Reflection - Shepherd

By Steve Hall

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020621.cfm
Hebrews 13:15-17, 20-21
Mark 6:30-34

Sometimes when my thoughts turn to the Church I know today, not the Church I grew up with, but the Church I know today, it seems as though four thousand years have suddenly dissolved as morning mist dissipates over water.

Without wallowing in too much nostalgia, I would have to say that a dramatic change has taken place within the Church community during the short span of my lifetime. Those who have lived sufficient years might well assume that I’m referring to the pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II years. While the time-frame may be proximately correct, any actual connection with the Vatican Council would be far more difficult to establish. Moreover, it is possible that my own predilection for certain academic areas is guiding me toward an inconsequential matter. I’ll explain. You be the judge.

As far back as the time of Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, the tribal stories carried within them an image of God as the Shepherd of His People. “the Mighty One of Jacob ([known] by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel)” (Genesis 49:24) Abraham and his most immediate descendants were primarily sheep herders — shepherds for short. Joseph, Moses and King David all tended sheep during some part of their lives. Even as Israel evolved into a more agrarian society, flocks of sheep continued to be part of the landscape. So this ancient occupation was an ordinary part of the domestic scene. Moreover, as we have seen from the reference in Genesis, it also provided a suitable metaphor for the relationship between God and his people: God was the protector, as the Shepherd was for the sheep. As the divine/human relationship developed, and God relied more on his selected leaders, the image of shepherd became a metaphor for the concern, oversight, responsibility, and protection those leaders were to provide for the people. Throughout the centuries such human oversight was only marginally acceptable to God. They were the leaders God had chosen. They were the ones who, in a special way, were to maintain contact with the Lord. The divine expectation and disappointment in this regard is demonstrated most clearly when it is stated in the words of the prophets. For example, we hear the complaint of the Lord in the Book of Ezekiel.

“Ho, 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.

So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and they became food for all the wild beasts.” (Ezekiel 34:2-3, 5)

The Lord’s response to this failure quickly followed.

"For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the crippled, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will watch over; I will feed them in justice.”(Ezekiel 34:11, 15-16)

Those promises are fulfilled in the person of Jesus. That is why he would look on the crowd following him and “his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.”

Both Matthew and Luke are careful to point out the reason why the people aimlessly wandered. The failure of the Jewish leadership which had provoked the prophecy in Ezekiel had continued into Jesus’ day.

"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in.” (Matthew 23:13)

“They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear,and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger.” (Matthew 23:4)

“Woe to you lawyers! for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering." (Luke 11:52)

Now the point here is not to castigate either the leadership of the Church of the Old Testament or the leadership of the New. No! The point is to see the persistence of an ancient image — the image of God as Shepherd. An image that is made concrete in the Incarnate God. The image did not become obsolete with the coming of the Christ. Rather, the image was perfected and renewed. It would endure through the art of the early centuries of the Church. It would be carved in Stone, incorporated in song, painted in ‘portraits’ and emblazoned in stained glass windows.

Our faith, our religion, our Church come with a history! It is not like today’s offering at the delicatessen. It is not like the current model from Tesla. It is not like today’s interpretation of yesterday’s events. The image of the Lord as my Shepherd is ancient, but it’s not archaic. It endures because it points to an eternal truth. Our faith has a foundation of four thousand years and it has not yet run it’s divine course. Why? Because the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is still known by the title ‘Shepherd,’ and because truth is always true. It is never a product of the times.

Too often, it seems, the only God we know is the one active on the scene today; and, at the same time we have lost our sensitivity to both his presence and his action. He has not evolved. The ancient story of his work of salvation continues today.