blessed difference that
Christ makes. Our Good Shepherd calls to us with words assuring, “I am with you
always, and so all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of
things shall be well.”
