The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep
It is a most familiar and, perhaps, a most comforting image. It is the classical and quintessential image of care for Christians and even for non-Christians. Yet, as is often the case with familiar images, we take them for granted and sometimes miss their more radical meaning.
It is not by accident that the central icon or image in the School Chapel is the image of Christ the Good Shepherd, visible in the central window above the altar. It signals an ideal and principle about the nature of the School and about the kind of education that it promotes. At issue is how well we live up to the expectation and idea that this image conveys. It is, I suggest, about an education that cares for the whole person. King’s-Edgehill School is, I hope, an institution which cares for you as students.
That care is signaled in a myriad of ways in and through the myriad of experiences that contribute to the learning ambience of the School. The question for you is: do you care? Do you care about the School which cares about you? Do you care enough to step up and take your place in the various things that belong to the busy life of the School? Do you care enough to take on duties and responsibilities towards the community as a whole and for others?
The powerful passage about Christ the Good Shepherd turns on the whole matter of care. The Good Shepherd is contrasted with the hireling, the one who is hired, “a wage-slave,” we might say. The hireling is in it for the money, for a kind of self-interest. “The hireling,” we are told, “careth not for the sheep.” This is in complete contrast to the Good Shepherd who cares for the sheep and who knows his sheep. The word for “care” here means “to bestow careful thought upon” something or someone. That is the challenge for all of you every day. How do you think about one another and by extension the community and the world around you?
The image of Christ the Good Shepherd draws explicitly upon a number of familiar images from the Jewish Scriptures, particularly the so-called “Shepherd’s Psalm,” Psalm 23. “The Lord is my Shepherd, therefore can I lack nothing.” It signals the idea of God’s care and commitment towards our humanity as the Good in whom we find our good. Several of our hymns are based directly upon this psalm, such as “The King of Love my Shepherd is,” connecting care with love. The Psalm shows us something of the divine love for our humanity. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Why?“For thou art with me; thy rod and staff comfort me.”
This concept is further intensified with the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection captured in Jesus’s words that “the Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep,” making an association with the idea of going “through the valley of the shadow of death,” our death. Here is the radical idea of care as sacrificial love, the love that puts oneself on the line for the good of others. That is deep care. It is grounded in the goodness of God and seeks the good of others. That good inescapably is found in a community of care. That is the vision and the vocation of the School: to be a community of care. That requires something from everyone: a commitment to the ideals and the principles that are about respect and dignity, gentleness and learning. In so many ways, it is about learning to care and learning how to care for one another in the right way. Such things are life-long.
They extend beyond the immediate confines of the campus to the larger world of which we are a part. At issue is about our care for one another and for our world. At the very end of College Road, in the very neighbour of the School, there are two farms. They were worked by two sets of brothers, cousins to one another. I have buried all four of them over the years. In this year past, I buried the last of the cousins, John McNeil.
He lived to be ninety-two and for most of those years he lived in the same place. He was observant and thoughtful about what he saw going on around him in this area. The observation which he often made was more of a question about whether what was happening was “good for the land.” The whole of his life as a farmer was not about using the land but tending the land, caring for the land in which he was placed; in short, “doing good for the land.” We cannot remove ourselves from the places in which we find ourself. There is always the question about the nature of our interaction with places and people.
It comes down to what we care about and in what way. Will it be the care of the Good Shepherd who gives his life for the sheep or will it be about manipulating and destroying nature and using and abusing others for our own self-interest? Will it be about doing good for one another and doing good for the land? These are the ethical questions that the story of Christ the Good Shepherd raises for us. The challenge is about what we are willing “to bestow careful thought upon.” It is about learning to care and caring to learn.
Next Wednesday, May 23rd, the School as the Cadet Corps, as a body, will march down to Christ Church for a short service at 3:00pm. Parents and grandparents, alumni and friends are all welcome as well. In a way, the service marks the first of a sequence of events that bring us to the end of the School year.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy