The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
John 10: 10-11
Back in June of 1975, my brother and I loaded up his car and we headed for the West Coast. As we drove through the mountains of eastern Idaho we rounded a bend, and spread out before us were thousands of sheep moving up the road.
Being a couple of kids from Minnesota, we didn’t quite know what to do, so we stopped and sat there watching this endless stream of sheep passing by.
Eventually, a cowboy sauntered up on a horse wearing a hat and chaps and everything that a kid from Minnesota would want a cowboy to wear. He bent down to the window and said, “Sir, you just drive your car real slow through them sheep. They’ll move out of the way for you all right. Y’all have a good day now.” And so we bumped our way through that mass of bleating and surprisingly smelly creatures until we finally came out at the other side, and headed off down the road.
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that before that moment, the only knowledge I had of shepherds came from pictures in Sunday School books. It had never occurred to me that shepherds are cowboys. I had always imagined shepherds sitting around a campfire wearing robes and sandals, perhaps singing folk songs about life on the road to the music of a lyre and a pan flute. To me, shepherds were something like modern-day hippies of first century Galilee.
The reality is that shepherding is hard and dangerous work with long hours and low pay. Sheep require never-ending vigilance. Ranchers hire cowboys to watch over them day and night while they are up in mountain pastures grazing in order to keep them safe from predators.
Scripture declares that we are God’s sheep, and that God is our provider and our protector. We are reminded that Jesus stepped into this world to gather us in like a cowboy herding his flock through the dangers of this world. We are told that Jesus shepherds us not just so that we may survive, but also that we may live an abundant life in his name. Abundant life means living in community with one another. It means living in community with those who have never experienced the resurrection in their lives. It means sharing the abundance that we have been given so that no one goes without.
Our life in Christ is nothing like what this world tries to pawn off on us as an abundant life. To this world, abundance is having season tickets closer to center ice, a bigger boat, a younger spouse, or a deeper checkbook. To this world, abundance is having more of what we already have enough of.
To God, abundance is about living into God’s calling for us.
Abundant life is that which draws us into fellowship with one another as people of faith, and each one of us experiences this gift differently. For a single mother, abundance is an unexpected bag of groceries delivered by a neighbor. For a victim of domestic abuse, it’s a co-worker willing to offer shelter. For a young adult who is addicted, it’s the support of someone who’s been through it before. For a transgender youth being bullied in school, it’s a teacher who draws the child into a circle of caring classmates.
Do you see how this works? Abundant life looks different in different places and to different people, but it is always shared with us in response to whatever it is that seeks to steal away the joy and the purpose of our life with one another.
The resurrected Christ steps into our lives as our good shepherd, not the hippie good shepherd that I used to imagine as a child, but the cowboy good shepherd, the one who suffers in order to accomplish the difficult and often dirty work of saving us when we wander. This is the good shepherd who rounds us up when we become lost and brings us back into communion with one another.
It is Jesus, our shepherd, who shares his life with us by healing the blind and the lame, by feeding the hungry, by comforting the outcast and the despised, and by witnessing to the unrelenting love of God. It is Jesus, our shepherd, who gives of himself so fully that all who hear his voice may live this abundant life.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Tom Murray of the Lutsen Lutheran Church and Baptism River Community Church of Finland.
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