Sermon 15th May 2011
Ezekiel 34:1-6
The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them—to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them.
John 10:1-10
‘Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’ Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Shepherd in biblical parlance means ruler. In today’s language it means leader. Go into any bookshop and look in the business section and you will see lots of books on leadership. Organisations today spend lots of training dollars on developing leaders. I read recently about a recruitment story by Telecom, and this person told his story about as he graduated from University, Telecom was looking for staff. One of the attractions and reasons why he should work for Telecom was he would earn lots of money. Contrast that with the announcement that Roger Sutton has just been appointed head of the Earthquake Recovery team in Christchurch, and he will take a drop in salary to take the job.
The book of Ezekiel introduces its metaphor of leadership by saying:
Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep.
Now there are a couple of ways of understanding the application of this responsibility of leaders in today’s world. The first is about the gap between rich and poor, or inequality. The second is how and whether leaders take responsibility for moral issues even if those issues are politically unpopular.
For the first issue on inequality I am going to refer to the Methodist PQ Committee, and on the second matter I am going to refer to a radio interview yesterday morning between Kim Hill and Dr James Hansen.
The Methodist Public Questions Committee put out a Lenten Study resource for this year on inequality. One of their resources was a book by two public health researchers: Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. The book title was: “The Spirit Level - Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better”. Their graphs reveal that it is not just the poor, but whole societies, from top to bottom, that are adversely affected by inequality.
The authors point out that the life-diminishing results of valuing growth above equality in rich societies can be seen all around us. Inequality causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives; it increases the rate of teenage pregnancy, violence, obesity, imprisonment and addiction; it destroys relationships between individuals born in the same society but into different classes; and its function as a driver of consumption depletes the planet's resources.
On almost every index of quality of life, or wellness, or deprivation, there is a gradient showing a strong correlation between a country's level of economic inequality and its social outcomes. Almost always, Japan and the Scandinavian countries are at the favourable "low" end, and almost always, the UK, the US and Portugal are at the unfavourable "high" end, with Canada, Australasia and continental European countries in between.
Crime is a theme that sells newspapers or fascinates us in the electronic media. But the consequence of politicising crime in this way is that political parties do not want to be seen as soft, and we end up with putting people into prison. The more people we put in prison, the less funds we have for rehabilitation, and so we get into a downward spiral. There is a correlation between crime rates and inequality, so if we really wanted to reduce our crime rate, one thing to do is reduce our inequality.
Leadership requires the courage to attend to the popular issues well, and the unpopular issues better. It requires attending to the long term as well as the short term. And in the words of Ezekiel, requires that the shepherd feeds the sheep, not just himself.
Now Jesus said: I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I want to suggest that this is a very rich insight. It is thick with meaning.
Abundant life, by contrast, points to a rich quality that does not require conformity, but a commitment to grow life in others. We will all share in this abundance. For when you are alive and sparkling, then I benefit as well.
Now the dilemma for political leaders is that in order to be in power they need to win elections. Winning elections is one thing; governing the country is another. Issues that are unpopular or difficult get put into the too hard basket, or pushed over to next time, or the time after next, for someone else to deal with.
Yesterday morning Dr James Hansen spoke with Kim Hill.
Dr James Hansen is the Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's Earth Institute, and one of the best-known climate scientists in the world. He is visiting New Zealand to speak about Climate Change: a Scientific, Moral and Legal Issue. For those of you who did not hear the interview you can listen on podcast, and for those who wish to listen and do not have podcast facility, I can arrange to replay it for you.
James Hansen summarised the science of how the climate is changing through human activities and the sobering consequences to the next generation about the adverse effects of increasing carbon in the atmosphere. The main culprit is the use of fossil fuels, especially coal, but oil and gas are included. Hansen stated that the science is now clear, and on the main issues of climate change, the science is well understood. The debate in the media has been clouded by the lobbying distractions of the fossil fuel industry, which like the tobacco industry have funded campaigns to try and discredit the science. However we should not be distracted for the consequences to our children of climate change are significant and frightening.
Hansen was interesting when questioned about why NZ should stick its neck out and have a carbon tax, when the countries to which it exports, do not. Hansen said we need to act globally, so that those leaders who do take action will not be undermined. The dilemma is this: if the global institutions cannot act together, then why should one or two countries take the lead? That then gives a competitive advantage to those who do nothing. We know that the US at the national level is stalled and doing nothing. The same is not true however for China. China is aware of the issue and is starting to move. We had a Chinese Scientist student stay with us over Christmas, and she informed us that Chinese power companies that carbon pollute are taxed at a higher rate. So we could say that we will in Nz will act in accord with China and not the US.
The phrase Hansen used was: We are all in the same boat, and if we do nothing, we all go down together.
This is a moral issue that requires leadership of the kind that Winston Churchill demonstrated when his country’s nation was threatened.
One example of local leadership on this issue is the new energy centre that recently opened. Warren Blundell and I went and looked over it on Friday at its public open day. The energy centre is built so it is sustainable and all its energy is generated using renewable sources. If you get the opportunity to look over it, it is well worth a visit. What it does demonstrate is that the technology alternatives to fossil fuels are available. What is lacking is political will.
Now these are religious and moral issues. We are addressing the issue of life and its abundance. Our leaders are asked to tend and care for us like a shepherd cares for the sheep. That involves not just looking after the elite at the top, it requires looking after all the sheep.
Leadership with Jesus then makes great demands on us. Jesus is the one who is the gate to abundant life. If we are to follow in his footsteps, we too need to seek abundant life.
John Howell
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday
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