Preaching Paths 30 April 2023

Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus continues the theme of trustworthy versus untrustworthy spiritual leadership taken up in chapter 9. In chapter 9, a metaphor of “seeing/not seeing” distinguishes those who discern (in Jesus’ healing of a blind man) God’s redemptive activity through Jesus and those who are willfully blind to it. The metaphor shifts in chapter 10 from seeing to “heeding/not heeding” the voice of the true shepherd. The sheep trust their true shepherd’s voice calling them. Jesus is the “gate/gate-keeper” barring the way of false shepherds. The bar is high: Jesus makes the laying down of one’s life, not the power to force one’s will on another, the measure of leadership.

Shepherding as a metaphor for leadership would be familiar to Israel’s learned elite. They would readily recognize Jesus’ allusion here  to Jer 23:1-8 and  Ez 34:1-10. In the former, God berates Israel’s careless, self-serving leader/shepherds, promising a future faithful shepherd in the Davidic line. Ezekiel pronounces judgment on leaders who wield their power to feed themselves, letting the sheep starve.

A meditation on the nature of trustworthy leadership from the perspective of society’s most vulnerable would not be out of place this Sunday. Even sheep, says Jesus, are discerning: they know who shepherds them, and who abuses them in the pursuit of self-interest.