The Good Shepherd

Dear Friends,

This Sunday we will hear from the section in the Gospel of John called the “Good Shepherd” discourse, where Jesus compares himself to a shepherd who does all that he can to protect and provide for the sheep of his flock. “I am the Good Shepherd,” Jesus tells his friends.

One of the earliest most indelible images of Jesus from my childhood is this same Good Shepherd, the subject of this Sunday’s gospel. And if there is a psalm most of know by heart, I can bet it is Psalm 23. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures….” This person of God loves me, loves all of us, protects and cares for us, gathers us up, and sets us on his shoulders with endearment.

Over the years I’ve pondered Jesus as the Good Shepherd from a variety of perspectives. For a long time, the image became for me too sentimental for the One who was rejected, betrayed, and denied two thousand years ago and still suffers in the cries of so many people and the Earth.

Five times in Sunday’s reading we are told that the good shepherd freely lays down his life for his sheep. I struggled with this idea, too, until reading a commentary that explains how herders in Jesus’ world would lay their own bodies down for a night’s rest in the gap of the fence, the body of the shepherd thus serving as the gate to keep them safe.

In other words, the shepherd is the one who extends radical hospitality to the sheep; he protects them against whatever would threaten them. This shepherd intimately cares about each sheep, especially the lost one, and wants the flock to flourish as a whole. His love even extends to the sheep in other flocks. In the presence of this shepherd, we all are welcomed, tended, heard, accepted, watched over, and loved beyond death. It is a beautiful love upon which to model our relationships.

Jesus here reminds me of God’s absolute loyalty and dedication to our sense of belonging, belonging in community. As I move through these last few weeks before leaving on my sabbatical, it is this sense of belonging that I am treasuring the most. I have had the privilege of “pastoring” and “pasturing” right alongside you, tending, herding, accepting and being accepted, loving as Jesus loved. Now I’m being called to spend some time in other pastures in which to rest and play, learn, and replenish. I hope that this will be true for you, too.

I pray that we always have shepherds and flocks of belonging in our lives in which we are inspired to listen and respond to the voice of God in our souls and in the heart of the world. It is within these flocks that we are cared for and it is within these flocks that we called to care for our common life. The good news is that we are not alone. 

In Christ,

Amelie+