Shepherds After My Own Heart: Chapters 4-5

[stevebraswell]

In chapters 4-5, Laniak focuses on the two main ideal human leaders of Israel: the ideal shepherd in the wilderness (Moses) and the ideal king (David), who also served as a literal shepherd.

For the stories of Israel in the wilderness, the most vital factor was the presence of God, symbolized at times by the tabernacle and by the pillars of cloud and fire. Laniak points out that the fact of God being present with his people implied that God was with them to protect them, provide for all their needs and guide them in the way they should go. Part of Moses’ function as a leader was to be the physical extension of God’s presence among them—which meant that as God’s leader for the people, he would also function in a role to protect, provide for and guide. As an example of what this meant in real-life circumstances, this meant that when God’s anger burned against the people for their sins, Moses took it upon himself to mediate between God and the people and to ask God to blot him out of his book in place of what he might do to his people. This kind of vicarious suffering, of course, will be replayed in the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 as well as Jesus’ suffering on the cross. So Moses’ leadership role serves to foreshadow other similar servant leaders yet to come.

As a pastor, all of this raises the personal question to me about my role as a leader in the church: How much am I willing to sacrifice for the sake of God’s people under my care? And that leads to more questions: At what point is my self-sacrifice actually a detriment to me and to my leadership because I am not maintaining healthy boundaries? For example, should I always be accessible to my congregation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so that I have no personal and family life? I strongly believe the answer is “no,” because if I lived like that, I wouldn’t be able to minister well over the long haul and I also would not have a quality relationship with my wife and children. But at what point are those concerns valid, and at what point am I just using those questions as an excuse to be selfish and put my own comforts above the legitimate needs in my congregation? Of course, I realize each minister must draw these lines personally for herself or himself. And I also realize that these lines may change depending upon where I am or my family is at a particular time in my ministry life. In other words, I think it’s great to hold up such “ideal leaders” as Moses as examples for us. However, at the same time I think it’s healthy for us to remember that even the most ideal biblical leaders had their own weaknesses (some of which we are told about in Scripture, and I believe that there were more stories about their varied weaknesses that were not included in the canon) and that holding them up as examples may in some cases encourage ministers to unhealthy extremes.

While David is honored in the Israelite tradition as the ideal king, the very fact of having a king of Israel is not always honored as a great idea. The fact of kingship is anticipated in the Pentateuch, but in Judges Gideon turns down an offer of kingship because Yahweh should be the one to rule over his people. And in Samuel when the people request a king to be like the other nations, God’s response is that this request is in effect a rejection of God ruling as king over his people. So God doesn’t think that the request for a king comes from pure motives, but that doesn’t mean that if the right person rules righteously as king, that the position of king cannot be “redeemable” in God’s sight. And that is exactly what we find in David, who rules as “a man after God’s own heart,” although of course not always righteous in his actions. Much is made in the biblical account of God’s choosing David the shepherd to then be a shepherd for his people in the position as king. The most helpful discussion in this chapter for me personally was Laniak’s exposition of Psalm 23 as he tied in some of the phrases in that psalm with the actual work of a shepherd—for example, “no want” means the shepherd provides all the pasture food for the sheep as well as protecting them from all enemies; “guidance” is needed because sheep, left to themselves, will always wander away from the right paths; and the “deadly shadows” are those that fall near the end of the day in a desert canyon.

The most important word in this psalm for me is the word “my.” In other words, all these descriptions of God as the loving and guiding and providing Shepherd could be rather cold and impersonal (something God does for the big group) were it not for the word “my.” I think it is good for us as communities of faith to affirm our faith in many ways. But at some point, I (not as a leader or a pastor, but simply as a follower of Jesus) need to figure out what all of this means for me. I’m not trying to say we need to swing to the extreme of personal individualism. I always need to stay connected to the community of faith as I struggle to answer these questions. But still, I need to answer them for myself. Yes, there is a time for me to join the community’s voices and sing the hymns of faith and say the words of creeds, whether I feel them or believe them for myself, simply because I am one of the community. But sometime, somewhere, I need to own them for myself. Sometimes I wonder about my faith and other pastors’ faith. If there were no more salary, no more pastoral benefits, no more limelight, no more pressure to conform, where would my faith be? I hope for myself that if all the trappings of pastoral ministry were stripped away, underneath that somewhere I would still find a living, vibrant faith—and that my faith is not just a show I put on for the observers I call “church members.”