The Good Shepherd

A Sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on April 21, 2024 by Revd Richard Carter

Reading for address: John 10: 11-18

Walking across the fields in spring sunshine, I see in front of me a young lamb lying on the ground. He is lying so still, so seemingly frail, so flat out in the sun, that I think he is dead. I cannot see another sheep. And then as I approach the little lamb twitches, lifts its head, sees me and springs to its feet in fear, stretches up and lets out a loud bleat. And then from the distance I hear a returning cry and again and again the same baa echoing across the deserted landscape. It is his mother calling the young lamb to come: ‘Baaaaa!‘ The lamb knows the voice, and begins to scamper towards its mother while the ewe, still calling, comes to meet its off-spring, alert and tense as though trying to ward me, the intruder, off. As soon as they meet, instantly the lamb is suckling from its mother. It is something beautiful to observe this relationship – a connectedness between them visibly reaching across this landscape. There is no sense of conditionality about this relationship- no sense of: ‘You wandered off so that’s your problem, I’ve had enough of your behaviour.’ No, this instinctual bond is greater. This sheep call says: ‘Hear me, come back to me, I will protect you from harm, I will feed you. I am here with you.’ I imagine Jesus on the hills surrounding Galilee observing, like me, the relationship between the sheep and the flock. And I think of Jesus observing the relationship between the shepherd and the sheep – this relationship that will ensure their survival. The shepherd will protect them from harm, lead the flock to new pasture, provide. That’s what it means to be a shepherd.

And Jesus uses this as a metaphor for our relationship with him. The good shepherd is the one who looks out for you. It’s the one who ensures you are protected and fed, that you survive, who would give their life for you, unconditionally. No matter what.

On Friday night, I am visiting my brother Daniel and my mother. For the last two years, Olga from Ukraine has been living with them with her son Fitizah. They have become part of our family, cooking Ukrainian food like deep red borscht soup and steamed stuffed cabbage leaves called Holobtsi, helping, caring for my mother and making sure she eats her dinner, laughing with us all, entering into the life of our family, the dog walks, the shopping, playing the piano and learning English. Despite the tragedy of the invasion of her beloved Ukraine, Olga is full of love and goodness pushing back the sadness and pain. But on Friday night she is looking subdued and sad. She has been learning English and when I come to visit we practice together. ‘What are you doing?’ I ask. ‘I am sitting down’ she replies. ‘But what have you been doing today?’ I ask. ‘I am packing’ she replies. Yes Olga is packing to go back to Ukraine. A few months ago she heard that her sister has terminal cancer and is increasingly weak. Olga has been to visit her and her great nephew Matvee. Matvee is nine years old and has autism and is physically disabled. He has only a few words of vocabulary but is full of energy, love and affection, the doctors said he would never be able to lift his head up or walk but holding onto Olga’s hand he has proved everyone wrong. He adores his great aunt Olga and on their Facetime calls he is full of smiles especially when they lift up my brother’s dog, Woody, and show him on the camera and he cannot stop laughing with delight. But Olga’s sister weakened by the cancer and is finding it impossible to provide the full time care he needs and in Ukraine at the moment there is no-one else to help. Left without attention, Matvee sits hitting his own head, distraught and isolated. ‘I am going back to look after my sister and Matvee’ Oleh says. There is no choice. It’s as simple as that. Her sister and Matvee need her. ‘How is Ukraine where they live?’ I ask. ‘No good’ she says. At night she lies awake listening to the air raid sirens and then the sound of drones waiting for them to fall from the sky. ‘What about air raid shelters?’, I ask. ‘No’ she says, ‘no shelter, we are on the third floor. I must look after them.’

On Friday night I pray with her, pray for her sister, pray for Matvee, her great nephew and her son and daughter who she will be leaving behind here in the UK as she returns to a country being invaded. She moves to the piano in my brother’s living room and opens the lid and begins to play Passacaglia – this haunting piece of music.

(MUSIC BEGINS) Passacaglia Piano Version Handel/Halvorsen

There are tears in her eyes and ours as she plays. We hug her, ‘You have two homes now’ we reassure her. Yes, she says, ‘I know.’ At two in the morning Daniel drives her to the airport. She flies to Lublin, in Poland, and then an eight hour journey across the border to Leviv in Ukraine – a war zone. ‘I am the good shepherd’ says Jesus, ‘I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.’ When you love someone, there is really no other way, no other choice than to want to be with them in their need. I think of Olga as I write this, with the sirens sounding out in the night. So brave, but perhaps this is not about bravery, it is about love – there can be no other way for Olga, she knows where she must be – at the side of her sister and caring for Matviee, Matviee, who does not understand war but understands love.

But where are the good shepherds to lead our nations. Have we learnt so little from history that we allow the tragedy of war and violence again to repeat itself. What will you gain, if you gain the whole world but kill your own immortal soul? The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.

(Music fades slowly)

Last week my own brother Matthew was in Ukraine visiting projects and suddenly news on the BBC takes on for me and his family a frightening personal relevance. Matthew is CEO for Depaul International helping homeless and displaced people, and I text Matthew each day and phone him in the night, worrying about his safety: ‘I have never seen anything like it,’ he says of the extent of the bombing, the stories of torture and violence, the systematic destruction.

On the phone Matthew tells me about a woman he meets outside a ruined church, in Mykolaiv, an area formally occupied by the Russians – an area of near total destruction of all the buildings. ‘We were married there, in that church she tells my brother, after fifty years of living together – we were communists, but after fifty years we wanted to be blessed by God – that’s the church. First the Russians, hit the cross on the top, and then another shell demolished the side wall, and then another collapsed the roof. But they can’t defeat God – look,’ beside the broken church there is a large iron shipping container into which they have moved rows of pews – ‘we are continuing to pray here,’ she says beaming. Her husband has lost his hearing due to the shelling. ‘We have lost everything,’ she says, ‘but we have not lost each other. They can bomb the church but they can’t defeat our love.’ Indeed the Good Shepherd will lay down his life for his sheep. My brother says he is amazed by the courage and resilience he has found – the goodness of people he meets.

I wonder how many thieves and robbers we witness leading our world, how many wolves and how many hired hands who run away rather than defending the sheep. Those whose real interest is themselves rather than the sheep. You can’t be a shepherd if you don’t care about the sheep. Shepherding is not about ambition, or power, or profit, or personal gain, or media popularity or your ability to deceive. True leadership is based on a deep trust, the desire to protect the sheep no matter what, to lead them out and to lead them into safety, not to risk them for your own reputation. We must not be deceived by the thief, the wolf, or the hired hand. Acts of brutality and revenge cannot save us. They escalate evil. How relevant Christ’s parable for today’s world.

You will know the true shepherd through the love and care they provide. The shepherd cannot take away the danger or the threat but the shepherd can lead you through the valley of the shadow of death and you need fear no evil. Neither is the shepherd there to judge you and condemn you – but there to guide you into good pastures. We do not worship a tribal God – rather we are called into the fellowship of all God’s children – beyond our desire to make our God our private possession and his kingdom our invaded territory. God calls the edges into the centre and the centre he spreads out to the edges. All are included. That is the message. We are all God’s chosen people – one flock, the Good Shepherd of us all, desiring that not even a single sheep is lost. Our God searches for the lost and carries them home. That is our calling too.

What happens when wrong is presented as right and right is believed to be wrong. Last week we saw the signs of escalating violence that can destroy the world with each side justifying their terrifyingly dangerous action. We heard the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, all be it for a few weeks only, saying that she supported Donald Trump’s election as President of the USA, wanted the disbanding of the United Nations and wants to pull Britain out from the European Convention of Human Rights and with no sense of remorse for her own catastrophic failure in government. In the meantime the loss of life in Gaza and the West Bank continued, with now more than 32,000 Palestinian dead and the release of the Israeli hostages still not agreed. I wonder if we can still discern the voice of the Good Shepherd. My brother returned from Ukraine profoundly shaken, ‘Richard it is evil what they have done to Ukraine.’ And I thank God for his safe return.

Music Reprise: Passacaglia Piano Version Handel/Halvorsen

As I return from saying goodbye to Olga, I think of a young 9 year old Matvee hugging her with such joy as the sirens cry out in the night – on the Facetime call to my brother Daniel, Matvee’s face is full of laughter and joy because his Great Aunt Olga is with him. And I think of the 1000s of others who continue to offer us hope.

The Good Shepherd is willing to offer his life for the sheep if we will only recognise his voice. Look for the Good Shepherd in your own life too – for Christ will be there, beside you, wherever you are, whatever crisis you are living through. Look for the Good Shepherd. You will know his voice. For the Good Shepherd will prepare a table before you even in front of all your enemies. And goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life. And you will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. That is his promise. That is our hope and our path.

(20 second music fade)