Good Shepherd and Power

4 Easter b  April 26, 2015

Acts 4:5-12  Psalm 23 
1 John 3:1-8     John 10:11-16
 

The German philosopher Nietzsche is credited with developing the notion of the will to power to account for the deep motivation for life within human beings.  It was perhaps in part a response to the theory of Darwin  with a "power" factor present in those fit ones who end up adapting to survive and express an ability to dominate their environments enough for the maintenance of their lives.

  Will to power may have been one of philosophical notions which inspired the early pioneers of psychology.  Psychology turned the microscope of science around and made the human interior life the object of scientific study; the interior life of power known as motivational forces.  Psychology involved looking at the motivations for human behaviors in a systematic way.  Religion had been doing this for years but psychology has attempted to do this without the "God-factor."

  What motivates human life and human behavior?  Does the will to power provide the engine that accounts for all human actions?  Is the will to power expressed in the pleasure principle and the knowledge principle?

  Whatever we call life force or power, the human adventure involves the shaping of the use of the force and power of life.  Our human vocabulary is full of power words:  Oppression, repression, suppression, control, authority and so on.

  The human vocation is in some way about sublimating and transformation of power through human action, word and thought but not just doing it for individual personal dominance but doing it for the good of the community.

  The salvation history of the Bible is about being saved by, with, and from the expressions of power.  The history of the revelation of God is a history of a model of power to provide the human community with wisdom for the behaviors which we define as being for the well-being of the community and the world.

  The history of knowing God as the pure power of creativity and freedom is the beginning of the story of salvation.  And if God is the pure power of creativity and freedom, what kinds of relationship can we project upon our relationship with God?  One of the most famous projections of a relationship with God is found in the 23rd Psalm, the famous confession of a poet who wrote, "The Lord is my Shepherd."  Einstein said the most important question in life had to do with whether the universe was a friendly place.  The Psalmist of Psalm 23 believed that God as Ultimate Personal Being was like a good shepherd.  If there is a large gap between the life of a sheep and a shepherd, there is also a great gap between the greatness of God as witnessed by the Plenitude of this universe and our smallness within the context of Plenitude.  It is wonderful if within our human experience we can arrive at a faith relationship with God as a shepherd who provides for us in manifold ways:  for our physical needs of food, drink, clothing and shelter.  For our leisure and needs of peace and calm and safety, especially a sense of protection from those who have the power to exploit us.  For our being anointed with oil of health, for being provided a table of fellowship, and for a sense of permanent residence in God's dwelling place.  We like the twenty third Psalm because we believe it is healthy for our lives to believe that ultimate Being and Plenitude is well-disposed towards us.

  The Twenty Third Psalm expresses what we need to believe about our relationship to the Great Plenitude.  We need to project a great and caring personal response to us.

  In the person of Jesus Christ, the great Plenitude of a Caring God receives a earthly personality within an actual human situation and so the notion of a loving and caring God is brought more closely to us.

  Today is  Good Shepherd Sunday.  We see that the Gospel writer further personified the notion of "The Lord is my Shepherd, " into Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

  Good Shepherd Sunday is an appropriate occasion for us to assess our relationship to power.  If God is pure Power, Creative Power, Creative Freedom who has shared a degree of this power within all of the creative order, it is a most important task in life to learn how to be related to the articulation and expression of power in our lives.

  The Gospel of the Good Shepherd presents us with various notions of power: vulnerable powerless sheep, mercenary but self-serving power, exploitation.  And finally the positive expressions of power are found in sacrifice and the power of care.

   The metaphor of the sheep is used to highlight the various conditions of human vulnerability.  Sheep are often regarded to creatures which need care because of their peer driven habits of ignorance.  Sheep will follow each other without knowing impending danger.  Human life is conditioned by what we don't yet know.  Human life often is just about going along with the crowd that we are with at any given time.  We can be led into harmful situation because of our vulnerable ignorance.

  Since we are not all-knowing persons who are omni-competent to every situation, we know that we often need care and expertise beyond our particular pay grade.  Life situations often leave us in need of wise care.  So we can identify with the metaphor of the sheep.

  We also know that we can be abandoned by people who do not truly care for us.  Hired-hand shepherds do not own the sheep and so they will not defend the sheep with their lives. We do not belong to lots of people and so we can be exploited and abandoned by people in life.  Mercenaries will abandoned the battle when real trouble arises because it’s not their country they are fighting for.  We know that power is bought and sold in this life; people are paid to be in control and it is just their job but they do their jobs without a calling of belonging to people and having people belong to them.  The good shepherd stands in contrast to those who only have a job but not a calling.  The good shepherd stands in the contrast to the exploiting wolves and foxes who would prey upon the ignorance and vulnerability of the weak. 

  One expression of power is almost the anti-thesis of the will to power; it is the expression of sacrifice.  Sacrifice is the laying down of one's life for others because those people are valued and cared for.  Good human community requires the anti-power of sacrifice.  Sacrifice is the power of self control when one learns that all of one's life force cannot just be used for the singular and personal maintenance of the trinity of Me, Myself and I.  So one has to have the power to die to one's selfish self and check one's ego at the door in order to belong to family and community and in order allow the community truly to be organized to care for those who cannot care for themselves.  The community exists because of the balance of power relationships between those who need care and those who can give care.  The great failure in our world today is that wealthy and powerful have begun to act as though the needy people of the world exist mainly for the well-being and the growth in wealth of those who already have too much.  This imbalanced reciprocity is headed for disaster.  We desperately need enlightened leaders of government and economy to restore the humane value of balanced reciprocity between those with wealth and power and those who are poor and weak.  This is what the model of power of the Good Shepherd teaches us.

  Finally, the Good Shepherd is the presence of God's Power in our midst totally given over to care to those with much less power.  The Great God of Power exhibits within Jesus Christ as the Good Shepherd the calling that each of us should have to the power in our lives.  If we have power, wealth and knowledge, we should make it available to help those who do not have power, wealth and knowledge.  Jesus is the good shepherd because each of us is called to be a good shepherd too.  We are called to be rightly related to the moral prerogatives of power for the benefit of the common good.  The common good is also our own personal good, because we know both sides of power.  We came into this world as powerless infants needing the sacrificial caring power of others.  We are often in situations of needing the power of care to be shown to us.  But when we have power, wealth and knowledge, we also need to be those who reciprocate toward the common good of all.

  The Good Shepherd philosophy and model teaches us that the common good and the personal good are one and the same when we practice this perfectly balanced reciprocity of giving and receiving of care.  And that is the Gospel for us today.  Let us strive for this perfect balanced reciprocity of giving and receiving of care and let us fulfill the vision of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.  Amen.