SHEPHERDS, GOOD AND NOT SO GOOD

by Fr. David J. Tokarz

“Good Shepherd Sunday” is a time to remember, in the words of Sr Thea Bowman, “who we are, and Whose we are.” We are destined to be part of the flock of the Lord, the true Shepherd.

          But the Greek word here is not agathos (= good, virtuous); it’s kalos (= beautiful, worthy of imitation). This brings to my mind the insight of Robert Bolt in an essay he wrote about his play A Man For All Seasons…
          “A man for all Seasons is a good man. I don’t mean morally good (though no doubt he’d be that too), but good in the sense that a good car is good, or a good plow, or a good knife. Good for what it’s for. A good knife is a sharp knife because a knife is for cutting. What is a man for?”

          What is a shepherd for? Jesus makes that very clear—a shepherd is for pasturing the sheep, protecting them, defending them, laying down his life for them, if necessary. So the hireling is not an immoral or bad person; he is simply not “what a shepherd” is for—he is not worth imitating; he is not “beautiful.” As a footnote, to be “beautiful” did not originally mean physically attractive the way we think of it now, but rather to be noble, flawless—an artistic ideal. When such an idea is reduced to the body, we get the understanding of “beautiful” that we have now, sadly—a very reductionist understanding.

          Jesus wants to be “beautiful”—why? Both to be what He is supposed to be (our Head, the Pioneer and Perfector of our Faith (Hebrews 12:2), and to be worthy of imitation: by us! In fact, as disciples/believers, we are called to imitate—to be, at our own levels, good shepherds. This is a charge not only for popes and bishops and priests but for all the Body of Christ. Otherwise, how could we ever hope to be His tools to lead the “other sheep that do not belong to this fold”?

          This brings me back to the quote from Robert Bolt’s essay. We can see, now, what a shepherd is “good” for. The remaining question is, “What is a good disciple?” How can we be good disciples—worthy of imitation because we are what a disciple is for? The scary thing is that Jesus will offer the answer only three chapters later in this Gospel, when at the Last Supper He washes the feet of the disciples and tells them (= us), “If I…have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow… (John 13:14-15). The Greek word “model” is different from kalos, but the concept is the same. Jesus is saying that He is worth imitating, and that disciples are supposed to imitate Him.

          So: Jesus is kalos—beautiful, worthy of imitation, a model. Are we ready also to imitate Him, to let Him be our model? Are we ready to be beautiful?