Pastor colleagues, lately I’m often thinking about God’s words to the prophet Ezekiel…
“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed those who are ill or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost.” (Ezekiel 34:2-4)
[FYI for others: “shepherds” here was an analogy for religious leaders.]
Clearly, God doesn’t think these leaders shepherded well. But you’d often expect a bad shepherd to struggle through life (i.e. their poor shepherding skills would harm the sheep and thereby harm the shepherd’s standard of living). Yet these leaders enjoy many metaphorical benefits of shepherding (e.g. eating curds from sheep milk, wearing sheep wool, and even eating meat from slaughtered sheep). So what’s going on here? It seems these shepherds have surrounded themselves with stable, healthy sheep free from any problems that would harm the shepherds’ lifestyle. It’s as though they have intentionally sought out unusually healthy flocks to shepherd, disregarded the unhealthy sheep that once were part of their flock, or a little of both.
While the Bible clearly teaches the worker is worth his or her wages, these shepherds’ wages far exceed their actual work. Because, of course, how hard is it to shepherd stable, healthy sheep who offer you much but need almost nothing in return? Were these shepherds truly caring for others when there’s such a clear personal gain in exchange?
Anyone who cares for livestock could tell you a sickly, injured, or distressed animal risks producing little financial return. ‘Non-essential’ cellular reproduction halts or decreases under stress. So a sick sheep might stop producing the best wool. A distressed mother’s milk supply could dry up. The meat of a sickly slaughtered animal often is inedible.
This means God calls his ‘shepherds’ here to care for ‘sheep’ who aren’t producing a material return on investment.
These shepherds aren’t administering true care. They’ve invested all their time in sheep who barely need them while being derelict in duty to the sheep who desperately *do* need them…the sick, hurting, and lost.
God is angry they haven’t strengthened the weak, healed the ill, bandaged the injured, or brought back the strays.
But analogies comparing religious leaders and the people they serve to shepherds and sheep quickly break down don’t they? After all, a human being is worth far more than a piece of livestock!
Exactly.
If a good shepherd would take care of sick, hurting, and lost sheep, how much more should a religious leader take care of *people* in similar situations??
Pastor colleagues and fellow ministry leaders,
What kind of shepherd are you… am I?
Life’s expenses constantly tempt us to chase funds in ways harmful to those we’ve truly been called to serve. When fatigued with ministry, our proverbial bed among the 99 calls to us at night while that “one” wanders alone in the dark. We are tempted to avoid the sin-sick, who may need tremendous investment into their rehabilitation, that we may spend another day playing our harp in fields among the healthy. Some “flocks” look (and truly ARE) healthier than others. But who will bravely seek out and persevere with the sickly and hurting group, attacked both from within and without? Will they remain “like sheep without a shepherd?” Out among the lonely desert, will they continue dying of thirst and drinking from polluted puddles because they have no shepherd willing to endure the heat and offer the Living Water of Christ? Will we seek them out as Christ sought us?
And to my fellow Christians NOT called to some sort of vocational or leadership ministry position..
We ALL have shepherding opportunities in our lives. And we all occasionally need the type of care a loving shepherd would provide.
Christ is our Example.
May we be *good* shepherds as we follow the Good Shepherd.
