Waiting for the Good Shepherd (John 10:1-10)

When we think of Jesus, an image enters into our minds.  Perhaps the most familiar is the one of Jesus in profile.  He is generically Caucasian wearing soft robes.  His hair and beard neatly trimmed, his gaze tilted upward in an otherworldly reverence.  You’ve seen this Jesus, haven’t you?

The image might appear above the family mantle, part of the woodwork of your home growing up.  He was one of the constants, handed down from a grandparent to your parents, keeping a constant watch over the household, through times thick and thin, dinners heartily enjoyed or times when the tears flow.  He’s there through it all.

             Or Jesus is there, gazing at heaven above, keeping faithful company in a nursing home resident’s room.  Family pictures, greeting cards from a recent birthday take up much of the space, yet for this picture, the cards and pictures part and leave a little space, giving pride of place to this holy image.  He’s not just another picture of a grinning relative or the frontispiece of a card with a syrupy little verse sent on the occasion of her 93rd birthday.  Jesus is here because the old woman, sometimes not sure who she is some days, has grown quite fond, some would say even trusting, of his company.

Elsewhere, Jesus appears, not in a pride of place setting but where he is meant to look out of place, the effort of some hipster wanting to appear ironic (the goal of all hipsters, yea verily).  It’s amusing to him to keep the mass-produced image of Jesus in his loft.  It’s “Jesus on crushed velvet”.  He bought at a Goodwill store a couple of years ago for a buck.  It usually elicits some sort of smirk or snark when people drop by.  Yet, every once in a while, when he’s by himself, he looks over at the image and feels something about seeing that face that he cannot quite place.

This image of Jesus is like any other image of Jesus we know.  It’s not meant to be a Polaroid, though we can’t help but see that old image in our mind, can’t we?  We know that Jesus did not look like the images we paint or draw or simply gaze upon.  Generally, anybody in first century Palestine who made it past age thirty had lived a pretty hard life already.  As our New Testament professor liked to say, Jesus was like any other male of his age and culture: Jesus didn’t have “dental”.  We tend to “posh” Jesus up a bit out of our devotion and reverence, yet we cannot help ourselves. We like to create images to help us connect to our belief. 

Look around even in the type of Protestants who claim to carry on the tradition of eschewing icons and statues, and you will find somewhere in the church a framed print of Jesus.  He is welcoming the children gladly or kneeling in prayer in a garden.  There is something about an image that helps us “connect”. 

Likewise, the gospel of John offers up this splendid image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.  Jesus describes himself as the faithful tender of the flock, who cares intimately for each and every sheep, who looks out for the welfare of all in his care, to the point of laying down his life for the flock.  I keep an image in my office of Jesus the Good Shepherd, as it reflects what Jesus means to me.  I also keep it around in case others visiting my office, especially to speak of matters troubling the soul, might find this Jesus, holding a lamb as one that helps them know that “Church” is a place where the flock can be tended.

Back in the first century, the shepherd image struck a chord with the early Christians, who lived in very uncertain times.  When under persecution or other forms of adversity, they could gaze upon such an image and take strength.  Many of the earliest depictions of Jesus by his followers recall this image frequently.  When in times of challenge, images of the Shepherd’s benevolent care and presence spoke of the care and presence of Jesus being remembered in the lives of early Christian believers.

As time passed, the Good Shepherd image began to fade away.  By the fifth century, it became rare for “new” art among Christians to include a “good shepherd” type image.  This shift away from the Good Shepherd can be seen in artwork created around 430 CE.  In that year, in Ravenna, Italy, Christians created a martyrium, a type of holy mausoleum in honor of St. Lawrence, a Christian martyr who tried to protect holy books from burning.  (He is the patron saint of libraries, and I believe he was well honored this weekend with the library sale in our fellowship hall.  Unfortunately, he does not protect book readers from gluttony.) 

In the ceiling of the martyrium, you will find the Good Shepherd staring down at the Christian pilgrim.  He

sits on a pile of stones in a shrub-covered, rugged landscape.  His beardless, boyish face, framed by wavy shoulder-length hair, turns across his right shoulder toward a sheep who gazes at him, one of six arrayed around him on the rocky outcroppings.  With his left hand, he holds a shepherd’s staff in the form of a cross-shaped labarum, and his right hand extends to touch the uplifted face of a sheep.  (Nakashima Brock and Parker, Saving Paradise, p. 87)

To clarify:  The depiction of a more youthful, beardless Jesus is common in the imagery of early Christian artists.  (The “Barry Gibb” look would catch on later.) The gentle image of the Shepherd caring for his lamb seems ordinary enough yet the scene’s tranquility is offset by what Jesus bears in his left hand.  One expects to see the shepherd’s staff, but in the form of a “labarum”, which looks like a tall cross, yet labarums function as a “royal standard”. 

A century prior, the Roman emperor Constantine had adopted Christianity as the state religion.  In turn, Christianity began shifting into a new era of existence.  No longer “barely tolerated”, the officially recognized religion of the Empire began taking on the trappings of royal favor.  Images of Jesus were not immune.  Rather than the simple garb of a herdsman, Jesus is given finer robes.  One hundred years after Constantine, the shepherd’s crook becomes “gold-plated”. 

The Christian claim to Jesus’ royalty is certainly within the scope of the New Testament, yet the history of Christianity’s shift into imperial religion left some less than desirable marks on church history.  Christianity became part of the royal court’s interests and less about claiming the humility inherent of being part of the Good Shepherd’s flock. 

Ironically, as the Church became “mainstream” we see in church history the problems of a religion becoming vested in its own power and agendas.  Hence the history of saintly types in Christian history often turns on their embrace of simpler lives and values, often moving against the grain of the church’s status quo of the day or suffering all manner of guff from the protectors of orthodoxy.  More often than not, after Christendom got underway, we found ourselves waiting for the “Good Shepherd” to reappear. 

The biblical texts speak of the “good” kind of rulers being those who did not take advantage or exploit the people.  The prophet Ezekiel takes a good swing at royals gone bad, casting them in the role of shepherds who have lived sumptuously at the expense of the people, or the flock for whom they were responsible.  Reading the Bible, you find no “great” good rulers and most of them fall into the “epic fail” category.  In placing the labarum in the Good Shepherd’s hands, a certain loss was experienced by Christianity over the coming centuries.  The Church became “state religion”, keeping Jesus enthroned in the heavens more than in the midst of the world, tending and feeding the faithful and their needs.

Ironically, the Good Shepherd teaching in John’s gospel came about when “establishment religion” got in the way of religion at its best.  Go back to John 9, where Jesus healed a man blind since birth, only to find out that the religious authorities have reacted poorly to this healing.  They have badgered and questioned the healed man.  They have turned him away from communal acceptance, a particularly cruel act as the man had spent his life as a blind man relegated to the edge of society. Now that he is healed and made whole, the man finds that the religious leaders have pushed him back to the margins. The religious leaders here are the type that look for ways not only to control the fate of the flock, they also have a padlock at the ready for the gate of the sheepfold.

John 10 is the response of Jesus to religious folks vested too much in control and power. We are offered a shepherd who is only interested in being “good”, at the ready to serve and to tend.  This shepherd works hard to raise the best flock possible and goes above and beyond.  This shepherd knows each of the flock by name and would not have it any other way.  Jesus sees the folly of what happens to the man healed of his blindness, and he offers this alternative vision for what we ought to be claiming God is doing in the midst of the world.

Throughout its narrative, the gospel of John celebrates that Jesus brings abundant life.  To follow Jesus the Good Shepherd is to be on a pathway that runs through the midst of the world, yet aims to live by the counter-rhythms of the gospel.  We learn where we need to go, how to live by what God, not worldly power, has offered us, from which waters to drink deeply.  We begin to see where God is at in fray of existence, and learn how to live in the fullness of resurrection faith and with ardent trust.

So we learn to speak of Jesus, the one who is not removed from the times in our lives when tears flow and challenges bedevil.  So we learn to speak of the church, the gathering of people who understand their true calling only when they claim their identity as the sheepfold of the Good Shepherd.  So we learn to gaze upon images of Jesus that bring us closer to the gospel faith, seeing the Christ who reigns in glory, yet is best known as if a Shepherd to his flock.

AMEN.

Why Jesus isn't merely "good" (John 10:11-18)

When we visited Ireland, two observations especially remain in my mind. First, when you see the verdant green hills of Ireland, you realize there is no such thing as a bad picture of Ireland. Every single photo of the countryside is flawless and picturesque. As I told my friends around the seminary after we got back home, when God created Ireland, God was showing off.

As the little tour buses wound their way around the mountains, the hills were full of peacefully grazing sheep. I took pictures as quickly as I could as the bus moved by, and every photo was postcard quality. I am not a photographer with any great skill, again, the natural beauty of the place overwhelmed any inadequacies of an amateur photographer. (There was a little trouble with these photos. I decided to send photos of Ireland via email to a few friends back home, including one picture of Kerry. I wrote to my friends, “Here is a photo of my lovely wife”, attached the file, and clicked “Send”. The next day, I learned that I had clicked on the wrong file. When my friends read the email about my lovely wife and opened the attached file, it turned out to be a photo of a meadow full of sheep.)

There is a certain peace in this image of Christ as the Good Shepherd. Even though the world’s population tends to live increasingly in urbanized areas, I daresay the open meadow with the sheep grazing peacefully and a shepherd standing watch with his crook still speaks modern day people. In the chaotic hustle and bustle of this noisy global village, I hold out a bit of hope that this image still speaks to us, its simplicity providing a quiet, contrary word while we keep speeding up the ways we live that still somehow leave us feeling rundown.

I keep an image of the Good Shepherd in my office, a simple icon of Jesus carrying a shepherd’s crook and placing a benevolent hand upon a small child. I keep it in my office, in hope that a person visiting my office, especially in need of a good word in the midst of life’s challenges, might see this icon and find a word of peace there in the steady gaze and gentle grace of the Christ welcoming all who come before him.

As a child, I remember seeing the good shepherd long before I knew the story as told by the Gospel of John. When we traveled to Independence, Kansas, we would invariably pass by this church on our way around town. It was a large mosaic of the Good Shepherd, sort of an avant-garde look to it, considering churches in Kansas are modest in their taste. Even as a child, I recollect staring at the image up there on the side of the church, that Jesus standing high above the busy street below, welcoming a little lamb.

That image was of especial help one time when my father went in for surgery. It was minor surgery. Today, he probably sent home same-day, but to a preschool age kid, it was a worry. Dad was away, he was not there at night to tuck me in, and worst of all, he was in a hospital! (Note: Generally, kids are not crazy about hospitals. There are nurses with 80-foot needles awaiting you, and back in the primitive era known as the 1970s, “old school” nurses lurked at every corner, challenging your parents about the propriety of bringing children along for visits. Nowadays, children are more generally welcomed, and the needles are more compact—they only chase you with 20-foot needles.)

I remember going along with my mother and sister to the hospital, fretting about whether dad would come home today as mother promised us that he would. I remember going by the church with the Good Shepherd on the side. In the middle of my pre-K mind’s worry, I remember feeling a momentary calm come over me. I had never heard the story of Good Shepherd at that point in life, but somehow, I found something so comforting in that image. 

Moving into my seminary studies, where I became acquainted with the depths of riches found in biblical scholarship, I learned to read the Good Shepherd with more insight into the first century Greek used by the New Testament writers and the growing study of the cultural anthropology of the New Testament world. In other words, I learned that Jesus is not the “good” shepherd. Technically, John’s gospel uses the Greek word kalos, translated more precisely as Jesus being the “model” shepherd.

Back in the 1960s, the Catholic New Testament scholar, Father Raymond Brown wrote an historic two-volume commentary on John. He notes “Greek kalos means ‘beautiful’ in the sense of an ideal or model of perfection”. Brown calls back to the earlier passage of John’s gospel when at the wedding of Cana, Jesus’ miracle of turning the water into wine created something considered not just “good” but “kalos”, a “choice” wine. Thus, Jesus is not merely “good”, he is the best, the choice, “the model” shepherd.

Father Brown himself was an example of a “model” scholar—he was so dedicated, so ardent in his love of the gospel and its study that you could not ask for any better example of a biblical scholar. He loved his craft so much that he even lived in the library at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He wrote books and essays on John’s gospel his entire life, even revising his previously held scholarly opinions if he had changed his mind on interpreting the text as he engaged other Johannine scholars. When he died in 1998, his colleague Phylis Trible remarked how appropriate Fr. Brown’s last book, published shortly after his death, was a book exploring the spirituality of John’s gospel, the book’s subtitle “That You May Believe”. I would like to imagine when Father Brown reached the Pearly Gates, the gospel writer John himself was there to meet him with a word of welcome. “You were a kalos kind of scholar, Ray.”

This is the dedication Jesus has for his sheep. No matter what time of day, no matter the task, it is like

a farm hand that never stops before the crop is in, a top business executive who works at her desk until the business day is done, a school teacher who patiently helps that child puzzle out a math problem in third grade, a volunteer who goes down to New Orleans to repair a home or who runs across Bennington to spend the morning stuffing envelopes for a non-profit organization.

That kalos level of dedication is just the beginning of a glimmer of what sort of shepherd we encounter in Jesus. This shepherd shall go to the ends of hill and dale to care for and protect his flock, even if it means going into the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus is not just “proficient” or “good”. He is kalos.

Contemporary New Testament scholar N.T. “Tom” Wright offers us a helpful word. He writes,  "The point of calling Jesus ‘the good shepherd’ is to emphasize the strange, compelling power of his love”. (John for Everyone, Pt. 1, Chapters 1-10, W/JKP, 2004, p. 154) Hearing the gospel in the proclamation of the Church, and better yet, seeing it embodied by Christ’s followers, the world is given the chance, in many wonderful and diverse ways, to taste and see that the Lord is kalos.

To follow this shepherd, we consent to being part of his flock. As far as Jesus is concerned, his flock is the world, but each of us must choose to listen to his voice. Jesus does not turn away anyone, a part of the gospel message the Church is still trying to get right all these centuries later, however, you have to listen. John’s gospel criticizes those who do not listen to Jesus’ voice as those who have chosen to do so. John speaks of “the mark of faithfulness to Jesus and his word” as a sign that a person has chosen to be a disciple by following Christ’s voice. (Gail O’Day, “John”, New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, p. 670)

Return to the words of this morning’s assurance of pardon. We confessed together these words stating our shortcomings and sins, our lapses in faithfulness, and then we heard a word that gave us grace upon grace:

Beloved of God, know that God shepherds you throughout life’s journey, feeding and leading you, tending and calling you by name. Know in Christ’s name, you are the beloved Sheep of the Good Shepherd.

Wherever we are on the journey of life, no matter how far we have wandered, no matter our needs, Christ the shepherd looks after us, each one. Can you hear his voice? It calls across the desk at work, as you stand in line with groceries at the check-out, running across the park with your children, and in the middle of the night when you think you’re the only one awake and worried about the day just past or the day yet to come. Listen for that voice, and follow.