When using shepherds as a metaphor, we often think of leaders and rulers. But when Jesus acted like a shepherd, he fed people.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about portions of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 6:30-34, 53-56). There are two stories that don’t actually have a lot of content to them: Jesus arrived somewhere and found a crowd waiting (or one had followed him), and then he taught them.
As we’ve been reading through the Gospel of Mark so far this year, I’ve been aware of a sub-theme I don’t think I’ve noticed before: how Jesus keeps on looking for a day off, and not getting one. And indeed, in the first of these stories Jesus comes along, a crowd follows him, and Jesus “had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
Now, shepherd is a multi layered metaphor in the scriptures of Christians and Jews. the Hebrew people in the Psalms frequently used the metaphor of shepherds to refer to a ruler. They also, of course, famously used it to refer to God in Psalm 23. The Messiah that was promised? Well, all the shepherding imagery that came with that related to that same image of shepherd as guide, as leader, as ruler. Sheep need to be led.
But when Jesus found people waiting for him, or when Jesus found the people who had followed him, and he saw them as sheep without a shepherd, his response was not to tell them what to do. His response was to feed them: to feed them upon the word of God, to feed them on actual food (the lectionary has left out the feeding of the 5000, but that’s actually one of the stories that lies between these two passages). Jesus proceeded to see that the people he met were fed.
We’ve been thinking of shepherding all wrong.
We’ve been thinking of shepherding as the exercise of power. We’ve been thinking of shepherding as the exercise of guidance. We’ve been thinking of shepherding as, “I lead. You follow.”
But the shepherd that God gave us, the Good Shepherd that God gave us, was one to make sure that we were cared for, that we were fed, that we were whole.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
