It’ll be great to see the end of this month what with Holy Week, Easter, Easter Vestry, Confirmation, and even a couple of weddings thrown in, it has been all go.

There was a respite after Easter Day and I even managed to do some reading. I’ve just finished Adam Harbinson’s book, ‘Savage Shepherds’. What a title for a book. It’s on our bookstall and it is reviewed in our present Parish News. It was a fairly harrowing book and, yes, shocking and yet, perhaps because I’ve been in this game so long now, it wasn’t surprising, if that makes sense.

Adam Harbinson has actually preached in this Church and we have had his books on sale before. It’s a book about spiritual abuse; when someone has power over someone else and uses that power to hurt! It’s about control, coercion, manipulation, words that you don’t expect to be associated with ‘Church’. He went through bankruptcy, breakdown and bereavement and yet through it all he found true peace and acceptance, and the meaning of forgiveness, as he encountered God’s reckless love and extravagant grace. That, in itself is a true testimony to his faith. Adam is not a member, and perhaps never will be a member, of a mainstream church. I could perhaps use that to highlight a problem, but I am going to go on a different tack altogether. Can I just say, at this point, that his book has on the front cover a shepherd’s staff made of barbed wire!

Today’s Gospel reading is all about Peter; the accounts of the miraculous catch of fish, and when Jesus ‘reinstates’ him. Peter, the leader of the twelve and part of the ‘inner circle’. St. Peter’s in Rome still commemorates the apostle’s connection with the city and the much-disputed tradition that Christ appointed him the leader of the Church when he said, “on this rock I will build my church”. Was he the first Bishop of Rome?

Having just read that book about shepherds, then reading John 21 and “feed my sheep”; our own Bishop Harold coming next Sunday for Confirmation, and then our good friend of the parish Alan Abernethy being appointed Bishop of Connor last Tuesday, Bishop’s and their various roles, seem to be coming at me from all sorts of angles! We are thrilled with Alan’s appointment and from this pulpit and from this Parish we wish Alan and his family our sincerest best wishes and prayerful support. I really believe it is wonderful news for the whole Church of Ireland.

Alan was good enough to phone me last Tuesday before the news officially broke and he said that he was ‘scared witless’ which is great! When you are elevated to a position like that in the Church, far from relishing in power and the kind of control that Adam Harbinson talks about, it is, and should be, a hugely humbling experience.

The greatest ideal that we have of a Bishop is that of the great Shepherd, the Chief Pastor, or, as we clergy call him, our father in God.

That’s why bishops carry around those funny sticks; it’s a Bishop’s Crook or Crosier, a shepherd’s staff, a symbol of pastoral office, the shepherd of the people. A shepherd of ancient or modern Israel would carry a crook to rescue his sheep. In the Book of Acts, there is an express command that the elders of the Church at Ephesus should be ‘shepherds of the church of God’. (Acts 20:28)

The greatest picture we have of the relationship between the shepherd and his sheep is the one given in John 10.

If you’re asking me I believe the core role of a clergyman, be he (or she) a deacon, priest or bishop, is not of one who devises plans and strategies and goals and aims, important as they all are, but, surely the greatest role is that of a pastor. Isn’t that what it is really all about, or have I missed something?

Bishops need vision and energy, by the very nature of the job. But there’s no point in being a pioneer, an ‘archegos’ as the New Testament talks about, a person who ‘leads the way’ if you’re not going to bring your people with you.

In the near east (and you know this well) the shepherd does not go behind and drive the sheep as we would do here, the shepherd walks ahead, and the sheep follow. Why would the sheep follow the shepherd? Because the sheep know his voice. Why do they know his voice? Because the Shepherd cares for his sheep. The sheep know his voice and they follow him because they know their shepherd cares for them.

I do not believe that being a bishop with vision and energy and leadership, excludes you from being a bishop that cares. It is not an ‘either/or’ situation; it is the nature of the calling to be a bishop. You may think I am biased, but I am sure that Alan Abernethy understands this perfectly well.

Since I started with Adam Harbinson, I’ll finish with him. His experience of ‘shepherding’ was quite terrible, but not unknown. Listen to this: ‘for all the rhetoric about commitment, covenant relationships and caring for the flock, there seemed to be a general lack of awareness that when a person most needs love and company and friendship...that’s often the time when they’re least likely to ask for help. Or perhaps as in Jesus’ parable of the ninety-nine sheep, the little lost lamb may be trapped in a bush and can’t move.’

The very purpose of the shepherd’s crook is to rescue the little lost lamb. To leave the ninety-nine and go after the one that is lost shows the reckless love and extravagant grace of God. Isn’t that exactly what we are all called to do, not least a bishop in the Church of God?