Christ the Sheep Gate

The sheep gate image in John Chapter 10 is not my favourite.

I find the symbolism a little trickier to unpack than some of its counterparts, both in the fourth gospel and in the synoptics. I am the bread of life, the water of life, the light of the world: all exploding with depth and profundity, yet at the same time such basic, life-sustaining substances. They speak to me about who Christ is and what that means at every layer of my being.

Similarly, the Lost Sheep parable in Luke 15 is so simple it works as a children’s story. John’s version, an I am statement instead of a parable, a narrow gate image turned into a declaration of Christological identity, is more rooted in its socio-political context, more engaged in various layers of contemporary and historical polemic. There are more layers to unravel here before we can work out what Jesus is saying to us. What does it mean that Christ is the sheep gate, and how does that relate to the promise of abundant life?

To live an abundant life, to experience life in all its fullness, is such a tantalizing prospect and John’s gospel makes it sound so achievably simple. In reality, though, the experience of a full, meaningful quotidian existence often proves elusive. Why am I spending my one wild and precious life doomscrolling influencers, or fishing a small, fuzzy sock out of the washer-dryer filter and then staring at it from different angles wondering what’s happened to the other half of the pair? Is today’s headache from too much caffeine, or not enough caffeine? Shouldn’t there be more to the Christ-filled abundant life than this?

To mine the insights in this passage, known as the Good Shepherd discourse, we need to appreciate that Jesus is in dialogue here and we only have one side of the conversation. Firstly, he is in dialogue with the Pharisees in the previous chapter, who have just excluded a blind man from the temple. They could be interpreted as the thieves and bandits, the false shepherds in contrast to Jesus’s true, Good Shepherd leadership. However, some scholars would cast the Pharisees as the hirelings and the thieves and bandits as the Jewish leaders of the time, corrupt and colluding with the Roman oppressors at the expense of the vulnerable sheep, God’s people.

So Jesus is in dialogue with the socio-political context of his time here, which was complex, but we can summarise it as the murky politics of empire. The Johannine writer adds another layer; Jesus is speaking to his own, colonized present but the writer is also speaking to the early church, which we can infer is increasingly divided, perhaps being preyed upon by false shepherds.

This passage is also in dialogue with the past, with Israel’s chequered and dramatic history and how Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy.

Firstly, Jesus is the Lord, the Lord who is my shepherd of perhaps the most famous and maybe also most popular Psalm, Psalm 23. The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not be in

want. He is the Davidic messiah, the shepherd-king. But even more, he is the counterpart to the false shepherds decried by Ezekiel, the ones who cause the sheep to scatter. In Ezekiel 34, God, the true Shepherd, promises to gather the sheep back together, to protect and nurture them. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep […] , says the Lord God. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strays, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak…

We miss something here, if we think that Jesus is only declaring himself to be a shepherd, a perfect pastor, someone who will spiritually nourish. Because just like in the other I am statements in John, Jesus is also declaring that he is God.

And as for the gate? The gate in a sheep field was really a gap, and the shepherd stood in that gap, protecting and guiding the flock. So for Jesus to say he is the gate is really another way of him saying he is the Shepherd, but also that he is the Way, the narrow gate, the way, the truth and the life.

So Jesus is looking back, to scriptural tradition, and out to his first century context. But how do these statements about sheep, shepherd and gate speak to us today? Where is the clue here about where abundant life can be found? Is it an app I need to download? Do I need to buy a new kind of vitamin?

Although in this passage, both the socio-political milieu, and the agrarian imagery can feel quite far removed from our present day reality, biblical scholars continue to find insights here for the contemporary Christian life, from a range of subdisciplines including feminism, post-colonialism and trauma theology. Sylvia A. Sweeney, a Los Angeles based Episcopal homiletics professor, finds in this pericope an argument against theocratic domination in US policy and the ways in which it is curbing the autonomy of women in poorer, rural communities. Johnson Thomaskutty from the United Theological College in Bengaluru, India calls for a decolonized approach to the text, drawing out its themes of inclusion, identification with the vulnerable and care for the dehumanized.

Clearly, what appears to be a simple, pastoral passage imbued with farming imagery: sheep, shepherd, gate, was in fact highly political then and remains highly politicized now.

On one level, the message is simple, personal and spiritual. Christ is the Way, Christ is the Good shepherd, and if we make the time and space to listen to his voice, we will experience fulness of life. Nurture your spirituality, by finding God in the simple things. Seek green spaces and still waters. Rest there awhile. Is there something toxic and harmful flowing into you, something stealing your peace? Turn to Christ who is God and let him be the guide and gatekeeper of your soul.

But there is a corporate and political dimension here as well, and we would be missing something if we neglected to address it. Abundant life is spiritual, but it also has real world implications. We must not only ask what is stopping us from living life in all its fulness, in our own, personal spiritual lives, but we must also ask that question for our neighbour. What is hampering my sister, my brother, from experiencing abundant life in all its fulness? What are the networks of oppression, the forces of domination, where do we see dehumanisation and exploitation of the vulnerable, which prevent the other from experiencing God-given abundant life?

Christ is the Good Shepherd, and his sheep hear his voice. And Christ also says: do you love me? feed my sheep.

What must we do to have abundant life? We turn to Christ. We tend to the pastures of our own spiritual life. And we turn to help our neighbour. We love God and we feed God’s sheep. Amen