Word to the Wise
Monday, May 1, 2023 - 4th Week of Easter - Mon
[Acts 11:1-18 and John 10:1-10 or, in Year A, John 10:11-18,353]"I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep," [John]
The portrayal of Jesus' relationship to those who believe in him as that of a shepherd to his sheep has deep biblical roots. Most of us are familiar with Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd.,,, And some of us may recall the prophet Ezekiel's thunderous denunciation of the religious leadership of his time. {Ezek 34:1-24]. In the gospels according to Luke and Matthew - composed earlier than John - the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:4-7; Matthew 18:12-14) may have been known to the evangelist John. I have seen stained glass images of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, in many a church - Catholic and Protestant. The image has received some recent attention from Pope Francis who has challenged church leaders to "have the smell of the sheep!" The overall thrust of the image is one of dedicated care.
Two aspects of this care present themselves to me. The first is the overall care for the flock as a whole. In our time, the "pastor" [Latin for shepherd] has to have the entire parish in his care. The bishop carries a "crozier" imitating a shepherd's crook, the symbol of his responsibility. But there is also the individual dimension, which, in our individualistic culture, means the relationship of the pastor to each member of the flock. In my experience that can be so varied as to overwhelm a pastor. Put simply, the pastor cannot please everybody. The individual relationship comes through in the parables from Luke and Matthew with the shepherd leaving the "ninety-nine" to go in search of the one that has strayed.
Jesus' image, in the Gospel According to John, emphasizes both aspects. Each of us hears the same call of the shepherd and follows him with all the others in the flock. But each of us needs to remember that the shepherd lays down his life not just for an abstract "flock" but for each of us individually. We have only to look at the crucifix. AMEN