The Good Shepherd

Easter 4

April 21, 2024

Fr. Tim Nunez

May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Jesus said “I am the Good Shepherd.”

That’s a beautiful phrase, so beautiful that the founders of this church made it our name.  I think about all the coloring books that we give to our kids in order to help them to understand Jesus, and quite often there he is with lambs in his arms. It may cause us to think about our Good Shepherd window up above our altar. Or you may prefer the Good Shepherd window above our chapel altar. It’s all very cuddly.

Those are beautiful images that comfort our hearts, but it is a much deeper and weightier concept that demands our attention. It is one of seven great “I am” statements that John records Jesus saying.

I am the bread of life. Ch. 6

I am the light of the world. Ch.  8

I am the door or gate. Ch. 10

I am the good shepherd. Ch. 10

I am the resurrection and the life. Ch 11

I am the way, the truth and the life.  Ch. 14

I am the true vine.  Ch 15

To truly understand the weight of that phrase, “I am the Good Shepherd,” we need to go back really to the beginning, all the way back to Genesis. Once we get past the creation, the flood, and the tower of Babel, we move immediately to the story of Abram. Abram, which means “good father”, will eventually be renamed Abraham, which means “father of nations.”  What was Abraham doing when God called him? He was tending his flock. He was himself a shepherd, a herdsman.

And where did his son Isaac meet his wife Rebecca? He met her at a well. Why? Because he too was a herdsman and so was pretty much everyone else. That was where the community gathered. Where did Jacob meet Rachel? At a well. Where were Joseph and his jealous brothers when they threw him into a cistern and then then sold them into slavery? They were out tending their flocks.

So it’s easy to recognize how they would frame their understanding of God on these terms. The first time that we see a reference to the Lord as their Shepherd is further along toward the end of Genesis when Jacob, also known as Israel, blesses Joseph and his sons. This is after Jacob and his whole family sought refuge from a famine in Egypt where they were reunited with Joseph.

He blessed Joseph, and said,
‘The God before whom my ancestors Abraham and Isaac walked,
the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,
the angel who has redeemed me from all harm, bless the boys;
and in them let my name be perpetuated, and the name of my ancestors Abraham and Isaac;
and let them grow into a multitude on the earth.’ Genesis 48:15–16.

When they come out of Egypt, they will no longer be a large family of semi-nomadic herdsmen, but a great nation of over 600,000 people who will eventually make it to the promised land where they will establish an urbanized civilization with agriculture and trades and governments and so on. But they still have shepherds even to this day, and this image of the Lord as their Shepherd endures. And it endures for us although not many of us have ever even seen a shepherd. Cowboys, yes, but not shepherds.

On one level that seems odd. We are not much like sheep at all! Sheep were the first animals domesticated by human beings over 10,000 years ago. We have bred and conditioned every bit of wild out of them. They have no defenses and no survival skills. They cannot find food on their own. They cannot find water on their own. They are completely reliant on their shepherd for everything.

We, by contrast, have highly honed survival skills as individuals and as communities. We may not have very much in the way of natural defenses, but we sure know how to make them out of almost anything and we’ve developed very complicated ones. We don’t need to know a thing about growing plants or raising livestock to find food. We don’t need a map to find water. We plan and we build. If you call someone a sheep, it’s an insult! Why would any of us need a shepherd?

Yet, “the Lord is my shepherd.”

Many years ago, our youth group was planning a ski trip to North Carolina. We had a big meeting with all the parents in the youth to discuss the trip and make some decisions about the logistics. How were we going to get the youth to North Carolina and back? Someone suggested renting two large vans and immediately the question came up about who would drive them. I quickly volunteered and to my surprise several parents immediately objected.

I was honestly a little insulted. I defended myself. I had a clean driving record, I’d never had an accident. My vision and hearing were perfect. I had great reflexes, and frankly I was and still am a very good driver. I even had a class D license for commercial vehicles at that time.

I was also 18. At 18, I just couldn’t see their point.

Those parents were very gracious, but firm in trying to explain to me why they didn’t want an 18-year-old driving a van load of teenagers for 10 to 12 hours up to North Carolina and back in the winter. It wasn’t until many years later, when I was older and a parent myself, that I truly understood the objections that were raised that night.

That’s one small example of a lesson I’ve learned over the years, which is very simple yet applies to many of the complexities of our lives. You don’t know what you don’t know.

Not only do we not know what we don’t know, we have necessary perceptions on everything. Consider that at all times every nerve in our bodies is feeding continuous information to our brains. If we were able to process all that at one time, we would be absolutely paralyzed all the time. But, most of the nerves most of the time are telling us that everything‘s OK.

This moment you probably have not been thinking about your feet. I want you to think about your feet for just a moment. How do they feel? Are they warm, are they dry, are your shoes a bit tight? Or, if you’re looking at me you’re not considering the stained glass above my shoulder, or to your left or right at this moment until I point that direction but I hope you’ll stay here.

When Jesus said “I am the Good Shepherd,” he was making as radical a claim to his divinity as when he said “I am the light of the world.” It is as radical as when he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”

Hopefully, we are wise enough to have a care for what we don’t know and to have a care for what we aren’t perceiving in the world around us at any point in time. Hopefully, we are wise enough to recognize how impossible it is to anticipate much of anything about our future even a few weeks out.

When Jesus says he is the good shepherd, he’s assuring us that we can trust every bit of the unknown and every bit beyond our very focused and limited perspective, and everything we do know and see and understand, to him. Jesus said the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He did. He chose to lay it down, he chose to take it back up again, for us.

The only question is, will we listen to his voice? That’s the question that should lead our understanding, our “knowledge”, and our perspective.

Amen.