What makes a shepherd good?
“Sheep are dumb.” It was perhaps one of the most memorable opening lines from any homily that I heard during my days in the seminary. “Sheep are dumb. Next to the barnyard chicken, they are probably the dumbest animal around. There. I’ve said it. Now what are you going to do with this image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd of the dumbest animal on the planet? Don’t you kind of resent it? Because you know he is talking about you and me as those dumb sheep!” I remember thinking in my arrogance – “No – he’s talking about YOU, the giver of this lame homily.”
But reflecting on it, I realized that as soon as he spoke that opening line, it did bother me. I had to re-work the primary image in my head about this reading. The focus is really not on us as the sheep – that dumbest of animals. He was right in shaking us out of those bucolic images of shepherds – however romanticized we have constructed them to be in holy cards. The Malibu Jesus, with flowing, immaculate robes, long hair swept back and sheep clutched lovingly in his arms like a pet dog, had to go. Instead, he was inviting us to look at what makes a shepherd GOOD.
You see, in John’s gospel, the evangelist plays with these dual images – Jesus the shepherd and Jesus as the sheep/lamb. Interestingly enough, it is this image of Jesus as a Lamb that teaches us about Jesus as the Good Shepherd. When John the Baptist saw Jesus making his first appearance in the gospel narrative, he exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” Skip forward to Palm Sunday, when Jesus travels to Jerusalem, with the crowd chanting his name in fever pitch. Caiaphas ironically, but prophetically states: “It is better than one man should die for the country than for all to die.” So, when is Jesus sacrificed, when does he ‘die for the country’? Jesus was crucified on the Day of Preparation for the Passover. At noon, which was the exact hour the high priest Caiaphas would be following the ritual liturgy as he inaugurated the beginning of the Passover observance with the sacrifice of an unblemished lamb. But John’s Gospel makes the subtle but profound point that the real action was happening just outside the gates of the city, across town from the Temple. There, the true Lamb of God, Jesus, voluntarily and once-and-for-all laid down his life. But unlike that sheep without blemish, chosen as a victim – Jesus FREELY lays his life down for us. “I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it back up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own!”
That is the image of the Shepherd that Jesus wants us to meditate upon – not that sheep are dumb – but that the shepherd is willing to lay down his life for us. And that is what makes a shepherd good – that willingness to live a sacrificial life. And that got me to thinking – for whom DO I lay down my life? If Jesus is so willing to lay down his for me – to draw me so profoundly into that circle of sacrifice and love, HOW am I laying down my life for others? How am I living that shepherd’s love in my own days and time?
Just because some of the answers are obvious, that does not make them any less profound.
Sheep might be dumb. And that is okay, despite my reactions to my seminary professor’s homily so many years ago. You see, because of what I know about the lamb, I also know about the shepherd – who is Good because he freely lays down his life for me. Now, I can do t