Good Shepherd Sunday
Easter 4, 6th May, 2001
The Rev'd Dr Colin Holden
Assistant Priest and Archivist, St Peter's, Eastern Hill
John 10: 27-30
Much devotional writing that responds to the use of the image of the
shepherd and the sheep in the gospels by Jesus focuses on the personal
relationship between the sheep and the shepherd, encouraged by the parable
(not today's gospel) of the shepherd seeking the one lost sheep. From such
reflections have come images such as the saccharine 'Jesus gentle shepherd
hear me, bless thy little lamb tonight'. A rather different Australianised
visual treatment can be seen in a reredos by Napier Waller in St Matthew's
East Geelong, which shows a muscular Jesus standing against a background of
idealised Australian pastoral countryside, a disease-free Western District
in which not one of the sheep could possibly have foot and mouth, or even a
runny nose.
But in their context, Jesus' words in St John's gospel have far more bite
than any of this. They raise questions about leadership. Jesus refers more
than once to bad or false shepherds or leaders. He is really asking: who
shepherds, and what are the essentials of good leadership? For his original
first century Jewish listeners, some of this would have been reinforced by
the setting of His words in the Jewish religious calendar. Chapter 10, in
which the reflections on the shepherd appear, is partly set during the
celebration of the feast of Hanukkah or Dedication. The title of the feast
is certainly meant to draw the mind back to a range of dedications: the
consecration of the altar of the tabernacle in Exodus, then in the temple
of Solomon, and in the temple after the return of the Jewish people from the
Babylonian exile. But it celebrated a more recent and quite specific
re-consecration, involving false shepherds and compromised leadership. Under
the generals who carved up Alexander's empire, a programme enforcing Greek
cultural values was imposed on Israel. A collaborating line of high priests
was created. At its height (168-7), traditional Jewish observances became
capital crimes, and a statue of the Olympian Zeus was placed in the temple
sanctuary. Not surprisingly, resistance turned into revolt under Judas
Maccabeus, the conquering hero of Handel's oratorio, and the feast celebrated
the driving out of the Hellenisers, the making of a new altar and its
consecration. (Many scholars see this turbulent period as the one in which
to set the Dead Sea Scroll texts, currently the focus of an exhibition at the
NGV). Such culture clash and persecution made Jewish people sharply aware of
the desirability of maintaining a distinct identity, preserving both 'core beliefs' and also their expression.
For 21st century Christians, there can be a perfectly valid message in all
of this about the need to beware of compromising 'core beliefs' and losing a
distinct identity as a result of bowing to external pressures from the wider
culture. It is somewhat ironic that post-modern thinking in general stresses
the healthiness of difference and diversity, but in many situations in our
own culture shows little tolerance of Christians expressing a sense of
difference. Only a few years ago, some were quick to ridicule the criticisms
by various church groups of many aspects of the casino, and the promotion of
gambling; gambling, we were told by some, was just part of our way of life.
It is perhaps now easier to see that real leadership was being offered by
church groups and others offering constructive criticisms who refused to be
silenced, or to swim with an uncritical tide. There are many other areas in which good shepherding and leadership in this sense remains possible. For
example, despite the affirmations by politicians, social commentators and others
that indigenous reconciliation has entered the foreground of the vision of
Australians, Newspoll data show that employment and health care are the prime
issues for the majority of Australians, and issues of reconciliation and
migration remain among the least salient. It is appropriate for Christians to
be concerned about the latter two issues in terms of community well-being and
fair dealing, but it bodes well for Christian churches when members, formal
structures and leaders express concern over these other issues over which much
tokenism appears to be prevalent.
What I have been saying so far is that if my understanding of the context
of today's gospel is correct, we have managed to get at least a few things
right: we can claim that there are ways in which we are not just being led,
but are acting on decisions emerging from our basic values.
But before I come back to some more positive implications of this gospel, I
also need to turn to quarters that give evidence of some distinct failures in
leading. For Jesus' hearers, the shepherd image could easily evoke a particular
example of leadership: David the shepherd becoming the militant king – in other words, leadership in terms of power and force; leadership in terms of
accepted and recognisable power structures. For Jesus, the shepherd was a
leader in a very different way, a leader in life-giving – sacrificial by
example, inviting others to embrace a way which he himself would take (an
approach consistent with the incident of the footwashing). A marked contrast
to, say, the line of the Medici pope, who was reputed to have said: 'now the
papacy is ours, we mean to enjoy it'. 2000 years of Christianity offer many
examples at far simpler levels, including parish clergy, vestries and
committees, not of the second kind of leadership, but of the first – of
leadership in terms of hierarchical structures; individuals and groups
exercising power, and leading in the sense practiced by others around them,
not in a distinctive and different way.
Recently, I listened to the following critique of the church from a quarter
that some might not immediately identify. It was a perceptive critique, which
amounted to this: 'Your leaders spend their time in administration and the
propping up of institutional structures. They are regarded as having succeeded
when they have created more structures, buildings or increased membership
numbers. This is to mistakenly identify external trappings with the presence
of spiritual life and wellbeing. You can (often) find the former without the
latter. Your clergy don't show too many signs of being spiritually discerning,
nor do those who appoint them – and that includes laity involved in
decision making. When they have found someone who can run a youth group, keep
the money coming in and the plant in order, they think that they have solved
the really important problems.' This critique was presented to me by an
undergraduate student who had left a moderately Catholic liberal parish with
no financial difficulties, a superficially active priest and a youth worker,
because she could find no teaching on the life of prayer when she needed and
asked for it, beyond that produced for those approaching the church with no
previous experience. Meditation in a yoga class offered more than this parish's
leaders were able to provide.
Inertia, from a church whose members are capable of deliberate action and
careful thought, can be equally threatening, especially if inertia grows from
fear of any kind of thought, movement or change. In an early poem, T. S. Eliot
pictured the assumption into heaven of a naturally passive form of life, while
the church, capable of a greater range of responses, was left behind because
its members were seen as never having taken the initiatives that were within
their reach: . . .
The hippo's feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the true Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends. . .
At mating time the hippo's voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.
The hippopotamus's day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way –
The Church can sleep and feed at once.
I saw the 'potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.
Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.
He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr'd virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.
Now at this point, you might well ask, how does this morning's gospel offer
a positive perspective in the face of such valid and disturbing criticisms?
If leadership is understood as something solely exercised by an institutional
hierarchy, the members of committees and hierarchies, then things are indeed
grim. I am not convinced that for them the future is in fact rosy at the
moment. But my hope is grounded in the fact that authority and leadership as
Jesus conceived them were in terms radically different from any of these. His
words about the capacity for shepherding were not addressed to his followers
in terms of their particular place in a pecking order,but to all of us. For
all of us – lay people as much as clergy and other formal office holders
– to fulfil that calling demands a degree of deliberate thought,
cultivation of an inner life of reflection and prayer, as well as more active
and supposedly practical qualities. In fact, where spiritual inertness or
complacency has overtaken those in key positions in formal structures, the
survival of authentic values can depend on others being determined to be both
intelligently informed and inwardly reflective. Such people might well
challenge, if not make choices radically different from, the popular pragmatism
of the priest and parish that frustrated my university undergraduate. If not,
we and the rest of the church truly risk remaining in the mist below, while
the hippo passes us by, as he ascends to heaven.
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