‘Do you love me?’Â
‘Lord, you know that I love you.’
‘Feed my sheep.’
There is something wonderfully serendipitous about the proclamation of this particular gospel inside the cathedral, while outside the west front is a pen with the cutest group of Lincoln Longwool sheep and lambs! If anyone is so moved by today’s gospel and sermon that they want to respond immediately and literally to Jesus’ command to ‘Feed my sheep’, then don’t miss the opportunity to do so as you leave this morning; but please ask their owners first!
Back to John’s Gospel, there is something disarming — almost painfully tender — about the post-resurrection scene we’ve just heard.  On a shoreline of charcoal and silence, Jesus turns to Simon Peter, not with accusation, but with love.  Not ‘Why did you deny me?’ but ‘Do you love me?’
Three times, a question. Three times, a calling: Feed my lambs.  Tend my sheep.  Feed my sheep. For me this dialogue provides an timely insight into the nature of leadership, both within and outside the church. Issues about the nature of leadership which, in the past fortnight, have been brought into sharp focus both by the death of Pope Francis, one of Simon Peter’s successors, and by the local elections here in the UK. Issues that have relevance not just for those called or elected to positions of leadership, but for all of us.
The elections that have just taken encourage us to pause and reflect on the nature of public service in 21st century Britain. You don’t need me to tell you that our political landscape is often a very noisy place, a noisy place in which much is said and little is heard. It’s a space that’s crowded with voices promising this and, more often, denouncing that.
And yet from the Christian perspective, at the heart of leadership, whether pastoral or political, lies a quieter, deeper vocation: to feed, to tend, to care.  It’s a call not to dominate but to serve.
This is leadership defined not by control, or influence, or even charisma. It is leadership born of love. Service rooted not in popularity, but in presence.
There are many strands to the legacy of Pope Francis. One of them is that he challenged the Church and the world to think again about what it means to be a leader.  His model of leadership was one of downward mobility: washing feet, lifting the poor, simplifying the papacy.  And in that, he echoed the Good Shepherd himself. For on the beach beside the fire, Jesus turns not to the most competent of his followers, but to the most broken, and entrusts him with the care of his flock: ‘Feed my sheep’.
Pope Francis embodied that call. Not perfectly – no leader does – but with courage and faithfulness and, not least, with mercy. In his teaching he returned again and again to the image of the shepherd who smells of the sheep.   His papacy was marked not by grandiosity, but by proximity – to the poor, to the wounded, to those on the margins. He showed the world that, for those who seek to follow Christ, leadership is not about the power that is held, but the burdens that are carried; not about defending status, but sharing life to enable the flourishing of all human beings.
‘Feed my sheep’, Jesus says to Peter. It’s hard not to have been moved and challenged by the various ways in which Pope Francis lived out that call. Year after year, visiting prisoners on Maundy Thursday and washing their feet; establishing domestic and medical facilities for the homeless around St Peter’s Square; bringing Syrian Muslim refugee families back to live in Rome after his visit to Lesbos. These were not the actions of a woke Pope, but one who seriously, compassionately and, above all, lovingly sought to follow the example of the Good Shepherd. Speaking of and serving prisoners, the homeless and migrants not as statistics but as human beings made in the image and likeness of God; people whom we and all who want to follow Jesus are also called to love.
Simon, son of John, do you love me? Then, feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.
These words of Jesus are not addressed to leaders, but to all of us. For the Christian test of leadership is never how high we climb, but how deeply we love.  ‘Do you love me?’ Jesus asks.  Not, ‘Have you succeeded?’  Not, ‘Are you respected?’  But ‘Do you love me?’  And if you do, show it.  Not in sentiment, but in action: feed, tend, serve.
Peter’s journey can help us here as we try to work out what this might mean for each of us.  Peter, the one who failed, who faltered, is the one restored and recommissioned.  In Christ’s merciful eyes, leadership and discipleship are not characterised by perfection, but faithfulness; not strength, but surrender.  There is therefore hope for all of us who feel inadequate to the task we face.  For the love to which we are called is not a feeling or an emotion, but a way of life in the company of the risen Christ and one another — a way of life that encourages us to love sacrificially, thereby making room for God and neighbour at the centre of our lives.
As we give thanks for the sacrificial ministry of Pope Francis, we pray for all those who have been elected to serve in public office, in this city and county, and across the country. Francis’ papacy is a reminder to them and to us that authentic leadership and authentic discipleship must always be pastoral; they must be, first and foremost, about the sheep; not just the cute, cuddly ones, like the Lincoln Longwools, but all of them.
The future of the Church, and of any society that aspires to be just, requires leaders and disciples who are not afraid to kneel and wash feet, who dare to speak of peace in a noisy world, who smell of their sheep and, hardest of all, who love them.
At this Eucharist, before we consider how we might feed others as the concrete outworking of our love for Christ, the Good Shepherd first invites us to his table, so that he might feed us. Accepting this invitation is an essential first step in our response to Christ’s question, ‘Do you love me?’. For if we have not allowed Christ to feed us, how can we hope to respond to his command to feed others?
This morning, then, we honour the memory of Pope Francis and pray for those charged with electing his successor, that they too may be inspired by the example of the Good Shepherd.  We pray for those who serve our communities as elected representatives, that their leadership may reflect Francis’ pastoral ministry, focussed on the sheep and especially those on the margins of the flock. And we pray too for ourselves, that all of us may be challenged and inspired to remember that at the heart of the Christian life is a response to bread shared, brokenness loved into wholeness, and a simple question: Do you love me?
Christ knows what is in our hearts. Â So let us feed his sheep.