Village Shepherd

I recently acquired a most interesting book, The Complete Jesus by Ricky Mayotte (Steerforth Press L.C., 1997, ISBN 1883642450). It's all the sayings of Jesus gathered from ancient sources and compiled into a single volume. So as well as all the sayings of Jesus from the Gospels and from the book of Revelation, it includes sayings I've never heard before from books which are unknown to me. Books such as "The Book of Thomas the Contender", or "The Dialogue of the Saviour", or "The Apocryphon of John". Ricky Mayotte has simply sorted the sayings into categories, but presented them as they stand, without comment.

It's been a revelation to me. Some of the sayings purporting to come from Jesus are extremely difficult to understand, and some of the parables are incomprehensible to my modern mind.

For instance, according to one source (pg. 38) Jesus said, "The Kingdom of the Father is like a certain woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking on a road, still some distance from home, the handle of the jar broke and the meal emptied out behind her on the road. She did not realise it; she had noticed no accident. When she reached her house, she set the jar down and found it empty."

For the life of me, I can't make out what that says about the kingdom of heaven!

It's very interesting to come across some new sayings and parables which were written down at the time as coming from Jesus, even though none of them were accepted into the canon of the Bible. The gospel parables and sayings are so familiar, that it's difficult to see them with fresh eyes, and the meanings seem obvious. But reading new parables has shown me that the parables aren't obvious at all, I've simply heard the same explanations over and over again until I'm unable to separate parable and explanation.

What did the audience make of the parable of the shepherd and the sheepfold when they heard it for the first time? In verse six of today's reading, we're told that they did not understand what he was saying to them. Yet the meaning seems so obvious today, for we're very familiar with the visual picture of the Good Shepherd and the sheep.

It seems easy to understand the imagery of the Good Shepherd, especially remembering that shepherds would have been everyday sights for all Jesus' audience. The Eastern shepherd walked ahead of his sheep, expecting them to follow him rather than being driven from behind, as is the custom in many Western countries today.

This fits in so well with Jesus' attitude of allowing people to choose. He never attempted to manipulate or pressurise people into following him, but merely put his cards firmly on the table, then gave them the option of following or not as they chose. He was always concerned about the "lost sheep", and went out of his way to rescue them, but sheep who deliberately chose against him were able to freely make that choice. He even went to the Cross because that was what his enemies wanted.

So the shepherd imagery is reasonably easy to understand. But what about the image of Jesus as the gate of the sheepfold? How can a person be a gate? And what was all that about thieves and robbers who only come to steal the sheep? Who were they, what did he mean about climbing over the wall, and are such people still around today?

In this chapter John is continuing the attack on the Pharisees which ended chapter nine. The hired hands who served the sheep so badly are the Pharisees who excommunicated the blind man in the previous chapter. The Pharisees don't recognise Jesus, but the people of God symbolised by the blind man who received his sight, do recognise him and hear his voice. So the Pharisees are the thieves and robbers who come only to steal the sheep and who climb over the wall to do so.

They dared not come in through the gate because Jesus himself is the gate. How can this be?

Sheepfolds in the East had no gate. The shepherd himself formed the gate by lying across the opening at night. Thus if wild beasts came to attack the sheep, they would have to first attack the shepherd. The shepherd protected his sheep by literally offering his life for them.

Thieves and robbers would be unable to approach the sheepfold via the gate, for fear of the shepherd. So the only way for them to get at the sheep was by the devious means of climbing the wall.

Given that the thieves and robbers were identified by Jesus as the Pharisees, the religious rulers of the day, who are today's thieves and robbers and how can they be identified?

Perhaps today's thieves and robbers are those who attempt to steal our souls from us. Those who marginalise spirituality, those who teach us to worship material things and the money that can buy them, those who teach us to worship sex, those who erode our principles until anything sleazy is OK as long as it's fun. And those who make all this sound as though it's good and right.

The only way to resist such thieves and robbers is to filter everything which enters the sheepfold via Jesus the gate. This isn't to say we should live only by the rules. That was the mistake made by the Pharisees. They believed they would reach God simply by following the rules. But Jesus was very clear that it's the heart which matters.

If Jesus is to be our gate, we need to open ourselves to him so that everything we see or hear, say or think or do becomes instinctively filtered through him. Then whatever happens in our lives, however tempted we are by subtle or seductive advertising and subtle or seductive media coverage, we shall be kept safe. For he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

Jesus is the way to real life, life which is overflowing with love, with fulfilment, with a new sort of power, with vibrant energy. This is life in the sheepfold, and the only way to it is through the gate.