What it takes to be a Good Shepherd

It is one of the loveliest of all images.

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.

It’s lovely to use as we welcome friends into church membership.

I am the Good Shepherd.

It brings to mind the 23rd Psalm and the power of its comfort.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures
He leadeth me beside the still waters
He restoreth my soul

It takes us into the fields and the pastures, the strength and the gentleness of the shepherd tending the sheep.

It is one of the loveliest of all images. And it is one of the most challenging.

I am the good shepherd

Becky and I had mapped out our readings and themes for this summer session well before I had a look at the Christian Aid material for this year. Imagine my surprise, therefore, to discover that today of all days when we had chosen to focus on the Good Shepherd, the readings for today’s service at the start of Christian Aid Week point point us to this wonderful saying of Jesus.

As do we all, I know the passage so well. I have read it so many times. But only reading the notes for today’s service did I notice something that hadn’t occurred to me before.

The chapter division is in a very arbitrary place.

Take away the chapter division and the narrative of the Gospel flows on from chapter 9.

That’s all about a man who was born blind being healed by Jesus on the Sabbath of all days. What was worse was that Jesus called in question one strongly held religious view of the time that the man’s blindness must prove he or his parents had done something dreadfully wrong. Not a bit of it, was Jesus’ observation.

But that was something those hidebound by that particular religious way of looking at things couldn’t stomach. As the story comes towards an end they drive the man out.

Jesus, on the other hand, seeks the man out. And elicits a wonderful statement of faith from that man, who makes that very simple confession of faith that for us is still very much at the heart of belonging to Church. “Lord, I believe.” He says, and he worshipped him.

He goes straight on to talk of sheep and shepherds. In particular he draws a stark contrast between the thieves and robbers who only break in and steal, and the Good Shepherd who knows his sheep, and cares for them to such an extent that he is willing to lay down his life for his sheep.

I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.

It is wonderfully comforting. But remarkably challenging.

To that blind man in 9:35 Jesus had spoken of himself as ‘the Son of Man’. That phrase is used in the Old Testament in two particular books of significance to Jesus. One is Daniel the other is Ezekiel. Ezekiel is the book that contains one of the great passages about Shepherds in the whole of the Old Testament.

It is not comforting at all. It is challenging in the extreme.

Ezekiel thinks of the rulers of the people, the great Kings of Israel and of Judah as ‘shepherds’.

The tragedy is that too many of those who had been king, too many of those in positions of leadership and authority had been such bad shepherds they were more like thieves and robbers.

Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.

What an indictment.

Writing at a time when the last of those shepherd kings had been defeated, the kingdom laid waste, and the people carried off into exile in the far-off land of Babylon, Ezekiel held on to a conviction that God was still shepherd of his people, that God’s Kingdom would prevail.

He Ezekiel looked to God as the Good Shepherd.

But for Ezekiel the Good Shepherd acted in a particular kind of way.

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. 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.

I am the Good shepherd, said Jesus.

In him God’s Kingdom has come. And this is what God’s rule is like. In Christ God himself is the shepherd of the sheep – he has come to seek the lost, to bring back the strayed, to bind up the injured and to strengthen the weak.

Maybe the next words make you feel uncomfortable.

It was the way Jesus echoed those words in the way he so forthrightly rejected the religious way of thinking of those who had driven out the blind man. In the way he condemns that view it is as if he sets his stall out to bring down the fat and the strong. His task is to feed them with justice.

Those religious leaders recognised the allusions.

They are divided. Many of them considered Jesus demonic because of these words about being the Good Shepherd. Others said, that someone who was demonic would not have treated the blind man in that way.

The whole story then coes to a climax as Jesus speaks of the life he will share with his sheep –

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.

And in case anyone has not got it yet - he makes it clear that he and the Father are one.

Those who had a vested interest in the power they had and the control over people’s lives that they exercised, the very ones who had driven the blind man out take up stones to stone Jesus, tried to arrest him again – but he escaped. And the whole narrative that had begun way back with the story of the blind man comes to its climax.

Many are convinced. ~They believe in Jesus. But those who are against him do all they can to destroy him.

The story of Jesus now gathers momentum. He confronts death itself in the next story of the death and raising of Lazarus.

Then he enters into Jerusalem, shares in that last meal with his followers, is betrayed, arrested, three times denied by the closest of his followers Peter, taken out and executed on a cross.

And on the third day he is raised.

Then it is that Jesus comes back to the shepherd imagery in that wonderful encounter with Peter on the shores of the sea of Galilee.

Three times he asks that question …

Do you love me? Feed my sheep.

Through those words comes the great commission Jesus gives.

That we who follow the Good Shepherd, are called in turn to feed the sheep – to be the Good Shepherd to others.

Of each one of us it can be said,

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. 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.

Christian Aid is not a separate charity.

It is not an add-on to the churches.

It is unique in that it is the ‘international development and aid’ arm of all the major denominations of the UK. That’ why we are involved in Christian Aid. And through our Congregational Federation we have just completed one partnership with One Respe and the Dominican Republic and as of yesterday have launched a new partnership with the people of Nicaragua.

Christian Aid video.