[This study was submitted to Salvationist magazine months ago. They haven't published it.]
I remember, as a child, hearing the old saying, ‘Red sky at
night, shepherd’s delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.’ I have no idea whether this is accurate or
not, but my interest in it is the contrasting pictures it paints. This is a common motif in the Gospel of John,
who seemingly has an obsession with dualisms, with contrasts between light and
dark, love and hate, life and death, sight and blindness, and the list could go
on.
My other reason for
mentioning that saying is the shepherd.
In churches, the words ‘pastor’ and ‘pastoral’ are frequently used. They are generally associated with those in
leadership positions within the church community, and carry connotations of
caring, of nurturing. The origin of the
word pastor is Latin, where it is the word for shepherd. The pastor is the shepherd of the flock. The exemplar of this, of course, is Jesus,
who described Himself as the good shepherd in John chapter 10 (verse 11).
John 10 is a
wonderful chapter, but the key to tapping the rich resources of this passage
lie in its juxtaposition with the preceding chapter (John 9). These two, together, provide a classic
Johannine contrast, and offer up several more, which will be clear as we proceed:
good and bad; give and take; in and out; life and death; come and go; security
and insecurity; generosity and jealousy.
John 9 sees Jesus
controversially giving sight to a man born blind. This leads to the Pharisees investigating the
healing. It’s hardly the stuff CSI is
made of, but there you go. The Pharisees
bring in the heretofore-blind man for questioning. They try to discredit the man, and Jesus. They even bring in the man’s parents as
witnesses. The parents duck the
questions, for fear of being put out of the synagogue (9:22). The Pharisees, here, are seen as oppressive
and exclusive. Everyone and everything
must fit into their categories, and on that basis they decide who gets to
participate and who doesn’t.
When the seeing man
is thrown out, Jesus finds him, and has some stern words for the
Pharisees. And the Pharisees
overhear. And it is then that Jesus
starts John chapter 10, by talking about thieves and bandits trying to get in
on the act. That most famous and ever
popular phrase “life in all its fullness” comes a few verses later, but even
this verse (John 10:10) in all its fullness is a contrast. It starts with the statement that, “The thief
comes only to steal and kill and destroy…” The thief is self-seeking,
self-serving. In contrast, says Jesus,
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly”. Jesus is open, inclusive, liberating.
What kind of outlook
do we have, as individuals, as Corps, as a church and organisation? What is our attitude, our contribution? Do we give, or take? Are we about life in all its fullness? Or are we stealing, killing, destroying? Are we only out for what we can get? Members signing up, more money in the pot, or
whatever we might seek to gain? Or are
we, instead, all about promoting and presenting and providing abundant life?
Are we secure in
ourselves (and in God), or insecure?
Secure people don’t grab and snatch and grasp. They are relaxed, ‘light touch’. Gentle and humble (sound familiar?).
Jesus, the gate for
the sheep (10:7), offers salvation (10:9).
And this is coupled with the image of the sheep coming in and going out
and finding pasture. Interesting that
pasture is not (only) found “in” but “out”.
Could it be, then, that Jesus never intended a cosy club, a holy huddle,
in specific sacred, sanctified and sanitised places? But rather, that ‘pasture’ is found ‘out
there’, on the road, in our ongoing journey with Him, and with one another –
note that this passage is about sheep, plural.
A final observation. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the
sheep. The hired hand … sees the wolf
coming and leaves the sheep and runs away – and the wolf snatches them and
scatters them” (10:11, 12). To
reiterate, the word pastor means shepherd.
And Jesus is our model. He lays
down His life for the sheep because they are His. The hired hand doesn’t have that deep
connection, commitment, investment, with the sheep. So when the chips are down, he’s not
there. He’s looking after himself, his
own interests. Perhaps herein is the
shepherd’s warning: how good are we as shepherds? Not just the Officer, or the PCC. At every level of The Salvation Army, what
kind of shepherds are we? How deep is
our commitment to our people – to one another, to those who really need
us? Are we really investing in people’s
lives? So that, when the wolves come –
relationship problems, health concerns, employment issues, financial crises,
and so on – are we there, laying down our lives? Or do we disappear?
