The Father and I are One

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York in the ‘50s. We lived in a two–family house in Brooklyn. I recall it as a carefree simpler time. While doors demarked boundaries of sorts, we were less fearful of others crossing them as we are today. It was not always necessary to lock our doors. And when we finally did, a key was kept in the milk box on the porch or left one with our upstairs neighbor. We gave little thought to coming and going. Safety was a given. In later years when both my parents worked, I, as the oldest of my siblings, was entrusted with the key. It wasn’t long before concerns for safety appeared to be heightened and more attention was paid to locked doors and security. Times were changing and we became more aware of the news of the day.

While gates and doors provide protection and security, they are the means for going in and out of a home or place. They also serve as boundaries to permit entry and exit. In today’s Gospel (John 10:11-30 ) Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is metaphorically depicted as both the caretaker and the passage way to eternal life. The beautiful renderings in Christian art of Jesus the Good Shepherd are well known to us. For me the famous painting of the lamb draped over Jesus shoulder  that hung on the wall of one of my grade school classrooms, and was also  represented in one of the stained glass windows in our parish church was my favorite.

That bucolic comforting image we hold for a shepherd does not realistically conform to the actual portrayal of shepherds in the time of Jesus. When Jesus lived and John wrote his Gospel, shepherds were among the most disreputable and mistrusted outcasts of society. They were drifters  hired by the owners of the sheep with no fixed address and because of their occupation, were perpetually unclean which by definition, were in violation of Jewish cleanliness code. 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.

When Jesus proclaims that “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me” he characterizes his role as a loving protector. We are told that there was no actual gate in  a sheep-fold and that the shepherd would stand, sit or lie down at the pasture's entrance. In this way the shepherd could serve as protector for his flock. He knew his sheep and they knew him. Jesus role as protector purposely contrasted Him with disreputable religious rulers of his time who exploited their congregations.

Jesus clearly spells out his role as his Father’s steward when he says I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.