4 Easter C May 11, 2025
Acts 9:36-43 Ps.23
Rev 7:9-17 John 10:22-30
The Bible is literature. It is a collection of writings that has an uneven history of textual manifestations in how the various versions and translations have come to us. And we must admit that our regard for the words of the Bible involves lots of faith in the people who have been involved in the chain of events which have brought their various forms to us when we read them.
I would assert that the Bible assumes that God is a language user. In the beginning God said, "Let there be!" So we assume that creation begins with a speaking God. Speaking involves words. Word systems are what we call language. And John's Gospel poetically reaffirms a close connection between God and Word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The very nature of words and language is metaphorical. What we think that we are experiencing is like such and such, and we use a language tradition to speak what our reality is. Language or word signifies something which is not language, but with endless deferral, we only use words or products of language to represent what we are experiencing. Even though the words are not the same as the experience itself, they are the necessary accompaniment to the experiences. With the nature of language being metaphorical, we can say that the Bible is a book of linguistic metaphors, and many of the metaphors therein are references to God and to what is regarded to be the divine effects within people in this life.
One might say that the Gospel of John is the quintessential book of metaphors, particularly regarding Jesus. Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. Jesus is the Lamb of God. Jesus is the Word made flesh. Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus is the Bread of Life. Jesus is the Manna from heaven. Jesus is Word made Flesh dwelling among us. Jesus is the Light of the World. Jesus is the Way. Jesus is the Truth. Jesus is the Life. Jesus is the ladder to heaven on which the angels ascend and descend. Jesus is the Vine. Jesus is the Resurrection. Jesus is the King of the Jews. Jesus is One with the Father. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the Son of Man. And on Good Shepherd Sunday, we say that Jesus is the Gate to the Sheepfold, and Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
Again, we need to remind ourselves that the Bible as a book of metaphors needs to be read more as a language tradition in communities of evocative spiritual prose and poetry, rather than as a scientific text or eye-witness historical record.
A metaphor provides a flashing insight because if we try to hold on to exact correspondence between Jesus and shepherd we can forget that sheep were/are domesticated to be sheered for their wool products, to be milked, and killed for their meat.
Even though King David was a shepherd, which meant he was involved in the family business of wool and meat, the famous Twenty Third Psalm has imparted a different view of the ideal Shepherd, so when we say, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want..." we romantically understand this as more akin to a very loving mother or as a doting adoring pet owner with one's beloved pet companion. To view ourselves as sheep and mere temporal commodities for the use of Jesus as our shepherd, does not seem to have a romantically spiritual connotation, thus it is better to see ourselves more romantically as God's favored pets, who are well tended to and taken care of, in the way that we as humans truly enjoy and care for our dogs and cats. Pet owners will do most anything for their pets, even risk themselves to protect them. Pets sometime get in harms way, from cars, disease, or other animals, and good pet owners are diligent to care for their pets because they know that the gap between the pet owners' knowledge of what can happen to their pets and their pets' naivete is so great that watchfulness and timely intervention may be required.
The Good Shepherd discourse portion read today might also be a reference to the vulnerable and perhaps naive catechumens newly evangelized members of the Johannine association who could easily be kidnapped or diverted from the safety of the preferred catechumenate path. Jesus as the model Good Shepherd was a template for those shepherd leaders within the Johannine community who were to lovingly care for, teach, and mentor neophytes in the faith toward mature fruitfulness. They were to be those who tended to the salvation and health of those in their community, just as the writer Acts the Apostles presented Peter as a shepherd of healing and health for those who lived in Joppa.
Even though we romanticize the role of God or Christ as Good Shepherd and put the harsh aspects of animal husbandry as care of commodity out of our minds, our Scripture readings present the stark contradictory metaphors for Jesus which reminds us about the shepherding commodity enterprise. Jesus is both lamb and shepherd. The one who is called a shepherd is also viewed as the Passover Lamb that was slain in place of human life.
Jesus as the sacrificial lamb of God is also the Good Shepherd. This two-fold and contradictory metaphors means that the early followers of Jesus presented him as one who was strong enough to lead by becoming one who sacrificed his very life for us so that we might receive the resurrection abundant life. Hence, we understand how this two-fold Lamb of God, and Good Shepherd metaphor was used to provide poetic feeling for how the life of the Risen Christ was to be taught and understood within the Jesus Movement communities.
Let us savor our lives today as something like "favorite pets" of God, in how we regard the divine love toward us. But let us also be diligent to tend to the pets, the lambs, whom we are to favor in our lives with sacrificial love and care. This is the divine mood for Good Shepherd Sunday, as well as for the good mothers of our lives whom we honor on Mothers Day. Let us honor our mothers and Jesus Christ by being nurturing people today. Amen.
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