+Z’ev

Commemoration of the Martyr William Laud

Today’s assigned readings:
Jeremiah 23:1-8, Colossians 2:8-23, John 10:7-17

Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.
Jeremiah 23:2-4

It is my sense that this passage, in order to be fully understood, must be seen in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd person: Myself as Shepherd, You as Shepherd, Them as Shepherds. Paul makes us responsible for each other, each the other’s faith, each for the other’;other’s participation and salvation in the Body of Christ. Thus each of us are shepherds for the other, no matter what Jeremiah might have intended or what other ways it can be read.

As a Bible Teacher, a blogger and as a preacher, I have to be accountable for the ways in which I might cause to stumble those who hear or read my words. I pray my words would not lead someone astray or scatter the flock… But I’ve experienced that ability writing from both conservative and liberal sides of the aisle. It is, mostly, that double experience that makes me certain both sides are needed, that both sides are equally Christian (or that neither side is). And so that brings me to shepherds in the second person.

My recent experience of spiritual abuse as led me to wonder how one can speak out without causing scandal. One priest suggested I write the bishop of my former pastor, but I can’t figure out how to do that without getting caught in the middle again. You - the second person - shepherd… (Not “you” as in my readers) can do things that would cause the sheep to scatter.

I see the same sort of thing in the current Roman Catholic issue with paedophilia: it is important to find and stop the perpetrators. But how can you do that in a way that does not cause scandal among the faithful, among other Christians and before the eyes of the world?

In the third person - them - shepherds are even harder to pin down. Among the possible traditional readings, the readers of the Hebrew Scriptures might understand “shepherds” to indicate those whole rule the countries where Jews sojourn during their long Diaspora. And so this prophecy might be seen as directed against the (mostly Christian) nations and peoples who persecuted the Jews over the last 2,000 years. Christians might be very wise to take that upon themselves. We have traditionally seen Jews among us as “Them” and “the Other” rather than as our Guests or, following Jeremiah, the Lord’s Sheep for whose care we are responsible.

Today’s commemoration of William Laud ties this all together, I think: for the religious debates which led to his martyrdom at the hands of Protestant extremists and iconoclasts were also political debates in his day. But his every turn seemed to be wrong for politics and extremism had besieged the church then - as now. We are no better off today: At the Iowa Caucuses, as I blogged last week, Pastor Huckabee’s cheerleader, Rebecca Sweethood, lets you know what she, at least, thinks of you in this prayer for the Pastor:

We pray that you would lift Mike Huckabee up, Lord… Lord we pray that he would not be ashamed to be known as a pastor. And that is exactly what the leader of a Nation should be, Lord, one who is is a shepherd over sheep, God…

When I pointed out that we’re electing a president, not a pastor one of my readers took me to task for reasons unclear: he seems to imagine that because I don’t want my political leader to be a religious authority I am, therefore, rejecting all religious authority at all.

Another way to look at this is the political siege caused by issues of Human Sexuality. It’s OK for African Clergy to have more than one wife (provided they were married before they converted). This is defended as a cultural position and not one of morality. But Americans are accused of abandoning the faith because they elected a openly Gay man. Or, conversely, the scandal caused by that election did, in fact, shatter an otherwise shaky communion.

As people of faith, how do we shepherd - ourselves, our loved ones and our guests? And how do we shepherd in such a way as not to scatter the flock?

Much love,

Huw