The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 2.42-47; Psalm23; 1 Peter 2.19-25; John 10.1-10
I don’t know about you but I often have an uneasy feeling about our current political situation. The world is turbulent and chaotic at the moment and our own governing elites seems to be unable to get a grip of things.
Actually that seems a charitable diagnosis of their performance – the more we find out, the more it looks like the modus operandi of the politician is deception and cover-up. It’s not just the current incumbents; it was ever thus, I think. It seems to go with the territory.
Let me make something clear: If it was my lot to end up working in the world of politics I don’t think I would be any different. There but by the grace of God go I, and all that…
Perhaps nobody can manage it. The world is too complex and there are so many competing needs and interests that the balancing act is beyond even the wisest among us.
The business of governing us (of leading us) seems to boil down to something like this: Let’s find out what ‘they’ want and say we will give it to them so that they vote us in. Then we can get on with breaking our promises and keeping our real constituents happy, whether those are powerful players on the world stage, big business or unions or any other interest group with the influence to move the dial.
The task of balancing the foreign and domestic policy of our country on the one hand, and pleasing an electorate on the other can’t be an easy one.
Add to the mix the sad truth that we, as a people, have become detached, more and more, from the Christian roots of our civilisation, and the picture gets even bleaker.
Where do we go when we are no longer connected to the life-giving message of the Gospel? From where do we derive a sense of security and a sense of meaning? From where do we get a sense that what awaits us is a future worth hoping for? In what do we put our faith? What or in whom do we trust?
We seem to spend much of our time mesmerised by media and buying stuff, while we expect our politicians to deliver the kind of happiness that only comes from a relationship with the living God. We are asking YouTube, Amazon and the Government to save us and they can’t because they’re not God.
Politics can’t do the job of saving us and providing us with a meaningful, contented life. Only God, through the practice of the Christian faith, can do that. And in this realm, the realm of faith, we have our leader.
He wasn’t elected, he was enthroned and we are about to celebrate that fact on the 14th of May when we celebrate the feast of the Ascension.
Here’s how St Paul puts it in his letter to the Ephesians (1:20-23): God… raised [Jesus] from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
So we don’t have an elected representative who derives his power from the shifting sands of popularity and the so-called ‘will of the people’. We have a King who was profoundly unpopular and derives his power from the will of God.
We have a King who doesn’t promise that he will give us everything we want and then change course; we have a King who urges us to deny ourselves in order that we might begin to lay our hands on what we truly want, deep in our immortal souls.
Now for many people the word ‘King’ conjures up negative associations. It’s a particular image of masculine power and that doesn’t sit right with some people (both men and women) who have been on the wrong end of a self-serving kind of masculine authority.
Perhaps it’s for this reason that we are given a more refined, more nuanced model of kingship in the scriptures.
When God offers himself to us as our king and our governor the image he often uses is that of The Shepherd.
It goes right back to the earliest traditions of the Old Testament: Abraham and his immediate descendants were shepherds; Israel’s greatest king, David, was a shepherd and God seems to delight in describing himself as a shepherd.
One of the very prominent themes running through scripture is God’s judgement on unfit shepherds/leaders (‘hirelings’) and there are significant prophecies that he will come and shepherd his people himself.
Here’s an example from the prophet Ezekiel: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost…For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak…I will shepherd the flock with justice’ (34:2-4;11;16)
So when Jesus refers to himself as ‘the shepherd of the sheep’ in today’s Gospel from St John he’s making quite a claim. His listeners would have been very familiar with the numerous texts from their tradition where God describes himself as Israel’s shepherd, so Jesus is declaring something about his identity here – he’s saying that he is God the Shepherd who has come to save and lead his flock. It’s a declaration of his divinity.
But he’s also describing the nature of his kingship. It’s a kingship that strengthens the weak, heals the sick and binds up the injured; a kingship that searches for the lost and brings back the strays. A kingdom where the King governs with justice rather than self-interest. A kingdom where the King lays down his life for his flock rather than sacrificing them to powerful economic and political forces. A kingdom where the King searches for the lost rather than the celebrity.
Ok so we’ve set the scene and now we need to ask what all this has to do with us, here, today.
In our 2nd reading from St Peter’s letter he makes it very personal. He’s writing to struggling Christians in Asia Minor (Turkey?) and urging them to stay strong in the faith and then he says, He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls (2:24-25).
And so I wonder whether that’s the way you would happily describe God today? Is it your experience that he is the ‘shepherd and guardian of your soul’? Do you have a sense that in some mysterious way he bore your sins in his body on the cross? Do you relate to the claim that his wounds are somehow for your healing?
Perhaps most importantly, given everything I have said about how lost we seem to be politically and personally at the moment, do you have the experience of being found by him? And if you can’t quite say, ‘Yes!’ to that yet, do you have the sense that in some way he is searching for you? Perhaps even pursuing you? Calling you?
If you can acknowledge any of that, even if it’s a tentative acknowledgement, then be encouraged. Rejoice! God is at work in you and he is establishing himself as your foundation so that the shifting sands of the political situation need not distress you.
If you can’t acknowledge any of that, and much of what I am saying at this point is a mystery to you, then I suggest you ask.
And when I say, ‘Ask’ I mean, ‘Pray!’
Something like this will do: O Lord, if it’s true that you are the Shepherd of our souls and that we are loved and safe in your hands, will you please make that real for me, this morning; here and now.
Amen.
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