The Good Shepherd

Today we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday, a feast that, while not universally observed in Eastern churches on this day, holds a cherished place in our parish’s life. It was central to Father Tom’s ministry among us, and so we retain it as an opportunity to reflect on God as our shepherd and to honor those who have served as shepherds in our own lives.

Living as Servants in the Empire

Before turning to the Gospel, we need to sit with the epistle reading, because it is genuinely difficult. St. Peter writes:“For the Lord’s sake, be subject to every human authority, whether to the emperor as supreme or to governors sent by him… Honor everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, and honor the emperor.”

And then, even more starkly: “Slaves, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are dishonest.”

These words are a stumbling block. Put yourself in the shoes of the earliest Christians: a people living under Roman occupation, their land taken, their communities scattered and disenfranchised. To be told to honor that same emperor (the very power that crushed them) must have felt almost impossible. And it doesn’t get any easier when we read these words today. How do we reconcile Peter’s call to love and honor those in power when we see injustice unfolding around us? And how do we handle the passage about slaves when we know the full horror of what slavery has meant throughout history?

The answer Peter gives us is this: live like Christ.

Christ told us to love not just our neighbors, but our enemies. He went to the least, the lost, the sinner, the tax collector. Peter is urging the church, urging us, to put on Christ, to serve like Christ, even if that service leads to suffering. As Peter reminds us: “It is God’s will that by doing right, you should silence the ignorance of the foolish.”

It can be deeply tempting to pick up a weapon, or a flag, or cling to political power as the way out of injustice. But history shows us, again and again, that fighting fire with fire only perpetuates the cycle. The way World War I ended set the stage for World War II. The way World War II ended set the stage for Korea and Vietnam. The borders carved out of the collapsed Ottoman Empire after WWI are still fueling conflict in the Middle East today. The cycle of injustice keeps spinning when we use the world’s methods.

Peter’s call is not passive surrender. It is a radical, difficult, Christlike insistence that the only lasting way out of a broken world is to be the change Christ embodies - to love when love is costly, to serve when service is humbling, and to trust that this is the only path that leads somewhere truly new.

Christ as the Gate

With that in mind, we turn to the Gospel. Jesus presents himself in two ways in this passage: as the gate, and as the shepherd.

First, the gate. Picture the scene: a stone-walled field with a single gate. The shepherd leads his sheep in and out through that gate every day. That gate is everything. It’s how they go to pasture, how they return to safety, how the shepherd watches for predators.

There is no other way in or out.

Jesus tells us plainly: he is that gate.

We are surrounded by competing voices (political leaders, economic systems, cultural identities) all vying to become the organizing center of our lives. Some tell us life is about money and wealth. Some tell us our entire identity should be wrapped up in who we vote for. Others tell us it’s all about you - your personal values, your self-expression, your contribution. But this passage cuts through all of it: it is always about Jesus. He is the gate. The only way into safe pasture is through him.

This is not hellfire-and-brimstone exclusivism. Jesus is not drawing a line between the saved and the damned as some kind of cosmic bouncer. Rather, he is telling us that if we want to find healing, justice, peace, and love in the world; the only way to get there is to enter through him, to take on his mind and live as he calls us to live. It is only through that Christlike life that we find safe harbor.

St. Ignatius of Antioch understood this with breathtaking scope: “He is the door of the Father through which Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the prophets, the apostles and the church all enter. All these enter into the unity of God.”

The early church fathers saw Christ present throughout the whole story of salvation: in the burning bush where Moses encountered God, in the commander of heaven’s armies who appeared to Joshua, in the figure of divine Wisdom who was present at the creation of the world. Christ is not a newcomer. He is the gate through which all of God’s people, in every age, have entered into union with the Father.

Christ as the Shepherd

Finally, this passage, and really the whole spirit of today, reminds us that Christ is our Good Shepherd.

Most of us live in cities. We buy our food at a grocery store. But if you’ve ever known a farmer, you have some sense of what a shepherd truly is. I think of my own grandfather, who raised chickens, cows, goats, and pigs toward the end of his life. He was everything to those animals. He fed them, cared for them when they were sick, rounded them up when they wandered off. I even remember a story from childhood where one of his goats went after my brother, and it was my grandfather who stepped in to restore the peace. The farmer is almost a god to those animals, in a certain sense - the one who provides, protects, and cares for every need.

That is what Christ is to us.

He is both the gate and the shepherd standing at the gate - opening it, closing it, leading us out to pasture and bringing us safely back in. He is our Lord, our God, our Savior, and he is meant to be the center of our lives. This isn’t easy. Life pulls us in a hundred directions at once. There are jobs, relationships, studies, responsibilities, and identities that all demand our attention. But above all of it, this passage calls us to remember one thing: we are sheep, and Christ is our shepherd.

We must trust him. Whatever is pressing in on us - unemployment, illness, fear, uncertainty, Christ is our shepherd. He will lead us to pasture. He will bring us back when we wander. He will bind up what is broken in us.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus captures it beautifully: “He is the Way, because he leads us through himself. He is the Door who lets us in, the Shepherd who makes us dwell in green pastures, bringing us up by waters of rest and leading us there. He protects us from wild beasts, converts the erring, brings back what was lost and binds up what was broken. He guards the strong and brings them together into the fold beyond with words of pastoral knowledge.”

Life, and Life Abundantly

The passage closes with a verse that has been frequently misused: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.”

In charismatic and prosperity gospel contexts, this verse often gets twisted into a promise of earthly health and wealth. But that’s not what Jesus is saying. In fact, the Greek word translated as “abundantly” is almost too tame. It carries the sense of something extravagant, excessive, overflowing to the point of being almost too much. What Jesus is describing is not a bigger bank account. He is describing eternal life, the restoration of the deep union with God that humanity was always meant to have before the fall.

God is the one being in all creation who lacks nothing. He is all, in all, creating all. And what Christ the Good Shepherd is calling us back to is our rightful place within that divine life. In the language of the Byzantine tradition, this is theosis - the intimate union of the creature with the Creator, the sheep resting fully in the care of the shepherd who loves them.

This is why we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday. Because in the noise and chaos of the world, in empires both ancient and modern, in our struggles and our wandering, we need the reminder: Christ is our gate. Christ is our shepherd. And he has come so that we might have life - extravagantly, excessively, abundantly - in union with him.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.