“I
am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for
the sheep. He who is a hireling,
and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming,
and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
He flees because he is a hireling and is not concerned about the sheep.”
John
10:11-12
As
we read this tender allegory, the Good Shepherd passes before our eyes, a
gracious, well-loved reassuring figure. All about Him there is an atmosphere
that induces confidence. A sense of security pervades the story. The bond
between Him and His flock is high and perfect. He knows their names. They know
His voice; they recognize its tones; they cannot be deceived. And whether they
are biding in the fold or being put forth to pasture, it is enough for them to
know that He is near.
The
pastoral figure speaks to us not only of personal satisfaction, but of personal
responsibility. We all have partly in our keeping some of the fair and precious
things in other souls. We are called to be humble, lowly servants of the Good
Shepherd. And surely Jesus Himself meant that we should find in this great
allegory that which should teach us not only where to place our faith, but also
how to do our work. Surely He meant us to find that ideal of sympathy and
personal devotion, of vigilance, courage, and sacrifice, in the power of which
alone we can hope to serve our needy brethren.
The
picture of the hireling shepherd is introduced just when the allegory has
reached its highest point of thought and uttered its noblest message: ‘The Good Shepherd lays down His life for
the sheep.’ That is the last heroism of faithfulness, the final seal of
sacrifice; the unutterable, convincing tragedy of love. Suddenly our gaze is turned
to another scene. We are still among the sheepfolds. Still a shepherd is
keeping watch. And lo! a gaunt and hungry wolf leaps into the flock before
their shepherd’s eyes. And in a moment he drops his heavy staff, wraps his long
outer garment about his waist, and flees for his life. And the wolf has its
cruel will of the deserted sheep. Surely Jesus sets this shameful picture of
the coward shepherd fleeing like the wind and the snarl of the wolf in his ears
just where He did set it—against a fair background of courage, love, and
sacrifice—to warn us against unfaithfulness in life’s high task, and to teach
us what manner of men we must be if we are to do that task as it should be
done.
‘The hireling flees because he is a
hireling.’ The hireling might have said that it was hardly fair to judge
him by one weak moment. He had looked after the flock fairly well; he had
counted them morning and evening, led them to pasturage, and kept them from
straying. Was this all to be forgotten in one flight from duty? The wolf came
so suddenly. He had no time to think. In justice to this shamed man, in justice
to the pure and dreadful truth, how much is there in this plea? Very little
when you come to look into things. It is in the surprises of life that we reap
the reward of character. Half the value of character building would be swept
away if it were not a fact that a man is gloriously or shamefully himself in
the moment when he must act without deliberation. We talk about a man rising to
an occasion, but in the last deep truth of things that is a shallow and
misleading phrase. No man ever rose to an occasion. If he meets the great
occasion and deals with it as it should be dealt with, it is because he is
living all the while on the level of that occasion.
But
let us turn from the question of the vital place that character holds in all
service to the question of what kind of a character is essential to the best
service. Love is at once the germ and the spirit of it. The hireling is
contrasted with the Good Shepherd in that the bond between the hireling and his
work was a bond of selfishness and not a bond of love. The hireling works
simply for wages. He is the picture for all time of the utter incompetence of
selfishness to perform the great task of life….the hireling—the man with the
inadequate motive—fails his trust and his Master, and flees for his life, not
knowing that in that flight every step is taking him farther away from the few
things worth saving—the price of his conscience, the cleanness of his soul, the
power to look in the face of the Great Shepherd.
We
have, each of us, a place in the service of the Good Shepherd—in the folds
where there are so many hungry mouths to feed, so many weak souls to protect,
and out in the wilderness of sorrow and sin where so many foolish and weary
ones are straying. Most of us have in our partial keeping the peace and
happiness and spiritual safety of a little circle we meet at hearth and board.
Each of us has a place and trust in the great pastorate of life. How shall we
fill it: How not fail in it? How shall we glorify its drudgeries and meet its
great occasions? Whence the courage and good cheer, the patience, tenderness,
and hopefulness for all these things?
The
answer to these questions is not far to seek. It is here. ‘I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for His
sheep.’ The symbol of our service may be the Shepherd’s crook, but the
secret of our service is the Savior’s Cross. It is only by the grace of an
ever-deepening communion with the eternal love of God made manifest in Christ
that the hireling spirit in its most subtle forms and deep disguises can be
tracked down in the inmost recesses of our nature and driven forth from the
smallest detail of our service…no man may be sure that he will not some day
prove himself a hireling spirit unless for him the cup of life has become the
cup of a sacrament, even, to use the great words of Ignatius, ‘the blood of
Christ which is immortal love.
JAMES HASTINGS
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