A Rant About the Job Description of a Shepherd

I usually ramble. Right now, I want to rant. I feel like ranting and raving, and making large gestures in the air with my hands and arms to the effect of “what the...? Are you kidding me? How can you... Ughhhhhh!” Yeah, something like that sounds about right.

As many of you know, I work right now in a children’s home in northern Idaho in a house full of teenage girls with emotional and psychological issues. It’s not the only dorm on the campus, but it is the only one with girls in it. On Sundays, a group from a local church comes in and sets up shop to do services with the boys on campus who want to go, but nothing is made available for the girls. I was told that they used to do something for the girls, but they stopped when the number of girls interested dwindled to one, and the girls can’t join the boys for services (for various, very legitimate reasons). They felt that just one girl interested in services wasn’t worth the effort. Thus my arm gesturing desire to rant and rave. (Yes, the question comes up as to why I don’t just offer services to them, but the simple answer is that I’m already staff, and by policy can’t do anything which could be taken as proselytizing the residents. Cans of worms anyone?)

I began to rant a little when I heard that, and one of my co-workers spoke up in the pastors’ defence. She mentioned that maybe it didn’t make much sense to them to just go and spend time doing a service for one girl when they could go and preach to hundreds. My response was “I’m going to shut up now,” and I then went to go find something constructive to do while I bit my tongue, ranting in my head.

There is so much wrong with this kind of thinking towards pastoring that I don’t even know where to begin to rant. As a priest, and thus as a pastor (which word literally means “shepherd”), my job is to give Jesus to people and be Jesus for people. This is the general job description of a shepherd of the Church. We feed the sheep. We keep the predators away. We tend the sick and injured, and we go after the ones that wander away from the rest of the flock. We put ourselves in harm’s way to ensure the safety of the sheep. That is what we do. We spend long hours on hillsides watching and paying attention. We go sleepless at nights when one is being born. No one sheep is more important or less important than the others and none of them are considered expendible. They don’t belong to us, and each one is priceless to the Owner of the sheep.

We don’t do this because it’s fun. We do this because no shepherd belongs to himself, but we ourselves are also the property of the Owner and we are answerable to Him if one of the sheep is lost or injured because of our negligence. We don’t get the excuse that, “oh, it’s just one sheep. She’ll never be missed there are so many more.” If you think I’m ranting about this kind of attitude, imagine how livid the Owner of the sheep is.

There’s a story in Eusebius’ History of the Church (4th century, A.D.) about the Apostle John. When he was an old man and not in the greatest of health, he brought a teenage boy into the care of a bishop of a certain town. The boy was a recent convert to the faith and was recently baptized. St. John left instructions that the boy was to be taken care of and taught, and then he went away for a while. Some time passed, and the boy left the care of the bishop, ran away and took up with a notorious gang that had a reputation for robbing and beating travelers on the highway. St. John eventually came back to the bishop and asked him for the treasure he had left with him. The bishop looked confused, “what treasure?” He asked him. St John clarified, “the treasure. The young man I left in your care.” The Bishop replied, “Oh, him. He left the faith, ran away and joined a gang.” St. John reprimanded the bishop strongly, and then this frail old man walked up a mountain to the gang’s hideout, walked into the middle of them, and refused to leave until the young man came with him. He spent days praying for him, and pleading with him with tears, until finally the young man relented, repented and returned with him. St. John the Apostle was paying attention when Jesus asked, “what man among you who having a hundred sheep and loses one of them would not leave the ninety-nine to go and find the one?”

Being a pastor has nothing to do with the size of your congregation. It doesn’t matter if the Lord has entrusted to your care one, or a hundred and one. That person is still your responsibility. It doesn’t matter if the sheep isn’t being looked after by any one particular shepherd at the moment. That sheep belongs to the Owner and you are called and charged with looking after His sheep. Any and all of His sheep. “But that one’s not a part of my flock, it’s not my responsibility, it’s that shepherd’s over there. He needs to pay more attention.” If you work for the Owner, and it’s His sheep, it’s your responsibility. Do you really want to have to explain why He lost some sheep when you could have prevented it?

I know there are lost sheep that I will likely have to answer for. I dread the day when I have to give an account of them because of my own negligence or ignorance. I won’t sugar coat it. There are times when I really haven’t known what to do, or been too cowardly to do what I knew I should have. It terrifies me, as well it should. The Scriptures are clear on this also that we who are teachers are held to a higher standard and a stricter judgment. In short, we claim to know better and be able to teach others the Path of Jesus Christ. That knowledge requires action. I know that this knowledge alone terrifies me.

Well, what if they have other responsibilities? What if it’s too demanding on them? We are called first to love one another as He loved us. We are called to crucify ourselves, and put our selves to death. Those of us who have been called to take Holy Orders must be very careful to walk this path and not deviate from it. There is no other responsibility for us towards anyone, including ourselves, greater than crucifying our selves and our own desires so that the life of Jesus Christ may be free flowing through us to all others around us. If your being Jesus for someone has to take a back seat to some other priority, ditch the other priority. It’s not worth it. Remember what He said to us, “whatsoever you have done to the least of these My brethren, you have also done to Me.” If you’re so distracted by your other “priorities” you can’t see Jesus in the other person, then the distractions need to be done away with. They simply aren’t worth treating our God and Savior with contempt because He’s just one lone girl who might be interested in services on Sunday.