This coming Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Easter. To appreciate this parable it is important to understand its setting in a small first century Palestinian village. It would be quite the norm for a family to own but a few sheep. The sheep were sources of income (wool) and clothing, and so the animals were protected usually within small walled courtyards next to or connected to the house. If each family had only a few sheep, a shepherd for each household was not justified, so several households would have one shepherd to look after their sheep. Often the shepherding was done by a child from one of these families. If no child was available a hireling was employed.

Early each morning the sheep would be taken out to graze in the open country. The shepherd moved from house to house, and because he was known to the doorkeepers they opened their courtyard doors to allow him to call out the sheep. The sheep knew his voice and eagerly followed him into the open country to feed. The walls of the courtyards would be substantially high, thus anyone who was not the shepherd, who had ulterior motives, would have to climb over the walls because the doorkeeper would not admit him and, of course, the sheep would not recognize his call and would flee from him.  While this practice was not uniform, it was typical according to scripture scholars. Interestingly, a similar system of community “shepherding” was used by the Maasai, Samburu and Kuria people of Kenya in their cattle herding.

Some thoughts about shepherds. Fr. James Martin, SJ, in his book Jesus: A Pilgrimage notes that most of Jesus’ parables are agricultural in nature, with some nod toward those who harvest the seas for their living; very few are rooted in his own livelihood, carpentry (or more specifically, tecton, a general term for one who works in the building/craft trades). Yet Jesus grew up in Nazareth amongst his neighbors who labored in those areas. Thus, Jesus, while himself not a farmer or fisherman, would be familiar through his extended relationships. We are left to speculate the “common knowledge” about shepherds and the care of sheep and what ideas Jesus might have held.

Clearly all we can do is speculate based upon the parables and stories Jesus told that were recorded in Scripture – but as John 20 notes, not all was written down, but enough that you may believe.

A critical element of our modern reading of this text is what ideas/notions do we hold about sheep, shepherds, and the like. In my time I have heard homilies that ascribe absolute loyalty as a trait between sheep and shepherd. I have heard remarks that sheep are perhaps the dumbest animals alive and that shepherds were lazy, untrustworthy scoundrels. You can read all manner of remarks about shepherding and sheep in internet posts and blogs. For the majority of readers, safe to say do not have any real experience of their own. So, what are we to make of all this?

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