‘The sheep follow him, because they know his voice’

8 am and 11 am Holy Communion, Portsmouth Cathedral

The Fourth Sunday of Easter - Good Shepherd Sunday

‘The sheep follow him, because they know his voice’

In all three years of our Sunday lectionary, the Gospel of the day is from John where Jesus speaks in  imagery drawn from shepherding: the sheep, the gate, the flock, the shepherd’s voice, green pasture, abundant life.

The imagery of sheep and shepherds in the Bible is very ancient. The 23rd Psalm, The Lord is my shepherd, was probably written a thousand years before the birth of Jesus.  And whether sung to a lovely setting such as we had this morning, or to a rhyming, metrical paraphrase like the one set to the famous tune, Crimond or even to the more recent folk-rock version (with its repeat of ‘I will trust in you alone’) the 23rd psalm continues to accompany generations through life’s changes and chances. Here are the the abiding themes of God’s faithfulness, our human neediness, God’s provision, green pastures, still waters, abundant life. The sheep follow the Shepherd because they know his voice. They will not follow the voice of strangers. Jesus is the Good Shepherd but he is also the gate. He is safety and protection. He is life and abundance.

When Jesus used this imagery he was not only calling on the familiar psalm, but also on the prophetic books of the Old Testament where God is often described as Israel’s true shepherd. Israel’s kings, like other rulers in the ancient near east, were often also often seen as shepherd kings, anointed by God to lead, care for and provide for their people. But as the prophets complained, they were not always worthy, and the description of Israel as ‘sheep without a shepherd’ crops up again and again in the Old Testament. In Mark and Matthew’s gospels Jesus laments that the people he preached to ‘harrassed and helpless.. like sheep without a shepherd’. And even where there are shepherd-like leaders they are not always good shepherds. Ezekiel prophesies against those so-called shepherds of Israel who have been enriching themselves while leaving their flock to starve. This is the background to Jesus’s description of those who climb in without going through the gate as ‘thieves and robbers’.

In the ancient middle east green pasture was precious, flocks and herds represented wealth and abundance. So to neglect the sheep was not only animal cruelty, it was also a neglect and refusal of God’s good gifts, God’s wealth. Translate that into the Christian age, and you, we, the Church of God are God’s wealth, God’s treasure.

But what about our contemporaryshepherds? The theme of shepherding runs through the Ordination services of the Church of England. Ordained ministers, especially bishops and priests, are pastors, they are meant to ‘feed thy flock’ . We still speak of pastoral ministry, pastoral care. In the Prayer Book service for the Consecration of Bishops there is a charge to the person being consecrated: ‘Be to the flock of Christ a shepherd, not a wolf; feed them, devour them not…that when the Chief Shepherd shall appear ye may receive the never fading crown of glory…’ I remember when I was ordained priest the solemnity of the charge: ‘Remember always with thanksgiving that the treasure now to be entrusted to you is Christ’s own flock, bought by the shedding of his blood on the cross. It is to him that you will render account’.

Parish ministry is about knowing people and being known, whether or not they go to church. In my first year or so as a parish priest I realised there were people who just wanted me to know their story, which was nothing to do with me, but because the last vicar had known their story and they wanted it to go on being held, being remembered, and so, treasured, by somebody. We speak of clergy as pastors, and also as parsons, as persons. Traditionally this personal, pastoral priesthood has been important for England and England’s Church.

If you fly over the English landscape you will see fields and hills, cities and towns, villages and open country. And everywhere the towers and spires of churches. Wherever you live you are in an English parish, and you have a right to your parish church.  This can be traced to the very beginnings of the English church, to the missions of Cuthbert and Aidan in the North, and Augustine in the South. Those missionaries were pastoral, they listened, they cared, they worked with local monarchs and landowners, because the English Church has never been a clerical closed shop. Lay patrons, church wardens, sextons, or sacristans, vergers, choirs and musicians and later Lay Readers, Lay Pastoral Assistants and Anna chaplains. There are there multiple opportunities for the shepherding of the community.  

This is the way Christ is made known to the English people, this is the wellspring of our wider Christian culture, with its monarchy and its jury-based trials and legal system often reflecting Biblical insights, alongside its ethos of neighbourliness, and its schools and hospitals with their Christian foundations. Ordinary life is holy: Green pastures, still waters, abundant life.

But (and here I hope you will excuse me for making a faint plug for my book) in recent years the Church of England has chosen to move away from this model of being a shepherding church to one much more focused on recruiting new and active believers. There are reasons for this, which I try to explain in my book. In the attempt to draw in new people parishes and dioceses have had to compete with one another for central church funds which have been only available if you can prove you are doing something different, exciting, new. We’ve had experiments in this diocese, with mixed results: new initiatives, some successful, some less so, along with much  pastoral pain. I can think of at least one example of a struggling elderly congregation being booted out of their churches as shiny new groupings were bussed in. I’ve seen this here in Portsmouth and on my forays out of Portsmouth to preach or preside.  

Churches and parishes have been grouped together, here and elsewhere, in ever larger units, with their church housing sold off and no chance of ever  getting a priest. And the priests that are left find themselves rushing from service to service, without a chance to know anyone or be known  by anyone. And individuals with a sense that God might be calling them to ministry find themselves barely trained and badly prepared.

Again and again, as I have reflected on this and tried to understand it and write about it, those words from our Gospel have been echoing away in my mind. ‘They will not follow a stranger…because they do not know the voice of strangers’. The English Church is a pastoral church, rooted in that gift of loving  personhood which Jesus embodied and which the Church of England over centuries has faintly and inadequately try to copy.

Of course it has not always worked. Think of parishes held ‘in plurality’ by absent incumbents while the work was done by badly paid curates. Or the quiet cynicism alongside gentle faith we see in Jane Austen’s novels. There have been times when Bishops have spent their time plotting politics in London and rarely even visiting their dioceses. The wolves have roared within and without. But the Good Shepherd remains good, and the good instincts remain sound.

So on this Good Shepherd Sunday, pray for our shepherds. For Sarah Mullaly, for Jonathan our Bishop and all the bishops, for the parish clergy as they struggle to follow the Good Shepherd and to seek the Good Shepherd in their own prayers.

And reflect for yourselves on where it is that you hear the voice, not of the stranger, but of the one who knows you by name, through life and death, through sacrament and scripture, and who calls you still to abundant life.

Angela Tilby

Canon of Honour Emeritus