Shepherd and Bishop
Easter 4, 21st April, 2002
The Rev'd Nick Mercer
Assistant Priest, St Mary's Bourne Street, London
Ezek 34.11-16; John 10.10-20; 1 Peter 2.19-25
Ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and
Bishop of your souls. (1 Pet 2.25)
Two priests decide to go to Hawaii on holiday. They're determined to make
this a real holiday by not wearing anything that would identify them as
clergy. As soon as the plane lands, they buy some outrageous shorts and
shirts. The next morning sitting on the beach, enjoying a drink, a gorgeous blond in an imaginative bikini walks by. She smiles at them and says, "Good morning, Father, Good morning, Father."
They were both stunned. How in the world could she have known?
The next day, they bought even more outrageous outfits and wore sandals
instead of black socks and Oxfords, and sunglasses. Well after a while, the
same gorgeous blonde comes walking along the beach, turning heads as she
goes. As she passes she turns again and says "Good morning, Father, Good
morning, Father."
Astonished one of the priests shouts out "How do you know we're priests?"
The blonde turns with a puzzled look and says, "Father, it's me, Sister
Monica!"
Greetings from England where if I get asked one more time who I think should
be the next Archbishop of Canterbury...
There are of course a number of parallels between church and state.
For just as democracy is the safest way of preserving social freedom, so
episcopacy is arguably the safest way of maintaining Christian liberty.
Good bishops and priests are able to curb excesses among themselves and
their people; and are able to nurture and protect themselves and those in
their charge.
And both democracy and church order are necessary because of the Flaw in
every human being. The Flaw that produces the atrocities that mark each
succeeding century; the Flaw that sometimes mars our families and
relationships; the Flaw that is able to draw us spiralling down in
self-hatred.
And it's because of that Flaw that Peter is able to state quite simply: "Ye
were as sheep going astray;"
A common theme, and not a very flattering one, runs through many biblical
metaphors, from Genesis to Revelation: we are wandering children, roaming
sheep, stubborn mules, deserting disciples, straying lovers.
This is not only the reality of the human condition, but it is the reality
of our Christian condition. We are even selfish and self-centred in our
approach to God.
It is in our nature to want God when we need him and to want the freedom to
go our own way and do our own thing at all other times.
But in that paradoxical way that God deals with us, as we really are, this
is a converting condition for us – it drives us to God.
Because we do truly want God, when we need him, so our deepest needs drive
us to our deepest beliefs. When we recognise that we are needy, then we
understand why we must believe.
The cynic of course will always say that we 'make up' what we believe in
order to give us comfort in our need. It is the cynic's right to believe
this, and ours to doubt it.
This morning's OT lesson from Ezekiel was certainly in the mind of Jesus,
John and Peter as they spoke and wrote. The prophet expands the
understanding of our human need in the words of God, the shepherd and bishop
of our souls to which Peter is alluding. So God says:
I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up
the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I
will destroy. I will feed them with justice. (Ez 34:16)
Here is insight written two and a half thousand years ago, but describing
our frail mortality.
We are lost – we sometimes do not know who we are, or what we believe, or who loves us, if anybody.
We have strayed – although we knew the way to go, we have deliberately, or neglectfully, wandered away.
We are injured – life, with all its unexpected and sometimes unwanted twists and turns, has left our minds and bodies in need of repair.
Our consciences are scarred.
We are weak – for we know what noble creatures we should be and
yet so often we dabble in the mud.
We are arrogant and unjust – we dare to play at god and even to
oppress others, physically or psychologically.
So will God punish us? No!
You know the story of the guide who was explaining to the Holy Land pilgrims
how an eastern shepherd always leads his flock from the front, gently
guiding the sheep who trustingly follow. Unlike the western shepherds who
drive the flock forward from behind.
Just then they drove past a dozen sheep being herded from behind by a man
with a large staff and a loud voice. The guide immediately jumped out of the
coach to investigate. He soon returned, and obviously relieved he declared:
"He's a butcher, not a shepherd!"
There is that common view of God as the Bad Butcher rather than the Good
Shepherd!
I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up
the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I
will destroy. I will feed them with justice. (Ez 34:16)
Jesus, whom John characteristically casts as God in replaying the Ezekiel
passage, echoes the words of the prophet: "I will feed them with rich
pasture." So Jesus says in the verse before where our Gospel started today:
"I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."
Peter's message in the pastoral epistles is the same: that God cares and
wants us to live full lives.
When we grasp this reality of our faith in the God and father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, then we will want to return to the Shepherd and Bishop of our
souls, to find rich pasture for our life.
St Ignatius of Antioch was around in the first century at about the same
time that this letter of Peter and John's Gospel was written. He once
commented: "A bishop never more resembles Jesus Christ than when his mouth
is closed."
Beyond the humour, there is deep wisdom in this, and imagery which was
common in the early church: an allusion to Christ who is both sheep and
shepherd. So the early church applied Isaiah 53 to Jesus when the prophet
uses the image of the Suffering Servant: "as a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth."
The Good Shepherd, or ideal shepherd, or Jesus's words can even be
translated 'beautiful shepherd', perhaps harking back to Samuel's
description of David, Israel's Shepherd King: ' he was ruddy, and had
beautiful eyes, and was handsome' (1 Sam 16.12)...
The Good Shepherd meekly lays down his life for the sheep. He knows them and
they know him. There is mutual confidence, trust and mutual responsibility.
The word Bishop, which means overseer or guardian, speaks of this mutual
responsibility. And it hints that we have it not just towards our Lord, but
towards all those who care for us: our bishops and the priests to whom they
have given the cure of souls.
It also reminds us of another heavy theme of Scripture: care for one
another; love of God and neighbour.
I was on the edge of a conversation the other day when the vicar of a
struggling church was accusing a leader from a big evangelical church of
sheep stealing.
The vicar was a difficult man, who may have missed his calling as a bear
tamer. In the end, the evangelical, rather exasperated, remarked: "we don't
steal sheep, we just grow good grass."
[For a moment I thought I had uncovered an evangelical drug cartel...]
And of course it is true, that if we do care for one another – not with
that smothering, overzealous care, that in the free churches is called 'heavy
shepherding' – wonderful imagery – if we do care for one another,
and for the other sheep who are not of our flock, not in our clique, then
we will grow in grace and the likeness of Christ, and perhaps even in numbers.
On this Good Shepherd Sunday, as it is sometimes called, let us be
encouraged to believe that Christ, our Shepherd and Guardian, wants to lead
us in green pastures, to restore our souls. He is a shepherd not a butcher.
And let us remember our responsibilities to him and to each other, to be
loving and careful; to speak and to act in such a way as builds up the Body
of Christ. We are shepherds, not butchers.
And as we come to this altar we remember that the Good shepherd is also the
Lamb that was slain, and as we come to receive the Bread of Life, we
remember with Peter that
We were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and
Bishop of our souls. (1 Pet 2.25)
The Revd Nick Mercer
St Mary's Presbytery, 30 Bourne St, London SW1W 8JJ
Voice: +44 20 7730 6607 Fax: +44 20 7730 7455 Mobile:+44 7973 226153
fr.nick@stmarythevirgin.org.uk
http://www.stmarythevirgin.org.uk
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