Psalm 22
Acts 4:8-12
1John 3:1-2
John 10:11-18
[I dedicate this reflection to Sister Patricia Fox, NDS, a good shepherd of the suffering people of God in the Philippines. I just heard of her arrest and detention as I was finishing this reflection. May God protect her, and may God have mercy on us all.]
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Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 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. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.” (John 10:11-18, NRSV)
At the entrance of our house we call Nazareth House, a Catholic Worker house of hospitality for indigent persons living with HIV/AIDS in Manila, hangs a picture of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, and now, a candidate for sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church. An American, she was a very harsh critic of her country because of its involvement with violence, oppression and injustice throughout the world. Yet, she was equally severe with her Church because of its willingness to accommodate and compromise with worldly power, thus, colluding in the maintenance and perpetuation of injustice and oppression. Though she loved her Church, and considered herself a loyal Catholic, she nevertheless called herself an “angry but obedient daughter of the Church”. And she did not spare the ecclesiastical shepherds from her excoriation. Once she wrote, “I never expected much of the bishops. In all history, popes and bishops and abbots seem to have been blind and power-loving and greedy. I never expected leadership from them. It is the saints that keep appearing all through history who keep things going. What I do expect is the bread of life and down through the ages there is that continuity.” I placed the picture of Dorothy Day in our house to reminds us of two things that she stood for: First, never ever compromise with oppression, and we must work for justice. Secondly, we need to cooperate with grace in order to become saints, that is, to live lives that refract the light of the Gospel of Jesus. It is by becoming saints that we will come to save the world.
Today, the fourth Sunday in Eastertide, is often called as Good Shepherd Sunday because the assigned Gospel reading in the Revised Common Lectionary and the Roman Catholic lectionary speak of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. For many, the discourse on the Good Shepherd primarily evokes the pastoral image of Psalm 23 (Dominus regit me) in which the LORD God of the divine Shepherd of Israel is proclaimed as Provider, Comforter, Guide, Guardian, Protector and Redeemer. But the sitz-im-leben of the discourse of the Good Shepherd in the Gospel of John was meant to denounce and attack. It was not meant primarily to comfort, but to afflict consciences.
There was at one time in the history of Israel that shepherding was a noble occupation, as in the time of the Patriarchs/Matriarchs, and Moses when Israelites were nomadic. And in the Hebrew Testament, the monarchs and nobility of Israel were sometimes positively referred to as shepherds. But by Jesus’ time, shepherds were often looked down upon with contempt. Religious law proscribed five types of employment, and one of them was shepherding. Shepherd who were more despised than tax collectors, were vilified partly because they were thought of as bandits and thieves, often accused of leading herds into other people’s private lands in order to steal produce. Shepherds were often accused of stealing other people’s sheep to increase their flock. If some did this, it was probably due to their extreme poverty. Many of them probably owned their own sheep and land at one time, but were later dispossessed of their livelihood by the powerful rich. To survive, they had to hire themselves out to care for the flocks and herds of the urban wealthy elite who were loyal to Rome that governed Jewish Palestine with brutality. Because shepherds were thought to be a dishonest lot, religious leaders often prohibited people from buying, for example, wool or milk from shepherds on the assumption that they were stolen goods. Through such religious prohibition, the religious establishment deepened the poverty of the shepherds. Because they were deemed dishonest, they were denied some legal rights, such as the right to hold judicial office, or serve as witness in court. Furthermore, shepherds were also considered religiously unclean because they could not comply with purity laws. Shepherds then were social, political, and religious outcasts. They were marginal and lived, literally, in the margins of society. If you remember the birth narrative in the Gospel of Luke (2:8) in which the shepherds were described to be “living in the fields” (NRSV), that was meant to describe the marginal status of the shepherds. Religious authorities insisted they live outside the cities, separated and segregated from the rest of the population.
That Jesus referred to himself as shepherd and a good one at that would have been oxymoronic given the marginal status and bad image of shepherds. Shepherds were, by and large, not considered “good” (in Greek, kalo). What then was Jesus’ point in calling himself the “Good Shepherd”? Jesus, when calling himself shepherd, was not only evoking the Hebrew Testament’s image of God as Shepherd of Israel. Given the marginal status of Jesus himself within Israel and the Roman Empire, his self-reference as shepherd was meant to identify himself with the outcasts, and the victims of political, economic, and religious injustice, the “least of God’s people.” Born poor, he was poor all his life. He knew the sufferings and pain of the poor. The discourse of the Good Shepherd was a message of comfort to those who find themselves in a position of vulnerability, despair and powerlessness: God is with you; Jesus is with you and for you. But the Jesus the Good Shepherd is also judgment against those who cause, or perpetrate, and perpetuate injustice on any of God’s children. Take note: God sides with those afflicted by human injustice, and not with the oppressors.
In the Gospel text we read today, Jesus contrasts himself, the Good Shepherd, from the “bad” shepherds. The Good Shepherd does not steal sheep, but “bad” shepherds do. The Good Shepherd knows each sheep and calls each by name, and the sheep knows and recognizes the voice of the Good Shepherd; but the “bad” shepherds do not know their sheep, and the sheep do not recognize their voice. Religious law says that shepherds are not obligated to look for their lost sheep, but the Good Shepherd looks for the lost sheep. Religious law says that shepherds are not required to put their lives in danger to protect their sheep; but Jesus, unlike the “bad” shepherds who ran away and abandon their sheep when danger arises, is ready to die for his sheep to save them. “Bad” shepherds themselves destroy and kill the sheep. But the Good Shepherd came to the world so that the sheep might have life, and have it abundantly.
Who were these “bad” shepherds that Jesus was criticizing?
Prior to the discourse of the Good Shepherd, Jesus, in John 9:1-41, is seen as embroiled in a controversy with the religious authorities. He was attacked for violating religious law by healing a blind man on the Sabbath. Was the conflict for Jesus simply a theological argument about Sabbath observance, or his alleged messianic claims?
Blind people, due to their disability, were consigned to poverty. The Johannine author calls the blind man, prosaites, that is, a beggar (9:8). Why did the author of the Gospel have to mention the socioeconomic class of the blind man? In including this particular detail, the author is portraying Jesus as being concerned not only with the health but also the poverty of the man. The act of giving sight to the blind then was not only an act of healing, but also an economic emancipation. By healing him, the blind beggar possibly no longer had to keep on begging. By that healing, the result was not only health but also freedom from economic destitution. Because of their obsession with theological niceties, his critics were blind to the suffering of the man! And so, Jesus countered the protest of his critics by calling them “blind” and his discourse was meant to excoriate them for their bad “shepherding” of the people of God. This is the immediate sitz-im-leben of the discourse of the Good Shepherd. But the meaning of the discourse could also be expanded beyond its immediate context of conflict between Pharisees and Jesus concerning Sabbath observance, and messianic claims. Behind the discourse is a deeper political critique. Contrary to many who believed that Jesus was apolitical, many scholars locate Jesus within the Israelite prophetic history. He was critical- and ran afoul- of the Empire.
Many biblical scholars have noted a great deal of similarity between Jesus’ discourse of the Good Shepherd, and the one found in the Hebrew Testament Book of Ezekiel written some six hundred years before the time of Jesus. It led many to believe that Jesus was invoking the prophetic text to address his critics. In the text of Ezekiel, the LORD, the true Shepherd of Israel commanded the prophet Ezekiel to speak against the “false” shepherds of Israel. The false shepherds were none other than the political (the King, his princes and governors) and the religious leaders (the priests and false prophets) who cared only for their own self interest and supported their obscenely lavish lifestyles by exploiting the people of the land, at the expense of the poor and vulnerable, by means of unjust, and violent rule.
The word of the LORD came to me: Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them- to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord GOD: 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 the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them…therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord GOD, I am against the shepherds… and I will put a stop to their feeding the sheep; no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, so that they may not be food for them. (Ezekiel 34:1-4, 10, NRSV)
In his discourse of the Good Shepherd contra his enemies, he presents himself as the fulfillment of prophecy. He is the Divine Shepherd as foretold by the prophets. In standing with the prophetic tradition, Jesus’ discourse on the Good Shepherd could be seen not solely an indict of the religious establishment but also of foreign power, both of which maintained an unholy alliance to create conditions of great poverty, massive injustice, and violence. The sacrilegious alliance between Kingdom/Empire/State and religion was true in the time of Ezekiel. It was true in the time of Jesus. And it is often true today.
How does this text particularly speak to us in our Philippine situation where there is rampant poverty and inequality, corruption in the government, disdain for constitutional law, curtailment of civil liberties, widespread human rights violation, including thousands of extrajudicial killings in this brutal War on Drugs and of human rights activists? First. I believe the discourse of the Good Shepherd calls us to identify with, to be in solidarity with victims of our society’s injustices. Vox victimarum vox Dei. The voice of the victims of oppression is the voice of God. Secondly, the Gospel calls each one of us to work indefatigably for the reversal of policies that create inhumane conditions of poverty, exploitation and violence here and elsewhere. Thirdly, the discourse of the Good Shepherd presents the Church a moment of kairos. It is at a critical time in which life or death choices are being presented to the Church. The Church could choose to remain silent in the face of many injustices, or it could speak against them, and side with the victims of injustice. It could choose to collude with worldly power and be part of the machinery of mammon, violence, oppression, and death, or it could become poor and divest itself of power, influence, unjust wealth, and association with political dynasties, giving them up in the service of Christ’s poor. Its choice could mean either salvation for itself, or betrayal of its Good Shepherd.##
The Reverend Noel E. Bordador
Episcopal Diocese of New York.
BalikTanaw Sunday Gospel Reflection 