Twenty-first century North American culture is overwhelmingly urban. Certainly rural culture is pervasive and as long as people actually eat food it will never go away, but the trend (and many of our social struggles) are a hallmark of the urbanization of the culture.
As a result, many of the images found in the Scriptures are odd, even alien to many: sowing fields, sheep and goats, shepherding, much of it goes over the head of an urban collective. There is just no frame of reference. So it is critical for the preacher, teacher, priest, or pastor to interpret these images, and deal with the culture shock that inevitably arises.
Today is no exception. The Gospel selection for today's Mass (St. Jn. 10.22-30, found here) has our Lord telling the Temple authorities (here called the Jews...the ethnic designation has a very plastic application in this Gospel) that He as much told them what/who He was and they just did not get it. Here He further deepens the point by bringing in a (yet another) pastoral metaphor (and by pastoral I don't mean leading a congregation but the actual tech of pasturing and tending grass and shrub eating animals). He tells them that HIs sheep know Him and know His voice. Most sheep, while dumber than boxes of rocks, do have the wherewithal to know who their shepherd is, the one whom they can trust, and the one whose voice they know.
It's a double insult, really. Triple, if you really think about it. First, the Temple authorities are by and large an urban elite. They know of the existence of sheep and shepherds, but it's not their bailiwick, and in fact by their estimation it is somewhat below them. Second, because they asked the question, because Jesus told them He already told them, and that His sheep, the elect of the Kingdom of God, already know the answer from what they have seen and heard so far, further twists the knife in stating explicitly by their having to ask the question they are outside the Kingdom of God and unlikely to enter. Third, even they would know sheep are abysmally stupid, and Jesus telling them a bunch of sheep figured it out ahead of them was a most deadly insult indeed.
Now the purpose of this was not necessarily to breed animosity (although it certainly did), but to underline for the Temple authorities Jesus' charge that they had failed their primary assignment, and that was to be heralds of the Kingdom of God, to teach its precepts, and to shepherd people in the right direction. In effect, Jesus is telling them that they have forgotten where they have come from, that they have departed from their roots, and have lost their way.
So it is with us. Have we lost our way? Have we forgotten our primary assignment? Have we become deaf to the One Who calls us back to Him and His protection? Jesus taught reconciliation with God and how those reconciled should behave, but have we really heard the message? Or are we like the Temple authorities, caught up in our own sophistication and refinement that we have obscured the message and are no longer the lights that shine before all that they can see our works and glorify God in heaven?
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