I am the Good Shepherd

Sermon by Jamie Howison on John 10:11-18

We’ve now arrived on the fourth Sunday in Eastertide, sometimes called Good Shepherd Sunday because the gospel reading is always drawn from the 10th chapter of the Gospel according to John, which is rich with images of the shepherd and the flock. The lectionary also always twins the gospel with the 23rd Psalm, so we have two biblical texts that point to the Lord as shepherd.

It tends to strike us as a very warm image, of course, and even one that sits on the edge of sentimentality. Often paintings of Jesus as the Good Shepherd picture a very clean and serene figure; something Helen Lyons countered with this painting that sits in front of the communion table; a shepherd with large, dirty working hands, and smudges on his face. That image is closer to what a shepherd of the time might have looked like, though it is true that shepherds were as likely to be young women and men—even children—as they were to be grown men.

Original painting by Helen Lyons

Shepherd imagery was not uncommon in the Ancient Near East, because sheep were an important part of that world’s culture and economy. Kings were often said to be the shepherds of their people, both in Israel and in the other nations of that world. A shepherding king was to be one who took care of the people, sometimes as a warrior like King David.

Though they might themselves wield a sword, those ancient kings also had power, wealth, prestige, and privilege. Sure, they might have been held up as great shepherds of their people, but they were not likely to have the dirt-stained hands of a real working shepherd. No, too often kings acted in ways that reflected the power they had come to enjoy, which we see again and again in the stories of the kings of Israel, including even David himself.

There’s a marvelous text in the book of Deuteronomy (17:16-19) that sets out what an Israelite king should look like. Looking ahead to the days when Israel would be well settled in the land, the text says that a king may indeed be appointed, but only under certain conditions:

[The king] must not acquire many horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You must never return that way again.’ And he must not acquire many wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; also silver and gold he must not acquire in great quantity for himself.

Here Walter Brueggemann points out that such a king will function without accumulating massive military prestige—horses—a harem—many wives—and wealth—silver and gold—which are the very things that make the throne a desirable thing for many! What, then, is left?

When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law written for him in the presence of the Levitical priests. It shall remain with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, diligently observing all the words of this law and these statutes…

The true Israelite king’s role is to read and meditate on torah as the foundation of his authority as ruler. If he does that, he might just become the sort of shepherd that the nation really needed.

Of course with only a very few exceptions, the kings of Israel didn’t even come close to such an ideal as this. The prophet Ezekiel, writing from the very heart of the captivity in Babylon, lays hold of the image of the shepherd to account for the cost being paid by the nation for this royal failure:

Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel (by which he means the kings who have ruled over the centuries, and specifically the most recent kings of Judah) 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… (Ezekiel 34: 2-5)

It is a rather scathing indictment, isn’t it? And as Ezekiel continues, he says first that God will now be the shepherd of the sheep, seeking them out, making them to lie down, ultimately culling the herd to remove the corruption. Secondly, Ezekiel proclaims, in time “God will set up over them one shepherd, God’s servant David, and he shall feed them: David shall feed them and be their shepherd.” The historical David had at this point been dead for centuries, so the force is really to point to a true and proper heir to David; a second David or even a son of David.

I’d like to suggest that Ezekiel might have been drawn to embrace the sort of imagery that Helen offers in her painting, even if at first it might have surprised him to imagine a king with big, dirty, working hands. Shepherd hands.

I’d also like to suggest that Jesus would have known well what Ezekiel had to say about the corrupt and complacent “shepherds of Israel,” and about the promise of a new Good Shepherd. “I am the good shepherd,” he says here in John’s account. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

Here N.T. Wright comments,

Throughout the last chapters we have seen Jesus facing death threats. Now he declares that violent death is not just a dangerous possibility; it’s his vocation… The sheep are facing danger; the shepherd will go to meet it, and, if necessary, he will take upon himself the fate that would otherwise befall the sheep. In Jesus’ case, it was necessary, and he did.

This shepherd king—this son of David, as he is called in other places in the gospels—not only has shepherding dirt under his fingernails, but he also has scars on his hands. That is what it cost him to live into his calling to be the good shepherd that Israel has been longing for.

And not just Israel, and here is where the vocation of Jesus departs from Ezekiel’s vision of God as shepherd. Ezekiel’s imagery has a very strong strand of culling the flock. “I will judge between sheep and sheep,” he writes; between rams and goats, between fat and lean. In order to flourish, this flock must be culled.

Jesus, though, offers an audaciously expansive vision, when he says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Traditionally this has often been read as marking the inclusion of the gentiles, which is a fair interpretation so far as it goes. I appreciate, though, Meda Stamper’s caution that

The ‘other sheep’ of John 10:16 leave the door open to the readers/hearers of the Gospel and also warn against any kind of exclusive claim on the shepherd Jesus. Deciding who is in and who is out is really, this suggests, not the business of the sheep and is a mystery to them. We sheep-folk are told only to cleave to Jesus, to love, and to testify…

And of course to give thanks that our shepherd king has dirt under his fingernails and scars in his hands, because truly he is the great good shepherd of this oftentimes rag tag flock we call the church.