Professionalism and shepherds

We study for years in expensive, prestigious educational institutions acquiring skills and knowledge focused on obtaining and enhancing our future careers. And once employment is secured, we typically seek higher standing in the corporate structure through a combination of improving old skills, gaining new ones and some well-calculated social shmoozing.

Well, what about shepherds? I’m no expert, but it doesn’t seem like it would take much skill to be a shepherd. I mean, after all, what do you have to do but sit around all day and watch the sheep? Oh, I suppose you have to protect them from harm, and lead them to food and water as well. But even so, shepherding certainly doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of upward professional mobility. All things considered, being a shepherd wouldn’t be too impressive on a job résumé.

The irony of ironies is that this is the picture the Lord God Most High, the Creator of heaven and earth, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, gives us of himself. “I am the good shepherd,” Jesus says (Jn 10.11). How odd. Why would he identify himself with an occupation that by most standards is nothing short of a professional black hole? Probably because it’s a clear reflection of his character: unlike the corporate climber, the young urban professional, the CEO of a multi-national conglomerate or the celebrity on a red carpet surrounded by papparazzi, the shepherd is focused not on himself, but on the well-being of weak, defenseless, fairly stupid creatures who get lost easily and do nothing all day but consume to fill their own stomachs. Creatures rather like us, as a matter of fact. Selfish, belly-centric, and prone to take the wrong path. Creatures who need protection and nourishment. Creatures who more often than not do not recognize the extent to which they benefit from the character of their caretaker. Creatures who find themselves in the center of the selfless, constant, loving and compassionate gaze of the Good Shepherd.