The stark difference between "Shepherding" and "Leadership"
(Free Version) The Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year B)- Acts 4:5-12; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18
It’s not a stretch to say that the metaphor of shepherd is foreign to us. You likely do not have any shepherds in your congregation, and I imagine we’d have to go back more than a few generations for any of us to find a shepherd in our genealogy.
Several years ago, there was a short video going around with a sheep who was caught in a deep trench. And there is a young man who takes a belt or rope, ties it around the sheep’s leg and pulls it out. He’s saved the sheep! And what does the sheep do with his newfound freedom? Runs ahead about 30 feet and jumps right back in the trench. Though humorous, that image can be compelling and challenging. 1
The image is that of a shepherd who saves and a sheep who prefers to be stuck. I wonder why the sheep prefers to be stuck. Is it out of a desire for safety? Is it out of fear of predators? Or is it simply because the trench is what is right in front of him?
This Sunday is often called “Good Shepherd Sunday.” We hear a reading from John 10 (a different section each year in the three year cycle), and we speak the words of Psalm 23. The image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd provides a drastic contrast with the ways we often understand “leadership” in our world today.
Truth be told, I do not like the word “leadership.” Yes, I know that it is necessary and, when carried out in the way of Jesus, is a wonderful and liberating responsibility. However, the term has been so overused in our general culture and in the church, I still taste something rotten whenever I have to say the word (or write it!).
In some sense, to be a shepherd is certainly to lead. But it is quite a different picture from what we think of leadership. Shepherding is not “oversight,” “management,” or “vision-casting.” Shepherding involves nurturing, listening, rescuing, and protecting.
In our Acts reading (4:5-12), Peter addresses the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. He speaks clearly and boldly when asked with by power the man at the gate was healed. Peter does not summon courage within himself. His authority comes from outside himself. He is filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter confronts the leaders with the truth: he and John are being interrogated because of an act of kindness towards the lame man. Yet, this act of kindness is threatening to the leaders.
Still, Peter answers their question directly. The man is healed because of the authority of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the same one that you crucified, yet God raised from the dead. With the building metaphor from the Psalms, Peter says that the leaders rejected Jesus because they thought he did not fit with the project they were building. And those of us who establish social and religious structures today still find ways to set him aside. And yet, he is central to the whole thing, and the only authority for salvation. In the same way, that which is self-sacrificial, giving, and humble—the way of the cross, is often cast aside today because it does not seem to fit with “the way the world works.” Yet, it is absolutely everything.
In our epistle reading (1 John 3:16-24), John tells the church what true love is, and how we can know it: “he laid down his life for us-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” As we hear in our gospel reading that the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, the letter tells the church that we can be transformed in such a way that we embody this kind of life for one another.
Such truth must not be left in the abstract. John is talking about real needs, flesh-and-blood, tangible needs. John insists that this must not be talk. We are not to love by speaking but by truth and action. When we obey his command to love, we will find that we are making our home in Him. This is our new address. This is where we live now! How do we know that this is our home? The Spirit he gave us will reveal it to us.
This is enacted every week in the institution of The Lord’s Supper (the Eucharist, the Mass, etc.) which, as James K.A. Smith says, “is a table prepared in the presence of our enemies, it is also a table where God sits down with those who were once his enemies (Rom. 5:10; Col. 1:21).” This meal is something that we eat with one another. We need community and we cannot fully live out God’s design in isolation. Yet, it is important to acknowledge the many ways in which this body fractures. Therefore, Smith says, “the body must be reknit together through practices of reconciliation and forgiveness. A kingdom-shaped community cannot be satisfied with private, isolated individuals only reconciled ‘vertically’ to God, for the manifest witness of such reconciliation will be love of neighbor.” This is why John might question if God’s love does indeed reside in a Christian if that Christian sees a brother or sister in need and will not help. The church is a dependent community. The practice of eating together weekly is not only designed to repair the relationship between “me and God” but “me and my brother/sister.” Indeed, the two relationships are not neatly separated. 2
The Gospel of Jesus is so unique in that it is both incredibly challenging—to the point that the broken forces of sin always stand against it—and yet, beautifully compelling. The story of a shepherd (found in our gospel reading today, John 10:11-18) who lays down his life for the sheep calls to us. Often we dismiss it because this way of being in our world seems too good to be true.
Many will think this kind of “leadership” too naive. After all, in this world, you have to dominate. You have to coerce. I mean, if you really try to live like Jesus…this world will crush you…It’s true. You might even get crucified.
Such a picture challenges the church to ask: what story are we following? In what ditches do we find ourselves? Is it the way of profit, security, success? Or is it the story of self-sacrifice? The story of the one who laid down his life? Why does this matter? This will fundamentally impact the way that each of us views what constitutes “the good life.” If we follow stories in our culture that are about dominance, security, experience, or approval, we will chase those things. And we will act like a hired hand, only after our own gain. Christians are called to point others to the shepherd. Our leadership (in your family, your job etc.) is to reflect His leadership.
This Sunday, many near to hear the simple words: God is with you, no matter what. In the midst of your grief, your shame, your pain, He is there. He walks with you. The Shepherd is Present.
Where is your life disoriented? Does it feel like the predators have control and the hired hand has fled? The Good Shepherd has laid down his life for you. This is not a distant god who watches you from far away looking for you to straighten up, but the one who is actively involved, who gave himself up to the wolves for you.
Where are you suspicious, not knowing who to trust? This is the God who does not seek to dominate or coerce you. Those “gods” are fleeting, capricious. Seeking to control your life at all costs will inevitably let you down. Investing primarily in what other people think of you is empty. Chasing worldly power or security leads to nothing. But…there is a better way, the way of trust.
Finally, as Christ is our Good Shepherd, he forms around Himself a Shepherding people, a fully-present,-laying-down-their-life, different-kind-of-power people who do not run away from the world, but invest themselves in it, loving one another and calling to those outside the pen. We, church, are those people.
“Sheep Gets Stuck Jumps Back in Trench,” YouTube, 2022, Accessed on February 29, 2024,
James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 201-202.
Well said, Preston.