Maybe Not Good Advice for Shepherds (John 10:11-18)

Maybe Not Good Advice for Shepherds

I am not a shepherd, and I didn’t grow up with some deep connection to the land. I grew up in the suburbs, where we fertilize the land to within an inch of its life, mow it constantly, and then build “lakes” (aka retention ponds) to capture the toxic slurry that runs off it. As a result, I have tended to take all Biblical agricultural analogies at face value. If a farmer or a shepherd does something in the Bible, I assume, “Sure, that’s how farming works.” Sometimes, I may even be right. I know enough people with gardens to have learned that one really does cut off unproductive branches and throw them away, and, although Jesus takes its irrationally far, herders of livestock spend some of their lives chasing the escape artists.

However, our image here in John 10 of a Shepherd dying for their sheep makes no agricultural sense. The metaphor correctly deduces that hired hands will not die for livestock, in the same way that Walmart employees won’t chase shoplifters or that one should simply hand a potentially violent thief your things upon request. Some things just aren’t worth dying over. Many of the sheep in the flock exist to die at slaughter anyways, and every farmer or rancher has baked into the assumptions of the job that not all will make it. Also, by their nature, one can replace livestock. So, yes, no one should expect their farm hands to die for their wooly charges.

We shouldn’t expect a shepherd to do so either. If we think of the shepherd as the owner of the sheep and the proprietor of the operation, they constitute a lot of value. In the times into which Jesus spoke, their ability to work and to continue to work won bread for the family. If a herding business lost some sheep, it might well hurt, but if that same operation lost its shepherd, the family and the business could fall apart entirely. Compared to a shepherd, sheep are cheap.

Generally speaking, a shepherd won’t die for their sheep, but Jesus, the Good Shepherd, did die for us. The Greek word, kalos, sits behind the English translation, “good.” Sarah S. Henrich, in Feasting on the Word, points out that this translation, though not wrong, misses the point. Kalos means something more like “ideal” or “model.” Jesus projects himself not as the opposite of a bad shepherd but the model for shepherds, even as he behaves in a way contrary to actual shepherding.

At this point, you might be yelling at me, “this isn’t about sheep! We are the sheep, you pedantic fool.” And, of course, you are correct on all counts. Jesus speaks here vividly about his approach to serving as humanity’s divine leader. In doing some, he provides another in a long list of examples of how God’s love for us runs utterly counter to the normal ways of things. Heads of households didn’t sprint in undignified ways at the return of a son, who rejected them. The father in the parable of the prodigal son, as a stand in for God, does.  Master teachers didn’t strip down to a loin cloth and carefully wash their students’ feet. At the last supper, Jesus does. He even does it knowing that a lot of them will soon let him down. Kings and Emperors seldom suffer and die on behalf of their people. They live in luxury surrounded by the best guards money can buy. Jesus willingly went to a cross.

Shepherds don’t herd this way, but leaders should lead this way. Simon Sinek, a leadership author and speaker, lays this out in Leaders Eat Last. Humans seek to live in a circle of safety and trust. Leaders who create this circle do so by showing themselves willing to sacrifice for the group. Most examples of leadership that we witness do the opposite of this. Lower level workers get cut. CEOs get bonuses. The bottom rung on the totem pole cleans toilets and empties grease traps. The manager sits in an office. The book’s title comes from a practice, within the Marines, of higher ranking officers eating after the front line troops because those folks have to do the actual fighting. He also sites an example of a healthy work environment built on everyone, including the business owner, taking a pay cut in hard times to avoid layoffs. Sinek frames this as good leadership, and I agree. However, I take it one step further. It’s good leadership because it follows after the model shepherd who counterintuitively died for his sheep.

Praise God for being a model shepherd rather than a model for shepherds. Humans long for a leader that willingly sacrifices for us, to care for us. I see the fingerprints of God in that aspect of our psychology. We desire exactly what God has always been – a good shepherd who lays down their life for their sheep.