Jenell shares a different cultural perspective on the biblical story of the Good Shepherd:

The older man, Grant, told a story about visiting with Bedouin people. He’s been in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, and other places, but said that the Bedouin are more different from himself than any other people. The Bedouin are nomadic shepherds who don’t have much of a national identity - they don’t affiliate with modern identity constructs.

“I sat in a man’s tent with him and realized I had absolutely nothing in common with him,” he said.

The Bedouin believe that God is far away, and doesn’t draw near. They don’t have an Arabic word for the concept of “grace.” They have “gift” and “mercy”, but neither quite does it. The missionary wants to persuade them that God wants to “come live in their tent,” an idea that, as of yet, no one has believed.

Grant told the Bedouin man about the 99 sheep and the one, the story I’ve heard titled, “The Good Shepherd.” Grant said that the shepherd had 99 of his sheep, but one was lost. He went off to find the one, to bring it back to the flock.

Grant asked, “What do you think of that story?”

The Bedouin man said, “That’s a stupid shepherd! I’d have left the one sheep lost. If it came back on it’s own, I’d kill it.”

“Why would you kill it?

“Because it has shown itself to be stupid. A sheep that stupid would just get lost again tomorrow.”

I thought the shepherd went to get the one sheep because sheep are soft, and he wanted to pet it. I thought the sheep would be glad to be found, and would learn its lesson. The “good shepherd” did an act of kindness and love.

Instead, the Bedouin says this is the story of “the stupid shepherd.” By saving that sheep, the shepherd accomplished nothing. He’ll probably have to rescue the sheep again and again. He’s wasting time and effort on a beast too stupid to even appreciate it.

In the story, we’re left to speculate about the shepherd’s motives. Maybe he was stupid. Maybe he loved the sheep. The rest of Scripture makes it obvious, however, that we are the dull-witted beasts and Jesus is the shepherd who saves us over and over, when it would be more convenient and rational for him to let us die. A Bedouin perspective, which has no word for unmerited salvation, helps me understand grace.

I always love hearing how people respond to Jesus the first time. We don’t have that opportunity because our culture is so saturated with biblical metaphor that we’re numbed to it. I wonder if the shepherds, farmers, and fishermen who heard Jesus tell this parable the first time thought the same thing as this Bedouin: Stupid sheep. It doesn’t deserve to live. It’ll just get lost again tomorrow. Then the light bulb comes on, and the realization that I am the sheep, that I don’t deserve to live, that I’ll just get lost again tomorrow - but Jesus climbs through the bramble and rocks to rescue me anyway. And trying to reconcile this radical Jesus message with the teachings of the religious leaders, who call the stupid sheep deadbeats and liberals and backsliders and fags and baby killers and would rather let the stupid sheep wander off and die, because we’re too good and morally pure to soil ourselves chasing after some dumb sheep.

Are we more like Jesus or more like the Pharisees?