Today is often known as “Good Shepherd Sunday” because of
the many images of shepherds in our readings.
Shepherds were common in the
ancient world, and the shepherd became a common trope in biblical
literature. Shepherds – the folks who
actually cared for the flocks rather than the folks who owned the flocks – were
often caricatured as low-class, seedy, uneducated folks; not unlike caricatures
of rural people as rednecks or hicks today.
Shepherds lived in flyover country.
Yet in the Bible, the shepherd became an image for the ideal
leader; turning the stereotype of shepherds on its head. David, the once and future king of Israel,
started out as a shepherd. The model
shepherd cares for the sheep, protects them from danger, and actually lives
among them. Sheepfolds were frequently
enclosed areas right next to the shepherd’s home. Bringing sheep through the gate meant
bringing them safely home after grazing in open pastures.
Sheep were familiar animals.
They provided wool, milk, and, of course, meat. But sheep had a significance in the ancient
world that went far beyond animal husbandry.
Sheep were the animal of choice for ritual sacrifice. They were sacrificial victims used both as
sin offerings and thanksgiving offerings to God. They suffered to benefit others, reifying an
understanding of human culture built on the sacrifice of some so that others
may live. In today’s Gospel reading,
Jesus is engaged in a series of controversies with the religious leaders at the
Temple in Jerusalem, the very center of Israel’s sacrificial cult.
But there are other ways of imagining human culture. In the prophetic tradition of ancient Israel,
God is imagined as a good shepherd of the people, who brings justice, unlike
corrupt human leaders; a shepherd who feeds the flock rather than simply fleecing
them or fattening them up for slaughter.[1] God desires that we care for one another,
rather than ignore and exploit each other.
Another stream of prophetic thought imagines the Messiah, God’s anointed
leader, as one who identifies with the suffering of God’s people, even choosing
to endure suffering for their liberation.[2] God desires mercy, rather than sacrifice.[3]
Jesus brings both of these streams together. For Jesus, the sheep are human victims of
injustice, exploited by the very leaders who are supposed to guide and protect
them. Jesus speaks of himself as both
the “shepherd” who goes before them and the “gate” through which the sheep
pass.[4] What does he mean?
As shepherd, Jesus knows the victims of injustice intimately
and they recognize his voice. He is one
of them. In fact, he tells us later
that he will even give his life for them.
Unlike the thieves and bandits who kill victims for unjust gain, and the
cowardly hired hands who run away at the first threat of violence, Jesus
willingly risks his life in solidarity with victims in their struggle for
justice.
In Jerusalem, there was an actual Sheep Gate through which
the herds were brought to holding pens where they were kept for ritual
slaughter. That gate led in only one
direction – toward death. In claiming
the gate image for himself, Jesus emphasizes the reverse: through him, victims are led out into freedom
and new life. When we walk through the
Jesus Gate, we enter into a spacious and generous reality in which forgiveness
replaces retribution, justice restores relationships, and God’s love brings
life out of death. In willingly
entering the Sheep Gate, we begin to identify with victims and act in
solidarity with them. Compassion moves
us even to take some risks on their behalf.
The point is to turn the Sheep Gates of our world into the Jesus Gate.
One thing that the coronavirus pandemic reveals is the often
hidden equivalents of human slaughterhouses in our culture, where the victims of
structural racism and inequality are taken to be sacrificed. Journalist Dylan Matthews notes that
COVID-19 cases and deaths have been concentrated in particular places: nursing homes, prisons, and factory
farms.
What factory farms,
prisons, and nursing homes have in common is that they’re warehousing efforts.
They all involve placing people or animals into confined facilities where most
of society doesn’t have to think too hard about them anymore. They are
institutions optimized for neglect . . .
Warehousing leaves its victims vulnerable to
Covid-19 through at least two mechanisms. First, it forces affected individuals
into close proximity with one other — including those maintaining the
warehouse, like factory farm staff or prison guards or nursing home attendants.
It’s difficult to socially distance under those conditions. But the second mechanism
is subtler and arguably just as important. Warehousing fosters social inequality, and we
know that social inequality kills . . .
Recent data from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention suggests that out of Covid-19 patients for whom
race is known, 30% are African
American, more than double African Americans’
share of the overall population . . .
Nursing home patients are victims not just of
density but of a broader societal disregard toward older people and those with
disabilities. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick famously suggested that Americans 70-plus should be willing to die to get the economy back
running again.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 outbreaks at factory
farms aren’t among their animals but among their staffers and the
staffers at meatpacking facilities, who are disproportionately black, Latino, and/or immigrants. Warehousing hurts the people enlisted to do the warehousing,
too.[5]
Dylan Matthews neglects to mention one other major vector of the pandemic: congregate warehousing of people in homeless encampments, shelters, and crowded SROs. Here in San Francisco, recent outbreaks at the MSC South Shelter (106 cases), Casa Quezada SRO (24 cases), Hartland Hotel SRO (5 cases), and confirmed cases at the Division Circle Navigation Center and Hamilton Family Shelter underscore the cruelty of social inequality. Mass testing has not yet begun among the unhoused population, but incomplete data from the Department of Public Health indicates that at least 25% of COVID-positive cases in San Francisco are people experiencing homelessness or in SROs. And every one of them has a name.
Jesus knows their names and they recognize his voice. Do we know their names? One of them is named Ian Carrier, an unhoused
38-year-old San Franciscan, who died in his wheelchair on Hyde and Eddy streets
after being released from the hospital on Monday. He had been battling what
appeared to be COVID-19. He suffered from numerous health issues, and spent the
last four months in and out of the hospital on dialysis and a ventilator. Ian
fit the City’s hotel room criteria, as he was critically at risk of COVID-19
due to being so medically fragile, but service providers were told there were
no hotel rooms available.
On Friday, Faith in Action Bay Area, along with other
community groups, called on the Mayor and Board of Supervisors to enter into
mediation to develop a real plan to move unhoused folks into the City’s
thousands of vacant hotel rooms so they can shelter in place safely just like
everyone else. It is too late for Ian,
but not for thousands of other vulnerable neighbors.
I want to close by sharing a message from Katherine, who
took the time to write to us at Faith in Action this week.
On behalf of the
people I serve, thank you for championing the cause of unhoused San
Franciscans. I’m currently helping
clients at a hotel that’s being used to shelter unhoused people. Clients
come to the hotel from shelters and Navigation Centers so that those sites are
less crowded. Normally, I run the Adult Education Center at Episcopal Community
Services, and I’m working from home in that capacity two days a week and helping
out at the hotel three days a week.
One new guest made a deep impression on me. He is an African American man, probably in his late sixties, a bit stooped. While some guests brought quite a few bags of belongings, this man had only a small plastic carrier bag of the kind that have been strictly regulated in San Francisco and New York City. I opened the door to the room and stepped aside. (We do not, of course, enter the guests´rooms.)
“Aw, nah,” I heard the man say as he entered. I looked past his stooped back at the twelve-foot ceiling, tall window, and door to the en suite. “What is it, sir,” I asked. “This isn’t all for me, is it?” “Yes, it is.” He had to ask again, “I’m in here just me?” “Yes, sir.” “That’s just fine,” he said, nodding. I swallowed my tears.
On another occasion, a woman asked me how long she might expect to be at the hotel. I apologized for not being able to give her a precise answer. “Oh, baby,” she said. “That’s okay. I’m doing great. Got a good night’s sleep for the first time in years, got my own t.v. and a bathroom all to myself. I’m all right.”
One new guest made a deep impression on me. He is an African American man, probably in his late sixties, a bit stooped. While some guests brought quite a few bags of belongings, this man had only a small plastic carrier bag of the kind that have been strictly regulated in San Francisco and New York City. I opened the door to the room and stepped aside. (We do not, of course, enter the guests´rooms.)
“Aw, nah,” I heard the man say as he entered. I looked past his stooped back at the twelve-foot ceiling, tall window, and door to the en suite. “What is it, sir,” I asked. “This isn’t all for me, is it?” “Yes, it is.” He had to ask again, “I’m in here just me?” “Yes, sir.” “That’s just fine,” he said, nodding. I swallowed my tears.
On another occasion, a woman asked me how long she might expect to be at the hotel. I apologized for not being able to give her a precise answer. “Oh, baby,” she said. “That’s okay. I’m doing great. Got a good night’s sleep for the first time in years, got my own t.v. and a bathroom all to myself. I’m all right.”
Lastly, I noticed a bouquet of paper flowers, made from the white paper bags that meals are delivered in, hanging from a doorknob outside one person’s rooms. On closer examination, I saw that the words “Thank you all” had been written on the bouquet. It’s an honor to serve these guests. Thank you, again, for all of the crucial work that you do.[6]
Jesus knows Ian’s name, and Katherine’s. He invites us to have the courage to learn
their names, to enter the sheep gate, the hidden slaughterhouses of our culture
and shine the light upon them. Let us
hear their stories and learn their names, and let them hear our voices calling
for justice as we open wide the Jesus Gate.
In the Name of the Son of Man who had no place to lay his
head, the Good Shepherd who calls us by name, the Gate to abundant life. Amen.
[1]
For example, Ezekiel 34; Psalms 23 & 80.
[2]
See the “Suffering Servant” poems in Isaiah.
[3]
Hosea 6:6.
[4]
John 10:1-21.
[5] Dylan Matthews, “America’s Covid-19 hot spots shed a
light on our moral failures,” VOX (May 1, 2020) at https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/5/1/21239396/covid-19-meatpacking-prison-jail-moral
[6] Personal communication.
