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The Rev. Frank
Logue More
than the Good Shepherd Here’s an odd job title for you—Henchman. You know as in the evil henchmen who populate the climatic scene of every James Bond movie. The bad guy always has an army of loyal mercenaries. How do the evil geniuses raise these armies anyway? With all the henchmen I have seen in the movies over the years, I have never once seen a classified ad from an evil genius looking for henchmen to help in his plot to take over the world. Even more mystifying than how one finds a herd of henchmen, is why so many of them fight it out to the death. It would seem more likely that when the compost hits the fan, the henchmen would hit the hills. And maybe more of them do than not. How else could James Bond foil plot after improbable plot to take over the world, if the mercenaries were in the fight for anything other than payday. Your basic evil henchman has no stake in whether the evil genius takes over the world or not. This is what Jesus talks about in our Gospel reading for the day. Jesus says, 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—the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I want to show you what it would look like to speak of a caring henchman instead of an evil henchman. It’s a deleted scene from the first Austin Powers movie. Show scene from Austin Powers in a pleasant home with a wife getting the call that her husband, who was a henchman for Dr. Evil, has been killed. She then tells her son (his stepson) the news before saying that no one considers how these things affect the family of a henchman. The clip I showed is silly. You can’t think of all the henchmen in the movie and take into account the toll on the families of the evil genius’ army. So “caring henchman” is an oxymoron on par with “military intelligence,” “legal ethics,” “Microsoft Works,” and “entertaining sermon.” But in Jesus’ own day, it was just as improbable, impossible really to say “Good Shepherd.” It was exactly like saying “caring henchman.” But Jesus used the expression to teach how much he cares for us, his flock. So Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd” in a time when shepherds were not considered good. They were so berated by the culture that a shepherd was not allowed to testify in court in the Israel of Jesus’ day. This distrust of shepherds came at least in part as shepherds spent most of their time away from the owner of the sheep. The owner who had no idea how many lambs wear born that year. So shepherds would sell off a sheep or two at bargain prices to make a little extra money for the herding duties. Shepherds were assumed to be no better than thieves. Yet, Jesus, whose birth was announced by shepherds, is digging back into a deeper Biblical tradition. His ancestor, Israel’s great King David had been a shepherd as a boy. And the 23rd Psalm credited to the shepherd-turned-poet king speaks in beautiful language of God as our shepherd, the best of shepherds. Jesus says he is no henchman, caring or otherwise. He is not like the hired hand who wouldn’t think of taking on a lion to defend the flock. Jesus is The Good Shepherd—the shepherd who will lay down his life for his sheep. When I was in seminary, an Old Testament professor was telling of how we have to capture the heart of the stories in scripture even though the imagery is distant to us. He said, “After all, none of us has defended a flock of sheep against a lion.” David, a student from the Sudan, spoke up to take exception to the professor’s statement. “I have,” David offered. “Me too,” seconded Jovahnn, a student from Uganda. Each of them in their preteen and teen years had learned to stand guard over the family’s flock. They lived in a land of big cats, hyenas, and other fierce predators. The two seminarians had found the courage not only to stand watch, but to fend off big predators as their survival and the survival of their family depended on their courage. This is the exception Jesus had allowed for in mentioning the one who does not own the sheep, knowing that the one defending their own family’s flock would act differently. The two seminarians had tended the sheep in the presence of enemies who could kill sheep and shepherd alike. They knew what it was to lead sheep into better pasture knowing that they would have to defend them. Leading the sheep to pasture is significant. For being led is one way sheep are different from cattle and some other herd animals. Cattle are moved from place to place in a cattle drive, with the cowhands pushing the cattle ahead of them. Yes, sheepherding dogs can shoe sheep a particular direction, but shepherds lead sheep. Like the days when the troops followed the general into battle knowing that the general would not just use them for cannon fodder as he was out front. In that same way, sheep knew that it would be safe to go where the shepherd had already been. Perhaps sheep are not so dumb after all. For example, there is an old Chinese proverb related to following that works even better for leading. The story is of a tiger who captured a fox. The fox, in the way wily foxes do in these stories, said, “You don’t want to eat me, for God has made me the leader of the animal kingdom.” The tiger laughed. But the captured canine knew how to outfox a tiger. The fox said, “Follow me and see if any animal dares to challenge me.” The tiger, who was not the brightest of animals, agreed to the plan. The fox lead the way through the forest with the tiger close behind. No matter what animal they encountered—from lowly mice to great elephants—showed deference to the fox and not a little fear. Not only did no animal dare challenge the fox, every animal fled as soon as they could. After watching the dramatic display of the fox’s power and influence, the tiger sent the fox on his way. The moral of the proverb is that encountering problems and challenges along your path will go easier if you have a tiger walking right behind you. How much better it would be to have that tiger out front. That’s what the sheep count on. The shepherd out front, scattering the predators, so that the valley of the shadow of death is no longer a place of fear. The shepherd is out front with the rod and the staff making the path safe. This is how Jesus was and is The Good Shepherd. Jesus saw the wolf coming and did not flinch. Going out front of the flock for Jesus meant going to Golgotha, the place of the skull. Jesus led the way into suffering and death and then continued to lead the way through death into life. Jesus did this because he is neither a shepherd, nor a hired hand. Jesus taught that he is The Good Shepherd—the one who lays down his own life for his sheep. This metaphor of Jesus as The Good Shepherd is a powerful one and I have explored it a bit to show what we can learn from seeing Jesus as The Good Shepherd who leads the way for us and calls us to follow him. But it is also important to push beyond the image. For the carpenter Jesus never tended a flock of sheep, he only led a drove of disciples. It’s like the page in a book you may have seen before that has printed on it “This page left intentionally blank.” Well, if it was left “intentionally blank” then why does it have words on it? Printing words on the page saying the page is blank makes the statement untrue. In that same way, any one statement about who God is will be untrue in and of itself, as God is bigger than any image we have or can create. For if we want to tell of a shepherd defending a lamb from a lion, then we have scripture that tells of Jesus as “The Good Shepherd,” “The Lamb of God,” and “The Lion of the Tribe of Judah.” Or perhaps even more telling about how that story might turn out, Jesus is described in Revelation as “the lamb who was slain.” In addition to these we have other word images from scripture including:
The Alpha and
the Omega, Images stack on images to reveal the God beyond images. But while this list is long it is neither complete nor can it be completed. For though we speak of God using analogies, we speak of a God beyond compare. These analogies help us to understand God more fully, but God can not be put into a box and these ways of speaking about Jesus do not tell us all there is to be said about him. This also explains the many faces of Jesus in art, including that found on the walls here at King of Peace. For Jesus to be pictured at all, it is better to picture him many ways, so that we don’t only see, for example, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed savior. I challenge you to break whatever image it is that you have of Jesus. If you tend to think of him as a stern judge, remember that he is also described as a brother and a friend. If you think of Jesus as meek and mild remember that political and religious leaders conspired together to put Jesus to death as a revolutionary. Or if you have left intentionally blank the place in your mind where thoughts of Jesus could go, try thinking through who Jesus is to you. For he was and is God incarnate and so he was and is more than you might currently imagine. Jesus is The Good Shepherd, but he is so much more. Smashing the image you have of him, no matter how dear that image might be to you, could be what it takes to see the real Jesus more clearly. Amen.
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