Pretending To Be Shepherds

 

Shepherds in Israel

Some of you may remember the “Shepherding Movement” of the 70s and 80s and the abusive systems of control, micro-management and the egregious “Lording over one another” of which Jesus had clearly stated it would not be this way with us: So, Jesus got them together to settle things down. He said, “You’ve observed how godless rulers throw their weight around, how quickly a little power goes to their heads. It’s not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage.” (Matt.20:25-28 MSG)

The system may have changed in name, but not in nature. Fortunately, the true Gospel of Grace and the finished work of Christ Jesus on the cross is becoming more widely known. But not widely enough, if my experience in the UK is anything to go by. Genuine koinonia communities, actively kenotic in Jesus-orientated, other-centred, love-motivated, life-giving, mutually uplifting corporate church are extremely hard to find. Traditional Evangelical Fundamentalist, post-Pentecostal, post-Charismatic groups can be found everywhere, including inside mainline Protestant denominations of every stripe – even Anglican! Para-church cells operate alongside the larger assemblies with leaders (often narcissistic, Alpha types, either male or – rarely - female) who exercise “shepherding” techniques disguised in modern, corporate-speak. Some even boast of themselves as Apostles!

It is not often that the daily reading in my Bible-in-a-Year coincides with where I am in my equally daily reading/praying of the Psalms. Today threw up some real humdingers! Psalm 53:2-4 (MSG):

God sticks his head out of heaven.
    He looks around.
He’s looking for someone not stupid—
    one man, even, God-expectant,
    just one God-ready woman.

He comes up empty. A string
    of zeros. Useless, unshepherded
Sheep, taking turns pretending
    to be Shepherd.
The ninety and nine
    follow the one.

Don’t they know anything,
    all these predators?

 

This is precisely where we are, Wayfarers, for the most part!

I attend a very traditional (some would say “dead”!) C of E church in a tiny, out-of-the-way, seaside town. To add a little variety, I have been encouraged to spend some time with another Anglican church, but one with an Evangelical/Charismatic style and operation. I find them complimentary and not necessarily mutually exclusive. However, some of the EC group have also organised a monthly, parachurch gathering further along the coast, that draws in believers from a number of local churches of various denominations. The tone is “prophetic Pentecostal”, complete with urges to “break through”, “overcome” and an overwhelming sense of being “brought to the kingdom for such a time as this”. But also some homophobic, trans-phobic, “Bible-based” end-timers; these are the ones that upset and unsettle me. Not least of all for their presumption to prophesy.

Which brings me to the other reading in the BIAY: Jeremiah 23: 1-4 (NRSV)

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. 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.

So much for the “Shepherding Movement” and its disguised offspring of today. (Jesus described them as “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” if I recall.) The deconstruction of ‘faith’,  along with so-called “orthodox” doctrine and practice have scattered millions of believers out and away from churches. 

People are running from Religion.

This is a Good Thing!

Fortunately, there are a growing number who know and live out Peter's exhortation (1 Peter 5:1-4 NLT):

And now, a word to you who are elders in the churches. I, too, am an elder and a witness to the sufferings of Christ. And I, too, will share in his glory when he is revealed to the whole world. As a fellow elder, I appeal to you: Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God. Don’t lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example. And when the Great Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never-ending glory and honour.

Those with a genuine heart for Jesus, with even the mustard-seediest of faith, are finding their way to safety, especially in congregations meeting within liturgical and eucharistic forms of worship, but often outside of traditional structures, too. We are seeing an Emerging Church, free-forming and, in some places, notably the USA and Australia, organically springing up and loosely based on the genuinely Apostolic pattern of the very first churches.

But there is more. Jeremiah 23:5 says: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.  In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: 'THE LORD IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.'

“He” of course, is Jesus, of whom Paul wrote: For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2. Cor.5:21 NRSV)

We are in a kind of Great Awakening (or Great Emergence, as Phyllis Tickle wrote) that we are seeing, especially in the USA, Canada, South Africa and Australia. In the UK, however, Emerging communities are rare, few and far between. If you are among one such (I know of a handful, all far from where I live), rejoice (and let me know)! A Trinitarian, Christocentric Gospel (the only true gospel) is being preached and practiced once again by a scattered remnant. Unfortunately, most of those preaching, teaching and living the Truth are being slandered as heretics.  Nevertheless, Church is changing, along with the world around her. The Kingdom of God is among us!

Of the so-called prophets and their prophecies, Jeremiah 23 has much to say. (Read Jeremiah 23:9-15 now, if you can bear to.) Verses 16 & 17 say: Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are deluding you. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say, ‘No calamity shall come upon you.’”  

This is a time when genuine discernment of the spirits is required of us.

Verses 21-22 explain further:

I did not send the prophets,
    yet they ran;
I did not speak to them,
    yet they prophesied.

But if they had stood in my council,
    then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,
and they would have turned them from their evil way,
    and from the evil of their doings.

All that glitters is not gold. Striving to be prophetic, post-Pentecostal, revivalist congregations is not demonstrating the Kingdom of God among us for a world desperate for the revelation of the children of God. More nostalgia than New-heaven-and-earth, these sincere, yet sincerely misled and mistaken men and women are not enjoying the fulness and fruitfulness of Father, Son, and Mother Spirit grace; nor are they establishing communities that act as Embassies for the Kingdom, staffed by Spirit-inspired and empowered ambassadors who preach, teach, and live as Jesus, in and towards the world around them.

O, all-loving and glorious heavenly Father: may your name be hallowed, your Kingdom come, and your will be done - as in heaven, so also on earth!

Go well; go prayerfully, Wayfarers.