As the good shepherd, Jesus opens us to the idea that sacrifice, his sacrifice, is central to understanding love.
Hearing the Good Shepherd within the chaos
Easter 4B | John 10:11-18
I struggle with the shepherd image. Because I have a hard time relating to it. And I don’t know sheep. I don’t know what it’s like to graze herds of sheep in first century Palestine. I have a hard time relating to the idea in…really…any way.
Jesus makes it even worse by talking about being “the good shepherd.” It’s not like I know what would make someone good at this job. In Luke, a good shepherd leaves 99 sheep in the wilderness to go after the one that gets lost. And then he’s like: who wouldn’t do that? To me, I’m just fumbling around and going, OK, I guess that’s what shepherds do…
But that’s not what Jesus is talking about here. Not about himself. His definition of what makes this shepherd good is that he sacrifices himself for the sheep. He gives up his life. He dies. This is what makes him good. He is willing to die.
Then Jesus contrasts this image with the “hired hand”. His problem? He gets paid to do it. He doesn’t sacrifice his life, he isn’t actually connected to the sheep. Not really. No. The hired hand gets paid to care.
So what immediately comes to mind is that the good shepherd has an unhealthy relationship to work. If one of you came to me and described your job in these terms: that what makes you “good” is that you put your life on the line and what makes someone bad is that they get paid…I’d be trying to get you out of there.
A Healthier Image
There’s something getting lost in the two-thousand-year translation. And I think it’s because Jesus is talking about shepherding like we talk about a vocation. This isn’t about money or making a living, though that is inseparable from the concept.
Shepherds were often indentured servants; people compelled by authorities to do the work other people didn’t want to do. So immediately we need to throw away the idea that people are going to a government agency looking for a job or seeing a listing in the paper: “Shepherds Wanted”.
As much as I bristle at the shepherd image, how Jesus describes the good shepherd has a different familiarity to it. It sounds parental.
This is the image that strikes me. Who is willing to give up their life for the life of their little one? The good parent.
The image of sacrifice, self-sacrifice for the health and safety of someone else—there are only a few vocations that can boast that. But only one that has nothing to do with money or being hired.
The Good Parent
The good parent is not only the protector of the family, but is a part of the family.
“I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.”
Jesus describes his relational mission which is built on knowing each other. This is how we relate to each other. And why. To know and be known. To listen and share in the needs of the community.
And this is why the sacrifice he describes is profound and uncommon and yet familiar and attainable. The good parent knows what it is to sacrifice for their children. Who knows that better than the good parent? Who else would be willing to stand between their child and certain death? Not somebody who might say “I don’t get paid enough to do that.” No, a mama or papa bear would.
And yet, this is even different from that. This isn’t a rabid defender, but a sacrificial saint. No self- or community-defense. The only blood shed is the good shepherd’s.
A Bigger Family
And just when we’re starting to get protective; expecting that perhaps this relationship to the good shepherd might offers us some perks; Jesus tells us that the family’s getting bigger. The good parent isn’t just for the biological children. We’re adopting. Fostering.
Let’s not belabor the point too much. But it makes a certain sense.
“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.”
Christians, like many biological children, get defensive of their relationship to the good parent. We’re more than a little territorial. But we use that proximity, that recognizable relationship of parent to child, to pretend we’re the “true” family. That others are outsiders.
This is a problem for how we think of family and our flock. The very proximity to the shepherd, the parent, is what holds us together and defines us. And yet every time Jesus invites us to broaden that vision, we fight it. We want them to be more like us.
But of course, that isn’t the point of family. To make us all the same.
Family is about love.
It is the fuel that drives the good parent to give his life for the family. The fuel that unites the family and supports it through all of its trials. Love is the fuel that brings new members into the fold because they need a home just like this one.
Love fuels sacrifice. And it gives Jesus the confidence to face death and truly believe that it wouldn’t be the end. That he could set down his life and take it up again. That isn’t a rational conclusion. It’s love. Knowing that God’s love was the fuel he needed to love the world.
Not all families know that kind of love. That sacrifice. Maybe you’ve never actually seen it with your own eyes or experienced its warmth but on occasion. Perhaps none of these images speak to you personally.
But I’ll wager that something about Jesus’s words resonates. Perhaps even in that longing. Returning to those images: about being lost or outside the fold—hearing his voice—being called into a place you’ve never been before. Among people you have no reason to know. To be counted among the sheep. As one of them. Who doesn’t want that?
This is good news to the sheep, to the fold, to the family, the church, the community, the world, the cosmos. That we are being called into something that is bigger than us and bigger than we are now. A big invitation to be loved and to love back. To give and share and become as equals, partners on this journey. A chosen family.
A life like his. Full of sacrifice and love: a generous offering to a world yearning to be free.