The influence of the Good Shepherd

Sermon by Alan Walden, 29th April 2012

Readings: 1 John 3.16-end, John 10.11-18

Who are the most influential people in the world today?  A recent poll was done for Time Magazine to find the world's 100 most influential people.  Some of them are those who wield political power - Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Israeli leader Benjamin Netenyahu (but not David Cameron).  Then there are figures in contemporary culture  - Pop Singer Adele,  Footballer Lionel Messi, and the Duchess of Cambridge and her sister Pippa Middleton. 38 of the 100 are women, more than ever before, and many owe their influence to social media, like Twitter and Facebook.  This got me thinking about the whole idea of influence, and how we choose and allow people to be our role models and guides. How should we decide who we allow to influence us? 

Jesus was very concerned about who influenced his followers, and he used this image of the Good Shepherd to help us think about who we allow to influence us and why.  And then he moves us on to think about how we can allow him to influence us for good.

What do we make of this idea of a shepherd?  Strangely enough, there are no shepherds in today's list of the most influential people in the world!

In this country today, if we see sheep at all, they are gathered in fields, with good grass to eat and kept in by fences , and shepherds are rarely to be seen. A couple of weeks ago we spent a wonderful week at Lee Abbey in Devon, a Christian community, surrounded by fields full of sheep.  Very occasionally someone would drive into the field on a quad bike, drop off some food, and then leave.  Shepherding in this country today is about providing nourishment, and about containment so the sheep don’t escape.   

But in Jesus day, and in many poorer parts of the world today, shepherds are required to lead a flock of sheep across dangerous and largely barren areas, seeking out places to feed, protecting them from wild animals, finding them when they are lost, healing them when they are injured or diseased.  It is fundamentally about leadership rather than control.  And it is that very particular, special kind of leadership which Jesus refers to.  A shepherd is very involved, caring for the sheep, but also he has absolute authority.  So we can see that when Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd, he is describing his loving care as well as his authority - those two things go together in the leadership of the Good Shepherd. 

That can be hard for us to understand as it is so different from much of our experience of human leadership and influence.

Jesus is aware that a lot of the leaders around in his day were pretty dreadful.  Israel’s leaders had led them away from God, and towards disaster, exile, enslavement and most recently to be under Roman domination. 

There is no shortage of examples of bad leadership in our time - you might well have personal experience of it. Around us today, we might think of certain Bank directors or other bad bosses in business.  In recent history there have been some very bad political leaders, some have been overthrown like Gadafi and Sadam Hussein, others have been held to account like Charles Taylor and Milosevic, others remain in power like Assad and Mugabe.  A bad leader causes the death of those they rule over.

When we consider Jesus, we see there is a huge contrast.  Why should we follow him, rather than anyone else? Not just because the alternatives are often so bad.  Jesus is a leader who does something completely different and unexpected.  5 times in our passage (v11,15, 17, 18) it tells us that he lays down his life for the sheep. He doesn't kill, he lays down his own life.

When Jesus died on the cross, he was laying down his life so that everyone who believes in him could be found - to be reunited with God.   Reuniting us when we had wandered away cost him everything - he laid down his life for us. And in the reading in 1 John we read that this is how we know God's love.

But what would be the use of a shepherd / leader who died in the course of their job.  Once a leader dies, that is the end of their authority, a new leader is needed.   But of course the Easter story tells us that Jesus didn’t stay dead.  He laid down his life, and then on the day of resurrection he took it up again.  In fact it says in v17 that he lays it down in order to take it up again.

He laid down his life on the cross so that we can be reconciled with God, and at the resurrection he took it up again, so that he could carry on being the Good Shepherd.  That is the power of the resurrection - the Good Shepherd lays down his life and takes it up again.   Alleluia!

So how can we be sure we follow Jesus, to receive the abundant life which he wants to lead us to?

Make the right choice - follow Christ and not any other system of belief.  This means recognising that we have a choice.  Everyone is following someone, or something. It’s not just about the people who lead us, but the values which drive us.  Look at the contrast between following Jesus and following something or someone else. 

Verse 11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹²The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. ¹³The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.”

 

How many of the top influences are really in it to care for us, rather than for their own reasons?

Nothing else we choose to follow, has the loving care for us that God does.  Nothing else has the power to defend us in the face of evil.  No one else has laid down their life to bring us back to God - only Jesus.

One type of influence which I have encountered quite often recently in this area is spiritualism.  I have spoken to several people who have told me that they have consulted mediums, or attended a spiritualist church or spiritualist meetings, apparently thinking that this was entirely consistent with Christian beliefs.  But it is very much not the case.    Spiritualists repudiate the Christian doctrine that Jesus died to save us from our sins.

They seek to draw people away from Christ and towards their own authority, claiming knowledge and influence which, whether you consider it simply fake, or genuinely evil, can only have a negative influence on those who are drawn in.  For ourselves, we should steer well clear of spirtualism, and for those we know who are involved, we should seek by our prayers and our words that they find the love of God, and trust that the dead are safe and secure in God's hands, rather than being taken in by the false and malicious claims of spiritualism.

But there are plenty of other influences out there.  What is it for you?  For some it is materialism - the need to acquire possessions.  For others,  status - the approval of other people?  For others of us it is fear, or resentment or guilt which control us.  It’s really important to understand what drives us, because if it is the wrong thing, it will end up not with abundant life, but with wasted life. 

The key influencers on that top 100 list were media moguls (traditional),  new media (bloggers), politicians, celebrities, people with control over money (bankers, finance ministers etc), fashion leaders!

It is all too easy to fritter away the precious life which God has given us, and to make choices to be influenced by people who are here today and gone tomorrow, rather than the eternal values and influence which God has made available to us through Christ.  Many people in the world, living in authoritarian regimes, they have no choice about who drives them.  But we do have a choice, and the tragedy is that many people make wrong choices and go astray.

So there is a choice, and choosing to follow Jesus makes all the difference in the world, because he is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for us.

Lastly, allowing Jesus to be our influence and guide means getting to know him, and allowing him to know us. Jesus said 'I know my own and my own know me'.  Following him requires us to get to know him as much as we can. 

Jesus calls us to that sort of close relationship.  He knows us and we are to know him.  It couldn’t be any closer.  Jesus said the relationship we have with him is just the same as the way he knows the Father and the Father knows him - v14. How incredible is that?  We are to know Jesus that closely, and we can cultivate that through our worship, reading the Bible and spending time in prayer.

Following the announcement of the top 100 influential people, a gala dinner was held this week, giving these folk the opportunity to parade on the red carpet, to congratulate themselves on their success and to enjoy a banquet in their own honour.  (I doubt if any of us were invited).  What a contrast with our Lord Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who invites us to come to his banqueting table, where we remember how he laid down his life, to open up the way to abundant life with him.