I Am the Good Shepherd

There is a profound difference between believing in a personal God and knowing God personally that is easier to understand than describe in words. How often have we wrestled with these definitions? When I read the words in this week’s Gospel I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, (John 10:11-18), I am reminded of our discussions in recent weeks related to our readings of Thomas and Emmaus that relate to believing and knowing.

Believing in a personal God, that is giving mental assent to the existence of a supernatural entity, may or may not make a difference in the life of the believer. Without transformation, belief is empty. On the other hand we are transformed when we relate to God personally, knowing that each of us is accepted just as we are, and trusting that it’s possible to interpret everything real in one’s life as a gift and a blessing in disguise. (Dowd, Thank God for Evolution)

“If the purpose of our existence is to seek and find God, then there is a seed of desire in each of us, a fundamental motivation, a basic longing for the fulfillment of that purpose. Augustine tells us that ‘Thou has made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.’ Accordingly, we are not only born with God at our center, but we are born with a heart full desire for God. This yearning is our fundamental motive force; it is the human spirit. It is the energy behind everything we seek and aspire to. And if indeed we are in intimate union with God in the center, then the soul’s desire is God’s desire. The soul’s love for God is God’s love for the soul.” (May, The Dark Night of the Soul)

Our frame of reference for a shepherd does not likely fit with the image of the shepherd in the time of Jesus. Is there any more powerful artistic depiction of Jesus the Good Shepherd in our Christian heritage? For me it is the famous painting of Jesus with the lamb draped over his shoulder. This hung on the wall in one of my grade school classrooms, and it was one of the stained glass windows in the church of my youth. Yet, when Jesus lived and John writes his Gospel, shepherds were among the most disreputable and mistrusted outcasts of society. We might consider replacing the image of the loving guardian strolling peacefully in the sunshine among his flock, with the marauding gangs of our century or cowboy outlaws of the 19 and 20th centuries. They were drifters with no fixed address and because of their occupation, they were perpetually unclean and, by definition, in violation of Jewish law. These outcasts are the very people John’s gospel is talking about.

Needless to say John shocks his audience by comparing Jesus to a shepherd and then later calling this very shepherd “good.” He challenges his listeners to look past their assumptions of where God is located and who God belongs to and who can belong to God. We and the people of John’s time are asked to see God in those who are outsiders, who exist on the fringe of the community, who are despised and even a little feared. The readers of John’s story are told to look for God among the despised, to which Jesus tells us I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So when Jesus tells us that there will be one flock and one shepherd, I am reminded of St. Paul’s words “…there is no more Jew or Greek, slave or free, man and woman, but all are one, are the same in Jesus Messiah” (Gal 3:26-28).