Shepherds Reconsidered

Having written my last post about shepherds and the two very different images they represent, a third sort shepherding theme occurred to me, that of the religious imagery shepherds evoke.

Indeed, the more time I spent out in the rural countryside of Romania, the more Biblical references suddenly took on new meaning. Of course, the Romanian countryside and the Biblical Middle East have some very significant differences, but some striking similarities include the shepherding lifestyle, the small village life, the peasant mindset.

The peasant mindset and lifestyle features in many New Testament stories, whose frequent repetition and interpretation in light of contemporary American lifestyle causes them to lose some meaning and significance. For example, the idea that two of Jesus's disciples, Simon/Peter and Andrew, would abandon their father's trade and their lifelong training in order to follow a traveling teacher... the significance of this act rings more profoundly in the context of the village life I've seen. No one ever leaves the village; going to the next town over is considered quite far away. You work at a similar job that your parents work in and take over any business or property they may have had. The idea that two sons might abandon a secure lifestyle close to home with their families to follow some visionary/wandering teacher/unknown person would be so highly, highly unusual. This is lost on modern readers, who might think that it is not so unusual for a child not to follow in their parents' footsteps and might rebel against their parents' dreams and plans for them. This is an extremely American phenomenon, however, and in the realm of the peasant world, one does make decisions for oneself, all decisions are made in the context of his/her immediate family and surroundings.

Furthermore, Jesus' visits to various villages where he might simply begin preaching also has a significance lost in modernday American life. In the US, except for, perhaps, very small towns out in the countryside, it is very common to move and move frequently, to life in a town or city where you run into people you don't know on a daily basis, and furthermore, have interactions with these totally unknown people, such as store clerks, nurses, car mechanics, etc. In the peasant countryside, every single 'new' person is gawked at, speculated about, and generally treated somewhat warily unless they are 'with' someone from the village. In the 'old' world, people don't engage in commerce with someone they don't know, whose father they didn't know, and whose grandfather their own didn't grandparents know. It is an era before the development of the purely economic, commercial relationship we have in post-modern America/the Western world.

The numerous shepherding references are also lost on most of America. When Jesus rhetorically asks 'does not the shepherd leave the flock to search for the lamb gone astray?' most are taught that the answer is "yes," but seriously? what on earth does the average suburbanite know about shepherding? The frequent comparisons of the church to God's flock has certainly been expounded upon in current sermons or Sunday school lessons, but just watch a typical nerdy Playstation playing suburban kid approach a random flock of sheep at a petting zoo or something... 'they're so weird!!' he thinks. And then thinks they like him because he's got grain in his hands. The role of the shepherd in the life of the sheep is totally unknown to today's city slickers.

A last, non-shepherding, theme that is lost on modernday America are the frequent references to demons or spirits. Post-Enlightenment, science-oriented, 'reasonable' 'rational' Protestant church interpretations tend to downplay or ignore those references or simply say they are methaphors for emotions. Trust me, the average pre-Freudian peasant would probably have little concept of 'emotions' 'emotional control' 'feelings' 'thinking reasonably about something' in the same ways that we understand these things. Peasant life, a bit more grounded in the old superstitions, might look at 'demon' references rather differently than the staid, simple Protestants or Universalist/Unitarianists of the US.

Having studied Biblical interpretation throughout my undergraduate coursework, I was continually amazed at the wealth of information, literature, topics that are covered in the Scriptures, things that the average, or even 'devout' Christian in America has never considered or heard of. So many old references to the peasant life of Jesus' earliest followers are not comprehended by today's dogmatically organized, infinitely denominationalized Christians in American society. Christianity is, or was, truly a religion of the peasants, of the simple folk. The message of inclusivity and the references to shepherding and agricultural metaphors appealed to a very certain culture. It frequently amazes me how the writings from a culture so distant to ours have been so thoroughly re-interpreted and adapted into our current outlook on life. The humble, simple messages directed at peasants were re-interpreted in the militant Middle Ages such as to provide justification and even the need for religious warfare; the references to demons and other 'strange' occurences were re-interpreted as metaphorical and symbolic references in our staid Protestant age.

However, getting to the heart of the stories always requires an understanding of nature and agricultural life that is so lost to many people in the US... we've distanced ourselves from a life on the land, and in doing so, may have distanced ourselves from an earthy reality that is a far cry from the infinite interest rates, credit derivatives, industrial agricultural wholesale slaughter, and chain store expansion that we consider 'reality' today.