The Good Shepherd

This Sunday's text was "I am the good shepherd" from John 10:11-18. There are a lot of different ways to approach this text and they usually include talking about "us" being like sheep, etc. In fact, that's the basic direction I took yesterday. Yet, in reading on this text, I came across and interesting angle. One author talked about the shepherd more than the sheep. It went something like this (my paraphrasing): Jesus says "I am the good shepherd" which isn't as flattering as we might like to think. Shepherds weren't educated. They lived for months at a time out in the field with the sheep so they probably didn't smell that good. They probably weren't that 'polished' in terms of manners and good graces since they didn't go to a lot of fancy dinner parties. They were probably, what we might consider, pretty 'rough and tough'--you know the kind of folks if we saw them on the street, we'd make sure the car doors are locked, just because they might look a bit suspect... The author I was reading compared them to 'migrant workers' in our day!
Certainly an interesting why to look at it. Of course, it fits. Jesus compares the kindgom[sic] of God to a mustard seed--a plant that was considered a weed and a plant that died every year! {Maybe not our image!} And to it being like yeast, which was/is essentially a 'pollutant' to making unleaven bread! And of course, the list goes on. Pretty much everything we would consider 'status quo' is something that Jesus says he and God's way isn't about!!! Of course, we don't like to hear this angle of his teachings but if we are going to keep reading about 'his way', we really ought to read and deal with all the implications!