Reflections for King’s-Edgehill School Cadet Church Parade, 2024
Church Parade Reflections 2024: To Govern Is To Serve
To Govern Is To Serve I
The image of the Shepherd is everywhere a symbol of government both divine and human. It is a powerful feature of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures of the New Testament. It is also an image for kingship in the ancient world, from The Epic of Gilgamesh through to Homer’s Iliad and beyond. For the ancient Greeks, the image of shepherding in terms of kingship reflects the divine government of the world itself. It is “a natural and an universal symbol of divine and human government“. Divine and human meet in the image of the Shepherd guiding and caring for the sheep. It is most powerfully captured in the image of Christ the Good Shepherd which we heard in the lesson which Spencer read. The critical emphasis is on the idea of the “good” shepherd.
In The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest literary works of our humanity, Gilgamesh is at first portrayed as a bad king because he uses the people of Uruk for his own self-interest. The people see his behaviour as the antithesis of what he should be: “The king should be the shepherd of his people … wise, comely and resolute,” they say. To be a bad king is to be a bad shepherd in terms of human government because it does not respect or care for the good of the people. The bad shepherd serves only himself at the expense of all others. In a profound image, Enkidu is created to be Gilgamesh’s friend and equal, his second self. Why? So that Gilgamesh can come to learn what it means to be a good king, a shepherd to his people.
The theme of the divine shepherd is emphasized in the Hebrew Scriptures: “Hear, O thou Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep.” We heard these words at the opening of the Advent Christmas services in our School Chapel. It is the idea of God as a Shepherd, the Shepherd of Israel, which in turn shapes the imagery of human rule in imitation of God’s rule, such as David as the Shepherd King or the prophet Isaiah looking for the redeemer and deliverer of Israel as one who will “lead his flock like a shepherd, and gather the lambs into his bosom.” Lovely images.
Plato, too, explores the theme of government through the idea of the shepherd in the Republic, building on the question which The Epic of Gilgamesh raises about what it means to be a shepherd. The sophist Thrasymachus claims that the shepherd is only out for himself but Socrates shows that is what it means to be a false shepherd. The true and good shepherd is one who looks out for and cares for the sheep of his flock, first and foremost. It means acquiring the art of care which seeks the best for those under the shepherd’s charge. To serve them, not oneself, belongs to good order and justice.
Such images and ideas have influenced and contributed to the idea of Christ as the Good Shepherd. It builds on those earlier images but intensifies the idea of care in a most radical way. The Good Shepherd is equally the Lamb of God. “The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.” This challenges our thinking about rule and order; it is not about dominating others but serving one another. To govern is to serve.