We come again to our annual Good Shepherd Sunday. The idea of the Good Shepherd is actually a particularly simple one. Whereas a hired shepherd would go to some pains to protect the flock he’s paid to look after, he doesn’t own them, and he’s not going to risk serious injury for them, if danger arises. Jesus, the Good Shepherd from God, will lay down his life, because the sheep are God’s own property. We are his own. As the meerkats would say, ‘simples’.

Those responsible will try to appoint a nice new parish priest for here, in the fullness of eventually. The Good Shepherd is a model for that: we want someone who follows Christ’s way…..or do we, ….really?  Jesus offended the religious community who then got the Romans to execute him! Do we really want that sort here?

As with many things, there might be pitfalls. There are clergy about who are very, very, nice. An attractive people person, will always have some sort of following, but they may - at the same time, - and rather importantly - be someone who has little serious engagement with Bible, or with Christian doctrine, with liturgy, or with the disciplines by which our church is supposed to operate. Liturgy, - services - in which the priest has a leading role, - that word, ‘liturgy’, means ‘the work of the people’ - which is not always the same as what the people happen to fancy. We are not a restaurant, aiming to cater for all individual tastes. We are a community to be focused on God, with larger principles. A priest should show an appropriate interest in liturgy and its proper structure, and have a good grasp of that.

Allan Jenkins used to speak a lot about ‘Christ our example’. So, what sort of shepherd was Christ, and what sort of minister would follow his pattern, and what sort of discipleship would he or she inspire in us? Jesus was a people person, but in the sense of caring for individuals in such a way as to help them be challenged and grow in their relationship with God. If you challenge, you will court resistance, and sometimes hostility, and often lose some of your popularity. So, Jesus says to his disciples, ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you’, if they do, you’re probably getting something wrong! You can have an unhelpful sort of popularity. On the way to the cross, Jesus tells sentimental bystanders that he wants followers, not superficial admirers. Followers who will rise to join him a challenging and sacrificial path of discipleship, if they are called to it, and will inspire and encourage others in the right way. When some parishes have pursued their bishop to get a priest, sometimes the bishop has replied, ‘you ask for a priest, but how many priests has your congregation produced, and inspired to give their lives to that?’

So, a priest, if they are popular, must be popular for the right reasons, reflecting a challenging gospel, and inspiring others to embrace a fuller relationship with God. Not popular simply for being chatty, easy going, having no ministerial substance, willing to ignore every inconvenient rule, not engaging with study, and never stirring things up. Such clergy often, very, very, humbly, say that they aren’t really preachers. To which the response should be, ‘if you engaged with the important things of ministry with a proper vigour, the Almighty would make you an adequate preacher’. St Paul himself needed to struggle and persevere. He says this, ‘And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.’ 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

If the priest is unpopular, it should be because people are rejecting a genuine ministry, and not because the priest is putting them off, by unpleasantly lording it over them, or being distant from them, or is sensed to be lacking integrity, or appears to be seeking an easy life for themselves.

Christ, and, soon St Stephen, St James, and St Paul, were rejected and killed, as a consequence of doing the right things, and made that sacrifice. It was a true way which led to new life and resurrection, and led to Christ finding glory, and finding followers. After a very long interregnum elsewhere, many years ago, which I was involved in, the parish was delighted that a young family man had applied. When he arrived, he told me, oddly, that he ‘had bigger fish to fry’. It became clear that he had come, merely to move on to another job, out of parish work, when the time was convenient to him and his family, and, before very long at all, he quit the parish which had welcomed him, at short notice. The time that he served there was much briefer than the interregnum had been. I had told the congregation that their new priest would not come to spend time there, but come to be spent there, but it proved not so.

Here, you could get someone younger, and self-supporting through having another part-time job. The likelihood is probably someone pensioned. Age might not be a problem, if they are willing and able to work. They would be younger than me, and I’m younger than both the Pope and Joe Biden, but to be fair, Francis and Joe have a much bigger staff than just our two stalwart churchwardens!

I’ve heard of clergy interviews where clergy were asked to give an undertaking never to change anything! But we, as individuals, and as a church, are a living organism, meant to be actively responding to God, and, with him, to the current needs of our society, in the times we live in. A parish which asks for that ‘undertaking’ needs an undertaker! 

A priest, ideally, is wise and prophetic. There is a saying in youth work, ‘if you think all is thriving – worry, it won’t last’. Nothing lasts for ever. Sooner or later, any rut – that may have had many good points - fizzles out, people move on, times change, and – in any case, that good status quo would not have been benefitting from all of the possibilities, anyway. It’s best to be inspired by a leader to a right new direction, long before a local church hits some buffers. A biblical Shepherd had the skill to keep the flock headed for nourishment in a tricky landscape, and the skill to help them to remain safe and protected against human and wild animal threats, and the skill to maintain their health. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, didn’t look for a comfortable life, but one of self-giving, in doing the necessary, and bearing the cost, as should the clergy.