John 10.1-6

What are you looking for in a good leader? That was a question Douglas Webster posed to a large number of American church congregations and this was the conclusion he came to they had to be: ‘winsome, charismatic, executive-like pastors who exude warmth and success. Known more for their humour than for their spirituality, today’s market sensitive pastors are relationally savvy. Instead of eliciting deep feelings of guilt as the old revivalists did, these pastors lift the spirit, promote optimism and make people feel good about themselves.  Professionals, they empathise with their congregations without interfering in their personal lives.’  It makes every Vicar in the country want to roll over and die.  Or is it only me?  It’s partly that we can see that what people want is fair enough, and we feel really inadequate.  But it’s also partly that we have a sense that what people are looking for isn’t quite right.  We accept that we live in the age of sound bites, spin doctors, the image – but the leader most of us are trying to be is not quite the leader people are asking for.

Well, it’s turning out to be a season of sheep at St Michael’s.  We met some sheep on easter morning, the parable of the lost sheep gave us our theme at the Annual Church Meeting, and we’re going to be in John 10 for four Sunday evenings.  In a couple of weeks I’m hoping to think about what it means for us to be sheep and Jesus to be the shepherd.  But our passage this evening is only the first 6 verses, and Jesus doesn’t reveal that he’s the good shepherd till verse 11, so this evening I want to talk about leadership.  If leadership is influence, you’ve got it.  Everyone leads someone.  If you’ve been a Christian for five minutes, there’s someone somewhere who’s been a Christian for four minutes, and they need to become your apprentice.  But seriously, most of us have several years of Christian experience behind us, and we’re likely to be leading in some way.  We’re leaders outside church as well, most of us.  So hearing about how to be a shepherd is likely to be important for us.  

And the main thing I want to say to leaders is this: that concern for image is not necessarily all bad - provided of course that the image matches the reality, so that what you see is what you get. And it could well be that the present widespread cynicism that so many people seem to display towards political leaders and indeed some church leaders may in part be due to repeated disappointments - the promises made which have not materialised, the credibility gap between what is claimed and what has been delivered is far too wide and the result is that we become hardened. And it was no different in Jesus’ day. There was a lack of leaders people could actually trust. They too drew on a popular image which had its roots in the OT - the image of the shepherd. A shepherd, you see, was meant to care for the sheep on behalf of their real owner. He was meant to nourish them, protect them, even be willing to put his life on the line for them. In this case the sheep were the people of Israel, and the owner was God. That was what these leaders were meant to do, but history proved time and time again the exact opposite - self-seeking corruption destroyed the sheep.  They pretend to be legitimate shepherds, but they’re interlopers, it says in verse 1. 

Whereas we’re meant to be the kind of shepherd who knows our people.  We know them by name, verse 3, and they follow gladly, verse 4.   Now the details of this imagery would have been clear to Jesus’ audience. What was common at this time was for several smaller farming families to hire out a large enclosure which would contain a number of different flocks belonging to several different owners. Then they would hire a junior shepherd - a watchman to look after the mixed flocks and guard the gate. Then what would happen would be that a shepherd of one of the flocks would come along, known to the watchman, and he would stand outside the gate and make his own distinctive call to each sheep – I don’t know a whistle of some kind (experiment a bit) and his flock would come out to him, and he would walk ahead of them to lead them to some luscious pasture for grazing.  The point is, that each sheep had a name.  Not a name like Fifi or Rover, but a specific call-sign so that the sheep knew “that’s ME he’s calling”.  Then another shepherd would come along and do the same thing. That is the picture Jesus is drawing on. So there is a tie between the shepherd and the sheep, they hear his voice and know it and follow it. But someone who is not a shepherd, who is simply intent on hurting the sheep in some way, getting control over the sheep, stealing the sheep, will not gain entrance, the watchman won’t let him in. So what does he do? Well, he climbs over the sheep pen wall while the watchman is looking the other way.   He just pretends to be a shepherd.  It’s style, not substance.  There’s no relationship, so – hopefully – the sheep see through him, as it says in verse 5.

Surely, one of the great diseases of the 21^st century is the loss of self identity and self - worth. Of course I don’t mean that people forget their names, but at a deeper level they feel insignificant, nobodies who are here today and gone tomorrow. At one time people sought value and identity in their jobs - skilled craftsmen for instance - but that is all too easily replaced by a machine. Then some sort of value was obtained from the family - being a father, a daughter, a brother, but with family break-up figures now soaring through the ceiling, that is no longer the place where people feel valued, indeed, as resent research shows everyone seems to be a looser - children, husbands and wives feel cheapened with their self - confidence being trashed in the process. Do you see how value is derived from our relationship to something - our job, our friends, our family? There’s someone, somewhere, who needs to know you know their call-sign, you know who they are.  It’s all based on relationship.  Manipulation-free, control-free, open-handed relationship. You need to be in a homegroup, so you can be part of a network of relationships, shepherding and calling and knowing each other.  And Graeme and I and Derek and Carole and Travers and Gerald and Sue and your homegroup leaders and the whole leadership team, and whoever the treasurer turns out to be and I don’t know who it’ll be but it’s going to have to be someone we know and trust not a stranger or someone that relies on spin, we’re doing our level best to be that kind of shepherd for you.  Accept no counterfeits.

One last thing: of course, as I’ve said, Jesus is the shepherd par excellence.  With him, it’s not style, it’s substance.  He’s not a stranger.  He knows you by name.  He knows every thought you’ve ever had, every word you’ve ever said, everything you’ve ever done.  And he still loves you.  He was there on your first day of school, on your first date, on the day you left home, on the day you first came through those doors at the back.  He knows you by name, and he loves you.  So you must be valuable.  Very valuable indeed.