By Siroj Sorajjakool
A Commentary on the Sabbath School Lesson for February 14–20, 2004, on John 10:9–11, 14–15, "The Good Shepherd"
I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.
There are many shepherds, many good shepherds. This is precisely the problem, and the struggle I have. Having been exposed to many religious traditions, I have been blessed, blessed by the wisdom from various religious traditions passing on from generation to generation. Metaphorically, as a sheep wondering in dark valleys, I have been rescued by many good shepherds. As I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, in the midst of my dark depression, there were wise words from Lao Tzu and Chaung Tzu. As I struggled trying to run away from myself, they invited me to stay.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut out doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.1
When I face disappointment in life, I am reminded of Buddha’s advice: desire is suffering. The more desire, the more one experiences suffering. When I have to deal with unpleasant consequences, I recall wisdom from Bhagavat Gita, when Krishna told Arjuna that the good we do does not promise pleasant rewards. We just have to do it anyway because we are called to do good, and not because of benefits we can reap from good deeds. In short, Krishna asks that we do good and expect nothing. When I contemplate the meaning of love I learn from a Zoroastrian mystic, Hafiz:
Find that flame, that existence,
That wonderful man
Who can burn beneath the water.
No other kind of light
Will cook the food you
Need.2
In my life there are many good shepherds whose wisdom nurtures the journey of my soul. As a young seminary student, I was troubled by thoughts like "We are right and everyone else is wrong"; "We will get to heaven and no one else will"; and "We have the truth and everyone is from the devil."
I have been in the presence of many wonderful Buddhists and Hindus, and read many wonderful counsels from contemporary Taoists, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims. It does not seem to make sense to say they are all wrong. What do I know anyway beyond the Twenty-Seven Fundamental Beliefs? What do I know about truth beyond them?3
Professor Brian de Alwis often told us graduate students at Spicer Memorial College, "Before missionaries came over to India, China, Burma, or Thailand, God has already been working." These words sounded sensible to me. God has always been with the Chinese, with the Bangali, with Burmese long before missionaries stepped into these countries.
God was there when the Vedic was still an oral tradition. God was there when Buddha was searching under the Bo tree. God was there when Confucius wrote the Analects and Lao Tzu penned his Tao Te Ching.
They seem to be many good shepherds to me. Million of lives have been touched, millions of souls nourished through the lives and teachings of these wise individuals. So how am I to reconcile the centrality of Christ within this pluralistic society without being arrogant and with the consciousness that truth indeed remains beyond our grasp?
In Christology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer raises an interesting point. After reviewing historical attempts at the analysis of Christ’s divinity, Bonhoeffer insists that logos is incapable of understanding Logos. The question Why is an inappropriate question. The only question left is, Who? Who is Christ for me?
When the Counter-Logos appears in history, no longer as an idea, but as "Word" become flesh, there is no longer any possibility of assimilating him into the existing order of the human logos. The only real question which now remains is: "Who are you?" Speak for yourself!4
Who is Christ? How good is this Shepherd? Perhaps he has to speak for himself. Perhaps we have tried too hard to speak for Christ, for Jesus, for God. God has to speak for God. God’s speech is Jesus in the flesh.
Last month I went to visit Thailand. My research question was: How do individuals who have no access to mental health facilities cope with major crisis in their lives? In the United States people have therapies for every form of disorder. Not so in many developing countries, yet people there have been coping for hundreds of years without Freud and Jung and cognitive-behavioral therapies.
How? I chose for my population ten female AIDS victims in three remote areas north of Thailand. Of these ten, seven were initially suicidal. All ten firmly agree that love is what sustains them. Without love, they would have no reason to live, to go on.
After listening to these women I am becoming more aware of the healing power of love. This has a significant theological implication for me. Great religious traditions promise peace and tranquility, which are essentials for human survival. They bring comfort to the soul. But there is something different in love. Love adds meaning when nothing seems to make sense. Love brings vitality and passion. Love makes chaos bearable.
I do not know if I have the truth. I do not know if what I know is truer than others, if Christ is better than most. But I can’t help but think about who Christ is to me. He is a good shepherd. My soul has been touched by many good shepherds, from Chuang Tzu to Krishna, from Buddha to Hafiz. But who is Christ?
God has to speak for God. When God speaks, Christ came to earth living, sacrificing, teaching, healing. Many good shepherds offer great wisdom that nurtures my soul. But this Shepherd was willing to die for love. For the generation of humanity dying for love, this Shepherd died for love.
>I still do not know what truth is. I still cannot claim certainty. But I know one thing for myself: this shepherd is different. Life becomes more abundant because now there is passion in peace, vitality in serenity.
God is the wine-ocean we crave—
We miss
Flowing in and out of our
Pores.5
1. Lao Tzu, cited by Allen Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way (New York: Pantheon, 1975), 23.
2. Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz, The Subject Tonight is Love (Carolina: Pumpkin House, 1996), 15.
3. It puzzles me that the puzzle of the century initiated by Kant (the phenomenon and noumenon) and that ever since has been the force that drives various philosophical schools from existentialism to pragmatism, from phenomenology to ordinary language, to seek its solution, does not seem apparent in the Adventist Church. We seem to know with great certainty that we know the truth.
4. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christology (New York: Collin, 1978), 30.
5. Hafiz, Subject Tonight, 7.
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