Sigh… Bah.
I dread writing for this Sunday, odd as it sounds. I’m just a bit put off by having to make a credible contemporary application of the analogy of the Good Shepherd. Not the image of sheep and a shepherd as such – it’s an ancient, lovely, rich image, rooted in the earthy realities of the rural life of our ancestors in faith. The problem is the way it spilled over into an ideology of leadership in the churches.
At first glance the analogy may sound quaint and cute. But it’s developed into, first, the extension of the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd to contemporary church leaders, and secondly, what that may be saying to the laity about their human dignity.
The shepherds are human of course, and as such, intelligent, powerful and tasked with guiding and protecting the sheep, who are “dumb animals” as it was once said, incapable of anything more than passively trotting along after their shepherd. This interpretation could not be a more explicit warrant for hard-edge clericalism.
After many years of working across ecumenical boundaries I can reassure Roman Catholics that they have no exclusive claim to clericalism, or the mentality of entitlement to control and domination of some of the ordained. While you can find overbearing clergy in any denomination, you can also, regrettably, find laity who exhibit a high degree of dependency on their leaders to give them direction and a stable point of reference. I’ve heard seminary students use this as an excuse:
“Well the people look up to us. They want us to have all the answers. They do.”
Now on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, there’s an interesting flip in the First Reading. The Roman Missal uses the passage in Acts 2 in which Peter is castigating the Jewish religious leaders and calling them to believe in the risen Christ. In the Revised Common Lectionary, the Acts 2 excerpt describes the ideal of the early Christian community. Back on the Second Sunday of Easter the two were switched out: the RC’s got the community description and the Protestants and Anglicans got Peter’s speech. I can’t entirely explain this. The criteria for the selection of the Lectionary readings can be a mystery.
But we’re going with the RCL today because coupling this with John 10:1-10 will give us an entry to deal with the nature of leadership in a community of mutuality.
Acts was composed around the year 85 C.E./A.D. Its description of how the earliest Christian community lived is what we might call today “aspirational” – that is, highly idealized. Other passages in Acts describe struggles and dissensions within the community, but this picture seems to be what they were aiming for.
Acts 2 describes four components. The “teaching of the apostles” refers to early Christians’ understanding of what Christ’s death and resurrection meant. The theology, for them as for us, is a work in progress. The second aspect has to do with the practice of communal sharing of goods among members of the community. This does not mean that every Christian was required to divest him – or herself of all holdings. Lydia, for example, put her home at the disposal of the faith community as a place to gather.
The third aspect concerned their life of shared prayer, both at the customary hours of the day and at synagogue, until they were expelled. And fourthly, they shared meals together. At this early stage the expression klasis tou artou, the breaking of the bread (doesn’t the Greek word klasis sound like you’re breaking something?) indicates that their meals carried a certain sacred meaning. While we can see this as a sort of early Eucharist, it took place in the context of a full meal, perhaps an agape meal. Their numbers grew.
What would leadership look like in such an admittedly idealized community? It might look a good deal like a discipleship of equals, in Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza’s classic phrase. If a goodly number of those early Christians had had first-hand experience of the risen Christ, and knew that this had happened for real, the energy and commitment generated by this knowledge could empower an entire community. They really did experience the Holy Spirit empowering healing for the sick, and spreading a vision of new life and unshakeable hope for all.
Clericalism. Baaaaa.
© Susan K. Roll
*Edited from the Reflection of April 30, 2023.
Susan Roll retired from the Faculty of Theology at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, in 2018, where she served as Director of the Sophia Research Centre. Her research and publications are centred in the fields of liturgy, sacraments, and feminist theology. She holds a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, and has been involved with international academic societies in liturgy and theology, as well as university chaplaincy, Indigenous ministry and church reform projects.
