THE SHEPHERD-KING
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Text: Ezekiel 34:1-6; 10-16; John 10:11-18
“‘I am the good shepherd.’ Did you hear him? Is that really what he said? How can anyone in his right mind put good and shepherd together in the same sentence? Surely he knows the kind of low-life, riff-raff that become shepherds. Anyone knows you can’t trust a shepherd any further than you can see him and even then he’s liable to pull off some self-serving sleight of hand.”
“Yes, yes. I suppose there was a time when shepherding was an honorable profession, even a noble one. There are all those scriptural references to shepherds in the psalms and the prophets. Moses and David both worked as shepherds. Even Yahweh is compared to one of those old time shepherds. But that was ages ago. That was a time when families owned their own flocks and really did look after them with great care and integrity. But no shepherd owns his own flock today. The whole business is controlled by a few wealthy families who employ the most scurrilous characters they can find to tend their sheep for the lowest wages possible. No, there’s no such thing as a ‘good shepherd’ anymore.’ This is crazy talk.”
Both the terms shepherd and king are not a part of our vernacular in the same way they were for John’s audience. We have some romantic images of shepherds and kings, but this metaphor does not have the bite for us today that it must have had for Jesus’ first hearers. In an effort to help us see and understand, Nancy Blakely draws this picture: “The life of a shepherd was anything but picturesque. It was dangerous, risky, and menial. Shepherds were rough around the edges, spending time in the fields rather than in polite society. For Jesus to say, 'I am the good shepherd,’ would have been an affront to the religious elite and educated. The claim had an edge to it. A modern-day equivalent might be for Jesus to say, ‘I am the good migrant worker’” (Nancy R. Blakeley, Feasting on the Word, quoted in Kate Huey, SAMUEL, Easter 4, 2009, at ucc.org.) And Robert Kysar adds that “…shepherds had a bad reputation in first-century Palestine. Shepherds were migrant people who were noted for stealing from the villages and then silently moving their flocks away by night to some other unknown location. For John to suggest that Jesus is a shepherd surprised his listeners” (Robert Kysar, Preaching John, p. 90.)
The whole concept of shepherd in Hebrew and Christian scripture is a complex one. Here we have the writer of John placing on Jesus lips the claim “The Good Shepherd is I” to a crowd who would have been shocked by the image either because of their disdain for shepherds or because of the blasphemy of that claim as it related to their ancient beliefs about the Davidic Messiah and Yahweh himself. If he was comparing himself to the current class of shepherds, he was saying he was nothing more than a low-life migrant (a comparison Jesus himself might not have easily rejected.) If he was comparing himself to David or the promised Messiah or, God forbid, to God, he was speaking words that called for the most severe punishment.
This Jesus is a complex and challenging character – one moment he dines with sinners, comes into physical contact with the unclean, violates the ancient laws and challenges the authorities. The next he dines with civil and religious authorities, heals the children and servants of the rich and powerful, claims to be the very fulfillment of the ancient law and engages in intimate conversation with members of the ruling council. He is an anomaly. He cannot be tied down easily. He cannot even be nailed to a cross and left there reliably to die and decay.
“I am the Good Shepherd,” he says. Or, to put it even more emphatically, “the Good Shepherd is I.” Yes, in the moment the image would have caught the attention of the crowd, even shocked them as it conjured all their nasty, negative, prejudiced notions of shepherds, immigrants, outsiders. But then I can imagine it would also have sent their minds spinning toward all those rich and ancient images of the Shepherd-King. Indeed, Moses was tending the flocks of his father-in-law when God called him to lead the people out of slavery in Egypt. Indeed, the boy David was keeping his father’s flocks on the hills surrounding Bethlehem when Samuel called him to become king. Indeed, “Yahweh is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
The outrageous claim that John gives to Jesus is that he is indeed the fulfillment of the Mosaic law. He is indeed the promised heir of David, the Messiah. He is indeed the Shepherd-King who cares for the wants and needs of his people, for he and the Father are deeply and intimately related. He hears the word of the God and follows it, even when it costs his life, for “no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13.) There are others who make the claim to be God’s spokespersons, who insist on the letter of the law at the expense of its spirit, who practice their religion in ways that oppress people and shut out those who don’t see it their way. Jesus says for all their wealth and power and sense of self-importance, these others are like hired hands. They really don’t get what it’s like to be the Shepherd-King. Oh they think they know; they believe they have the inside track to glory, but they do not understand the price that must be paid before one can make such claims.
Clearly, this passage in John’s gospel harkens back to the words of the old prophet, Ezekiel. In chapter 34, Ezekiel gives the definition of the Shepherd-King. But before he can get to that definition, he has a few things to say about what the Shepherd-King is not like. “Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them.” Of course, Ezekiel here is concerned with unprincipled and uncaring leaders who have not tended to the flock, who have neglected and abused the people to the point that they have been carried off into exile where they are now in even more distress under the rule of foreign powers.
But the Good Shepherd, the true Shepherd-King, the one who feeds the flock and carries the lambs in his arms is like this, says God: “I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.”
In today’s Words of Preparation, Walter Brueggeman tells us that “The term shepherd is political in the Bible. It means king, sovereign, lord, authority, the one who directs, to whom I am answerable, whom I trust and serve. In [its] simple opening line, [Psalm 23] is clear about the goal and focus, the center and purpose of life: Yahweh and no other. There is no rival loyalty, no competing claim – not economic or political, not liberal or conservative, not sexist or racist, nor any of the other petty loyalties that seduce us. It is a mark of discernment and maturity to strip life down to one compelling loyalty, to be freed of all the others that turn out to be idolatrous” (Walter Brueggemann, The Threat of Life: Sermons on Pain Power and Weakness, p. )
And the word of this God is one of justice and compassion, of peace and nurture and grace for those who will hear that word and follow it. Yahweh’s is a way that may be both treacherous and challenging. It inevitably goes through the valley of the shadow of death, but in the end it leads beside still waters and green pastures where God’s great banquet is laid out for whosoever will come in faithfulness to partake. It is a way that leads to fulfilled life, abundant life, eternal life.
The good shepherd knows his sheep and they know him just as God knows Jesus and Jesus knows God. And because we can claim to be the sheep of the good shepherd’s flock, the people of the Shepherd-King, we can also make a claim to knowing and being known by God. As followers of the Shepherd-King, we are called to a different kind of life in his service. We can no longer make conventional claims to power and authority, to privilege and exclusivity. We can no longer turn our backs on the other sheep who also belong to the fold of God. We can no longer engage in injustice and neglect sisters and brothers who appear to be different from us, who are homeless and hungry, sick and needy, lost and wandering, poor and outcast.
When we gather around this table, we are gathering around God’s banquet table and above all it is a welcome table. The good shepherd leads us to mountain heights by the watercourses and rich pasture where we may feast on God’s bounty. But we must see that this feast is no private party for us alone. This is a place of infinite expansivness where there is always room for one more, for little ones, for the least of these, for you and me and all the world. The good shepherd has laid down his life so we might partake of this feast today and he has taken up his life in new and amazing ways so that we may partake of this feast with him in abundant and eternal life. Thanks be to God. Amen.