The Maasai of East Africa are a very peculiar people. Very often they are known for raiding the neighbouring tribes to take possession of their cattle. From the newspaper accounts one may think that the Maasai are a very violent people. Now, there is a mythical background to why the Maasai raid other tribes that have cows. It is said that, in the beginning when God created the world… He created all the animals, and especially cows. Then He also created man - and the Maasai, of course. Then God entrusted the Maasai with all the cows in the world. Therefore all the cows in the world simply belong to the Maasai. And it is their prerogative to look after them. No other tribe has the duty to look after the cows…!
Sounds rather funny, isn’t it? This is the stupidity of pastoralists all over the world. It is a stupidity that flows from the love of pastoralists for their fold. Yes, it is the folly of the love of the shepherd.
Is it perhaps why God has a soft corner for shepherds throughout the history of Salvation? As we turn the pages of the Old Testament, we see that God has an uncontested predilection for shepherds: Abel, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, prophet Amos…and the list can go on.
You see, God seems to have a predilection for the shepherds, because shepherds do make very dedicated leaders. When it comes to taking care of their flock - their people- they can even put themselves at risk. This is the folly of the love of the shepherd.
John 10 is the Chapter of the Shepherd. Jesus says, “ The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life…”
Jesus was not the first to use the image of the shepherd. We have the prophets again and again referring to the leaders of Israel as shepherds; they also refer to God as the true shepherd of the people. But even in the civil society this concept of the shepherd was there among kings and rulers, prior to the time of Jesus. In the statues of ancient Egyptian gods and in the images of the pharaohs we find them often holding shepherd’s staff. We could even say that the concept of a leader being a shepherd is as old as the concept of monarchy itself.
But what makes Jesus’ concept of the shepherd unique and peculiar is what we read in John 10. As I see, there are three themes, related to the shepherd, that come out very powerfully in Jn 10. These themes are repeated over and over again in the chapter. And I think, in these themes we see the folly of the love of the shepherd and how that love is the source of our hope.
1. The Shepherd knows the Sheep
“I know my own and my own know me…” (Jn 10:14). “I know them and they follow me.” (Jn 10:27)
Moris West is one of my favourite novelists. In one of his novels by name, Lazarus, he speaks of an imaginary Pope Leo XIV. As a person this Pope is a typical cold, insipid sort of a person. His point of conversion is when he is admitted in the hospital for an open-heart surgery. Now in the hospital he is very much touched by the love of a particular female nurse. One day the nurse challenges the coldness of the pope with these daring words: … “You Bishops, you call yourselves shepherds… but all that you see is a carpet of wool!” (Not individual faces of sheep!)
Thank God, we are not just a carpet of wool for God. We are individuals. Jesus knows us individually, by face, by name… Isn’t it very promising! Hopeful! That, we are not just numbers for God.
In the Hebrew sense, knowing is not a mere intellectual activity. The organ for knowing for the Hebrews, is the heart! In fact, it is the same knowing that is used to describe the relationship between a husband and wife. Yes, Jesus knows us with his heart. He loves us. Isn’t it a source of hope for us?
2. The Shepherd goes after the sheep
The second consoling fact is that our shepherd is one who can take the risk of leaving the 99 and go in search of the one-lost. It is a foolhardy action. Yet He does it because he knows each one by their name. And each one is important to Him.
Through the prophet Ezekiel (34: 11-16) God says, “I myself shall take care of my flock and look after it. … I myself shall pasture my sheep, I myself shall give them rest… I shall look for the lost one, bring back the stray, bandage the injured and make the sick strong.”
There is a beautiful story from John Powel’s Unconditional Love, that brings out this image of God very powerfully:
Tommy turned out to be an atheist while attending classes in Theology of Faith. He was searching for God, but couldn’t find Him. So, he decided to quit. The last day of his class he asked his professor, John Powel, in a slight cynical tone: “Do you think I’ll ever find God?” “No”, replied the professor emphatically, and he added a little later, “Tommy, I don’t think you’ll ever find Him, but I am absolutely certain that He will find you!” Tommy shrugged a little and left the class.
A few months later, Tommy walked into the office of the same professor, to tell him how he found God, or rather, how God had found him.
The doctors discovered that Tommy had terminal cancer. It was just a question of few weeks. And Tom’s search for God became ever stronger but God did not come out of the closed doors of heaven. So he decided never to care about God, about an after life, or anything like that. But he wanted to do something more profitable before he died. Then he remembered what his professor had told him and his class, that “the essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them.
So he began with the hardest one: his dad. He was reading the newspaper when Tom approached him. “Dad…”, he said. “Yes, what?, he asked without lowering the newspaper. “Dad, I would like to talk with you.” “Well, talk.” “I mean… it’s really important.” The newspaper came down, “What is it?” “Dad I love you. I just wanted you to know that.”
The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then Tom saw two things that he had never seen his father do. He cried and he hugged him. And they talked all night. Tom felt so good to be close to his father, to see his tears, to feel his hug and to hear him say that he too loved Tom.
Tom did the same with his mother and his little brother. He felt so close to them. He was only sorry, he had waited so long. Here when he was in the shadow of death, he was just beginning to open up to all the people he had actually been close to.
When he was enjoying this atmosphere of love, he turned around and God was there. Yes he was there. God found him. Tom needed no more proofs.
My dear friends, God is the shepherd who comes after us, like the Hound of Heaven. He is so obsessed with us. When we are gone far away from Him… using our own freedom… He comes after us and finds us in ways we least expect. Isn’t this a source of Hope for us?
3. The Shepherd lays down his life for the sake of the sheep.
John 10 overflows with these phrases: “I lay down my life for my sheep. (15), I lay it down of my own free will, … I have power to lay it down.” Very telling isn’t it? God is ready to lay down his life for the sake of mere humans like us!
There was a scripture professor of mine who was fond of using a very interesting image to bring out this stupidity/absurdity of the love of God for us… much like the folly of the Shepherd. Imagine that someone of you loves cockroaches, those wretched creatures that are a nuisance in the kitchen. You really pity how wretched they are and you want to help them out. And let’s say, you have the power to become a cockroach. So you become a cockroach and you live among them. You eat like them, you talk like them, you walk like them… and then you start guiding them. You start showing them how they can live their lives fully. But alas, one day these cockroaches get tired of you and kill you!
Why, this is exactly what God did in the person of Jesus Christ: He became one of us, and we killed Him!
So when Jesus tells us, I am ready to lay down my life for the sheep. Isn’t it absurd? And what else, he really did it. This is what I am referring to as the folly of the love of the shepherd. And this is the source of our hope. Isn’t it so consoling to know that God loves us so passionately?
Conclusion
My friends, this morning I invite you to ponder at the deep love that God has for each one of us, the love that is made plain in the person of Jesus Christ. Yes, God is madly in love with you… Does it not give us the courage and the strength to continue our life’s journey! Does it not push us to respond to the shepherd, to know Him, to love Him and to follow Him?
I have used several images this morning, I invite you to stay with one of them throughout the day, may be even throughout the week, and perhaps even all your life.
I would like to conclude with another image from the Maasai. I take this from Vincent Donovan’s, Christianity Rediscovered. (Incidentally, I was introduced to this book by someone of you when I was here the last time.) Donovan was an American Catholic Priest who worked in a very daring way among the Maasai in Arusha Diocese of Tanzania. He played down the centrality of his traditional “presbytery” and the parish church, and reached out to the Maasai in their manyattas (villages).
One day an elder came up to meet him in one of the manyatta’s. He was saying that the masai equivalent for the word “faith” that the priest was using in his preaching was not deep enough. It simply meant, “to agree to”. Faith understood in this sense is like a hunter shooting the game. Only his eyes and hands are involved.
But the elder said, to believe is rather like a lion going after the prey. The lion knows the prey with all its senses… it moves towards it in an obsessive manner and takes possession of it so firmly, it just clings on to it…the lion envelops it. This is the way the lion kills, and this is the way man should believe.
After some pause, the masai elder went on… on a second thought, actually the lion is God! We did not come to you, you came to us… the masai elder was telling the priest, you brought us this news about God to our homes. So in fact, God “has searched for us. He has searched us out and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In the end, the lion is God”.
(Fr.) Sahaya G. Selvam SDB, Don Bosco, P.O.Box 8955, Moshi. Email: selvamsdb@hotmail.com
