The Good Shepherd

He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.  The sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying . . . .

The Good Shepherd, the best loved image of Jesus, appears in all four gospels and is prominent in John.  In John 10, Jesus divides the image into three persons, all part of the sheepfold scene:  the Gatekeeper, the Good Shepherd who enters by the Gate when the Gatekeeper lets him in, and the Gate itself, whom Jesus specifically says he is.    And then, he brings in the false shepherds, who climb in by another way (the Gatekeeper doesn’t open the gate for them).  Is the Good Shepherd really a complex of persons, living in a relationship,  a trinity symbol?    And who are the false shepherds?

A traditional interpretation would suggest God the Creator as the Gatekeeper, and, since Jesus names himself the Gate, then the Good Shepherd may be the Spirit, in the bodies of the disciples and followers of Jesus, and after them, in an infinite number of people, you and I among them.

But since the Shepherd speaks to the sheep, and is known to them by his voice, we think of Jesus in this role.  Perhaps Jesus is in all the roles.  And perhaps we are, also.

One part of our confusion, I believe, is our image of the shepherd*, which has changed from a rough worker to a soft and gentle  Jesus who offers  nursery cuddles to the lost lamb inside each of us.  Most of us have never seen a working sheep farm, and so our image of shepherds rises from our Christmas pageants:  long robes, youthful faces, sweet and pleasing.  My biblical imagination didn’t register the differences until I saw the movie Brokeback Mountain.

And then it hit me:  Shepherds are Cowboys.

Sheep may not be as large as cattle, but they are not small, averaging 400 – 500 pounds each.  They do not sit in your lap.  They are not pets.  They do not love you, they do need you, and if you are a shepherd, you need them.  The Good Shepherd may give his life for the sheep, but the sheep also give their lives for the shepherd, who is fed and clothed by them, and who earn the shepherds wages.  Both sheep and shepherd are in this relationship for their mutual survival.

The Bible makes it clear that God has a wild bias in favor of Cowboys. (Shepherds, Goatherds, Cowboys, are all the same, but we’ve always seen cowboys as tough and rough and ready, and shepherds as gentle, soft and sweet.  The image adjustment we need is:   Shepherd = Cowboy.)

Since Genesis, God has had a heart for cowboys.  Abel, the Cowboy/Shepherd, won God’s favor over Cain, the Farmer.   Jacob, the camp cook, was nothing compared to Esau, the Herdsman /Cowboy, and Jacob was a liar to boot, but then he ran away and became a Cowboy among Laban’s herds and it turned out he was a good one, and God loved him for it.  David was a shepherd/cowboy, and God preferred him to all his bigger, handsomer, smarter brothers, and made him King.  Cowboy/Shepherds were the only people invited to witness the birth of Christ, and they were invited by the entire angelic host.  And Jesus becomes The Good Shepherd/Cowboy.

If it is a shock to think of God as biased, think how we Americans share this bias.   We’ve made a business of cowboy stories:  The Lone Ranger,  the Adventures of Jim Bowie, Kit Carson, Wild Bill Hickok, Annie Oakley, Black Saddle, Bonanza, Buffalo Bill, Broken Arrow, Cheyenne, Paladin, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Death Valley Days, Destry, Gunsmoke, High Chaparral, Hopalong Cassidy, Lonesome Dove, Ponderosa, Rawhide, The Rifleman, Roy Rogers, True  Grit — I haven’t begun to exhaust the list.

What defines the Good Cowboy is exactly what Jesus said defines the Good Shepherd:  he tells the truth and can detect phonies.  The modern incarnation of the Good Shepherd is, I believe, the Detective, who operates in a wilderness and has to be able to discern bad guys (false shepherds).  The lives of innocent people (the flock/town) are riding on his ability to do this.

Modern detectives work in teams, as in fact did the old Cowboys, who all had at least one sidekick and often a crew.  In John 10, Jesus, who had a bunch of sidekicks, makes it clear the shepherd does not act by himself, there is a team at work.

The Good Shepherd, according to Jesus, is rough, rugged, and able to see ahead, and will prod us and poke us to go where we can have life and have it abundantly.  The Good Shepherd, facing the hard life among the sheep, does not dress like the Pope, or the Archbishop of Canterbury,  Kingdom clothes come in denim, not silk.

The clergy may need to relinquish old symbols  and take up new ones people can understand.  What the flock in the pews knows is that abundant life is not somewhere in the past, but ahead, in a world that is scary and inviting.  To get there requires going through some Gates.  The flock may balk, but they are also leaving pews of the old pastures in great numbers, for they hear the whispered word of grace:  Follow me. ___________________________________________________________ * Note:  It was a privilege to be this year’s Holy Week lecturer and Palm Sunday preacher at St. Lukes’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco, where some of the material in this week’s post was presented.  I’m grateful to the rector, Rev. Dana Corsello, for the opportunity.

Illustrations:

1.  Sheep in Paradise Mosaic, in Sant Apollinaire, Ravena, Italy AD 549.  Vanderbilt Divinity School, Art in the Christian Tradition.

2.  The Catacomb of Callixtus, mid 3rd century, Rome.  Vanderbilt Divinity school Library, Art in the Christian Tradition.

3.  Brokeback Mountain, freeze frame of cowboy/shepherd and sheep.  Google Images.

4.  Freeze frame of True Grit cowboy (Jeff Bridges), who was the good shepherd in this Coen Bros. film.  Google Images.

5.  Shepherd, Chambal, India, Wikipedia Commons, Google.