Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” That’s one of the most famous lines in the Bible. Even people who don’t go to church or read the Bible have usually heard it somewhere. And I think that the fact that it is a familiar, famous line probably presents a problem. Because it makes it easy for us to say, “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard that; I know that,” and not really reflect on what that means.

So let’s do that. When Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,” I think there are at least two things that should challenge us, and with which we should never get too familiar, too chummy.

First, note that we can get so familiar with this statement that we don’t hear it as ridiculous. Debbie Reeves used to hire people to work as tellers at Bank America. The tellers, and even the guards, are all told one thing: “The money is not worth dying for. Do not try to be a hero and do anything that might get you killed in order to save the money.” Why not? Because that would be ridiculous! It’s only money. If somebody puts a pistol in your face and says, “Give me your purse,” or, “Give me your wallet,” give it to them! It is not worth dying for.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” That is absolutely ridiculous.

And I think a lot of us, without ever discussing it, dismiss it as too ridiculous to believe. The Son of God would be willing to die for me? A sheep like me? I know all my shortcomings, my failures, my inadequacies. The Son of God, the good shepherd, would be ridiculously willing to die for me? Ridiculous.

So our first challenge on this Good Shepherd Sunday is to reflect on whether we can believe this ridiculous statement. Can you believe that God would value you that much? For many of you, for most of us, that is a struggle. So take the image of the good shepherd home with you when you leave today, and in your prayer life, in the shower, in the car, struggle to believe that God would be so ridiculous as to value you that much. It is the first challenge Jesus issues when he says, “I am the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep,” and everything else hinges on it.

The second challenge is difficult to see not because of our familiarity with this saying, but because of our lack of familiarity with shepherds in Jesus’ time.

I grew up with a pretty romantic notion of shepherds. My home parish, St. Luke’s, has a giant mural of a shepherd over the altar, and when I thought of shepherds, I thought of that picture of a pastoral person who tends the sheep, calling them by name, loving them, protecting them, searching for them when they were lost. It made me feel good. Ah . . . shepherds!

But nobody thought of shepherds like that in Jesus’ time. Being a shepherd in the time of Jesus was not the romantic occupation I had imagined it to be. Shepherds were not considered noble outdoorsmen. They were loathed! In a book called Contemporary Images of Christian Ministry, Donald Messer tells us that “far from being a noble profession, the job of shepherd in first-century Palestine was one of the most despised trades, along with gamblers, usurers, and publicans.” (172)

Shepherds were generally assumed to be thieves. They grazed on other people’s lands and pilfered the produce of the herd. They were not allowed to hold judicial office. Under Jewish law, a shepherd could not be a witness in a trial, because they were viewed as notorious liars. One ancient writing says that “no position in the world is so despised as that of the shepherd.” Shepherds were contemptible.

So when Jesus delivered his message of God’s love by calling himself the “Good Shepherd,” it was a shocking choice of images. He was (once again) standing with the acknowledged outcasts of his culture and challenging those in his time — and us in our time — to challenge the assumptions we make about groups of people.

Now, challenging people like that can get you killed. It got him killed. Not because of what he said about how much God loves (you might have a hard time believing the good shepherd would lay down his life for you, but nobody gets mad at me for saying it), but this is dangerous because of what he said about whom God loves—even the people that the culture found totally unlovable.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Your first challenge this morning is to struggle to believe that the good shepherd, the Son of God, could love you, even you, that much.

Your second challenge is to be shocked that God would identify with whatever outcast group you might find it hard to believe God would identify with, and to believe that God will find the good even in that group.

Finally, one more challenge: when you can believe that God loves you that much, and when you can believe that God loves everyone that much, how will you be changed?