The bounds of the flock

The imagery that we heard in our Gospel today must be among the most familiar used in scripture. It is very tempting, particularly for those of us who most commonly meet lamb on a plate rather than in the fields, to imagine today’s reading as one of agricultural harmony, a kind of pretty, and pretty twee, image of beautiful sheep ambling after a smiling shepherd, leaning on his crook, looking off into the sunset. Think Hovis advert meets the Archers. Pastoral bliss.

 

Yet anyone who has ever worked on a farm will, of course, remind us that sheep are anything but the fluffy bundles of joy so often pictured in saccharine farmyard scenes. Sheep are hard work – they go the wrong way, they show little to no initiative, they occasionally give you a decent nip on the hand when you’re trying to get them in order. Sheep constantly need new pasture to feed on, and to be taken care of when the wolf comes or they get trapped down a ditch. In fact, there was a YouTube video circulating this week which rather beautifully illustrated the frustrating life of a shepherd – it showed a sheep, stuck in one ditch, being pulled out with quite some force, only to fall into another ditch, and then another, and then another. And still the shepherd kept faithfully at his duty, and finally off ambled the sheep without a care in the world.

 

Sound familiar?

 

Jesus’s hearers must have somewhat recoiled at today’s story. Not only do none of us like to be compared to sheep, but in today’s reading we hear a clear prophesy of the death and resurrection that Christ was to undergo. Jesus was primarily speaking to his own people, the Jewish nation, and in fact just a few verses before he had restored sight to a blind man who had then been thrown out by the Pharisees. In our first reading today, we heard of another miraculous healing, and again the fury and discomfort of the rulers, elders and scribes. Whilst biblical miracle stories might sometimes be hard to believe, what is absolutely believable is the response of those in power. ‘What on earth are you doing, who gave you the authority to do that?’ they ask. That’s not how things are done around here. To quote the Pharisees speaking to the man whose sight Jesus had just restored: ‘you were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?’ And they drove him out. Forget the miracle – what happened was outside their acceptable bounds, outside what they thought was right and comfortable, and the man must go.

 

It is these humanly imposed bounds that Jesus refers to today, when speaking about the sheep. And these bounds remain a problem for us in the twenty first century.

 

In the past week, we have heard and seen, through Panorama and through the report of the Archbishops’ Anti-Racism Taskforce, yet more disturbing evidence of systematic, institutionalised racism within the Church of England. The reports pulled no punches, and made a number of recommendations for action. The time for talking about racism is over; until the church commits to, implements and delivers change, we will continue in our sin. Those of us in the church, and most particularly those of us who are privileged, must recognise the part we play, often unwittingly, in continuing the oppression of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and do something about it. The report’s title, from Lament to Action, says it all.

 

Yet unless or until we recognise that the bounds of the church, of the beloved people of God, are the shepherd’s jurisdiction and not our own, we will continue to build and maintain a church that is defined by our own criteria, however laudable we think they might be. 

 

Today’s reading is not about the good flock – it is about the good shepherd. The flock only exists because of the shepherd – without the shepherd it is a mere group of sheep, doing their own thing and being attacked by wolves. Without Christ-centred orientation, our whole lives turned towards Christ and our trust placed in the one who will lay down his life for us, the church will never be the radical place of welcome that we are called to be. 

 

If we profess the Christian faith, then God is not made in the image of humankind, but the other way around. All humankind, all made in the image of God – whatever our skin colour, or our background, or our gender, whatsoever illnesses or disabilities we might have, whatever differences humanity accentuates – all are made in the image of God. That must be the rock on which our faith is built, and each time one of our brothers and sisters suffers because of our own prejudice, Christ himself suffers.

 

Yet our reorientation to Christ does not stop by simply saying ‘all are made in the image of God’. Our reorientation can only be true, and living, if we commit ourselves to fighting injustice within the world, and within our church, and by naming the times we fall short. Christ has laid down his life for all his sheep, yet whilst we continue to honour some above others, in our structures and our institutions, then we lead Christ to the cross once again. As long as we continue to be a church that exhibits and embeds racism, we are not worthy of the shepherd who lays down his life for us.

 

We are Christ’s – he is not ours to define or to narrow. The flock is Christ’s – it is not ours to determine. He is the good shepherd, and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep of his hand. Let us pray today that we might live up to that calling, and commit ourselves to setting God’s people free, however many times we might stumble. For that is what our Gospel demands.