Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” John 21: 16
A couple of Sundays
ago I was sitting in church trying in vain to prepare myself to worship and I just
couldn’t get beyond my disgruntled parishioner’s attitude; a couple of events
were dominating my mind with disapproval and concern. I prayed for the Lord to
show me what to do about it, how to behave, and dozens of other how questions. The
immediacy of the reply was striking, like a bucket of cold water on my back.
The reply itself was no less shocking in the conviction it brought to me. There
was no how in the answer, nothing to tell me how to behave about my concerns,
and not really any mention of the events at all, only a command, “Tend my
flock.”
This took me straight
away to John 21: 15 – 19 where Jesus reveals Himself after the resurrection to
Peter and the other disciples who had gone fishing. Jesus then confronts Peter’s
betrayal by questioning Peter’s love for Jesus. To each of Peter’s three replies
that he loved Jesus, Jesus replied in return “Feed my sheep”, “Take care of my
sheep”, and again, “Feed my sheep”. Have I betrayed Christ, denied Him, any
less than Peter when I put my servant’s call to the side? No, and unfortunately
far more than the three times Peter made his denials. Still nothing concrete about
how this would take place or what shape it might form.
Fine; now what? It used to be somewhat simple to identify
myself as a shepherd when I was consistently with students as a Sunday school
teacher, Jr. High/Sr. High Advisor, mission trip leader, session member, and
committee chairperson. I’ve drifted and fought the tides since those “job
titles” ended and, quite frankly, used the separation as an excuse to give up
or grouse about things. The task at hand is to identify His sheep that I need
to take care of; not an easy task and not one that likely will take any
concrete shape in the near future. As an elder in the church it is still incumbent
on me to find the flock, tend the flock, and see them safe.
John tells us of Jesus speaking on the attributes of the
Good Shepherd in chapter 10 of his Gospel; verse 14 “I am the good shepherd; I
know my sheep and my sheep know me-“. The more we strive to be good shepherds
the more we will identify the sheep we are to care for and the more they will
identify with us. We cannot pick and choose the members of our flock, we cannot
pick and choose whom we will serve and feed. Even when segments of the flock
might not be cool, hip, or in the center of what our personal vision is for the
flock, we must seek the Father’s wisdom to meet their needs even when it might
require efforts that take us away from the limelight or if it takes resources
we would personally rather see going elsewhere.
Jesus defined it like this in John 10: 11 when He said “I am
the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” It is
probably pretty plain to anyone called to any sort of shepherd’s ministry that
this doesn’t only mean literally dying for the sheep, but, and sometimes more
difficultly so, setting aside the things we’d rather be doing to take care of
the sheep, all of them.
As for me, seeing the way I shepherd change and identifying
those I need to tend, I think that I’ll start by looking for ways to
effectively pray and intercede for them, find creative ways to make sure they
are fed, and seek for ways to make sure they are healthy and looking to the Father.
I think I’ll start with this group:
V
Family - wife, kids, sisters, parents, grandkids…extended
family
V
Alumni, some who have grandchildren of their own
now, others who haven’t yet reached High School, and a whole bunch in between
V
Fellow workers who’ve served well, some I see
now and some I miss very much
That’s probably a big enough group to work with now. They
should start seeing me pop up from time to time to encourage them or just check
in. I should be more consistent with this communication tool and I am going to
see how Tangent can be revitalized in some creative way to keep folks
connected. God help me.
