CAMINANDO WITH JESUS: The Good Shepherd
Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
- John 10:1-10
On my mother’s side of my family, I come from a long line of landless farm workers. My grandfather worked at the same farm from the time I was born until I was 14, so I got to know that piece of land well and came to love the animals he cared for. When I was about three or four years old, one of those animals became a particular friend. She may have had an official name, but I called her “the cookie sheep” after her favorite food. She must have been a very old ewe, or my grandfather would never have let me feed her cookies. As it was, he limited my offerings to once a week, on Friday afternoons.
You may not be surprised to hear that the cookie sheep very quickly learned to recognize my voice and would paw the bars of her pen excitedly as I approached. She would delicately take each cookie from my little hand, and when they were all gone she would lean her woolly head against me and let me rub her nose and ears until I left for dinner.
In due time, the cookie sheep passed on. I had been warned that she was old and couldn’t live forever, and yet—of course—I mourned her deeply. I think of her, all these decades later, when I reflect on Jesus the Good Shepherd, who knows each of us by name, whose voice Christians help each other recognize, and in whose footsteps we learn to follow, over time.
I don’t tell this story because I compare myself to the Good Shepherd; I’m not sure that having used cookies to condition a sheep to the sound of my voice would be an adequate basis for that comparison. What stays with me, instead, is the vulnerability that permeates the memory.
The vulnerability of the sheep, an animal with few natural defenses and many natural predators.
The vulnerability of a young child who needed her grandfather to guide her through a barn full of animals who could easily, if unintentionally, harm her.
And the vulnerability of all creatures to sickness, death and the sadness that accompanies any loss, no matter how timely.
Over the last few weeks, you and I have become even more aware than we were before of our own vulnerability and that of our neighbors, friends and families. We’re livestreaming and recording liturgies, holding Bible study by Zoom, praying by conference call and checking on each other by phone. We’re going without haircuts and shopping for groceries as infrequently as possible. All this, and more, to keep our neighbors and ourselves as safe and healthy as possible under these challenging circumstances.
And many of us, many of our siblings in Christ, are particularly vulnerable in this moment. Workers in essential sectors like agriculture, food processing and retail grocery; trucking and deliveries; medicine and pharmacy; cleaning. Tens of millions who have lost jobs and now must try to get by on unemployment payments that are really too small to support life. Neighbors—many of them children—who didn’t have everything they needed to live well even before this crisis; who have been made vulnerable by years, even generations, of being denied what others take for granted.
In the midst of so much suffering, our own and our neighbors’, Christians like you and me can help each other listen for the loving voice of our Good Shepherd. In a moment when so many voices are competing for our attention, we can remind each other to focus on the One whose voice we can always trust; who calls each of us by name; who walks ahead of us wherever we’re called to go, no matter how stony the road may be; and who promises that new life will rise out of death.
And we can remind each other that there’s no such thing as a lone sheep. Through our baptism into Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection, you and I are members of his Body; together, we’re members of his herd. We’re creatures who acknowledge human vulnerability in a world that’s always full of dangers, more so at some times than at others, and for some more than for others. We’re people who know we need to stick together, not to increase or enrich our herd at the expense of another, but to provide protection and sustenance to each member, and especially to those who need it most.
That’s what the first Christians in today’s reading from the Book of Acts were doing. They “spent much time together” in prayer, which you and I are currently having to do from our own homes. Like us, when they broke bread at home, they thanked God for what they had. And as so many of us are doing now, they shared their belongings with neighbors in need, as signs of their trust in God who had, more than once, fed God’s people in a time of famine.
That’s where their strength came from then; that’s where our strength comes from now: listening for the Good Shepherd, trusting that he is with us as we walk a path shadowed by death, and that he will lead us, together, into greener pastures.
Tags: Caminando with Jesus
