Thoughts about Good Shepherd Sunday


Every fourth Sunday of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday, and the gospel reading is always from John 10, broken up into three chunks. Each year we are invited to reflect on the good shepherd tradition, which begins with the 23rd Psalm, and how John uses that to depict Jesus living out the character of God the good shepherd. This tradition was not a heart-warming pastoral image but a political statement about those in authority. Based on the hard and dangerous life of shepherds across the Middle East it offers an image of the God who provides,  and contrasts this commitment and compassion with the failings of earthly rules who demanded loyalty and tax. It is a dangerous image. For Jesus to claim to be a shepherd implies critique of those of the ruling class who challenge him. It will get him killed.

Like all the gospel writers, John describes Jesus living out this tradition. We see the compassion and commitment of God to all people in Jesus’s life and ministry. It is explicitly described in the two conversations with Jewish leaders in John 10. God is the good shepherd who honours the sheep and leads them to safe and good pasture. The good shepherd enters the wilderness to diligently search for, find, gather, and bring back the lost sheep. The good shepherd knows the sheep by name and calls them. The sheep know the voice of the good shepherd and follow only that voice. Jesus is the good shepherd who will lay down his life for the sheep so that they may be freed from all that enslaves them. And just as the Father and Jesus are one, so to through the Spirit we are one with Jesus and are called to live the way of God the good shepherd today.

In the story of Dorcas/Tabitha in Acts we are shown a woman, named a disciple, who lives the way of the good shepherd for her community. As we look forward to our changed world, I wonder how that tradition carries on today. In what ways do continue to live God’s commitment and compassion for ourselves, for each other, and all God’s people today?

 

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