“You are My flock, the flock of My pasture; human sheep of my pasture, and I am your God,” says the Lord God. Ezekiel 34:31
God's foremost objective is to care for His family. His foremost directive is for us to care for His family. To explain and emphasize His exhortation, throughout scripture God uses the metaphor of sheep and shepherd. We are His "flock" of sheep, a term of endearment used by Jesus Himself in Luke 12:32 ("Fear not little flock;..."). He is our shepherd; and is frequently described as such in scripture.
- SCATTERED FLOCK
In Ezekiel 34:1-10, God declared the infractions made by people who were supposed to shepherd God's flock:
What they did not do made them neglectful.
The weak you have not strengthened.
The sick you have not healed.
The injured you have not bound up.
The strayed you have not brought back.
The lost you have not sought.
What they did do made them abhorrent:
You fed yourselves.You clothed yourselves.You ruled with force and harshness.
Negligence and harsh treatment resulted in a scattered flock. A vulnerable flock. The flock became prey. Such negligence and harsh treatment is the reason why God's flock are scattered now instead of gathered in the kingdom. Deviations from God's philosophy, His program of justice and compassion, have caused humanity to scatter. Not geographically but spiritually. Emotionally.
God charged Ezekiel to prophesy against the abhorrent shepherds, and the heat of His anger will be just as hot against the person today who neglects their duty in shepherdship. He will neither accept not ignore behavior that harms or fails to help His people. We are not on earth for self-serving purposes; we are not here to procure for ourselves. Faithful children of God are provided for by God. Our objective is not to sustain ourselves, that position has been filled; our objective is to sustain others. Therefore, self-serving behavior is wasteful.
We will not fit-in in heaven if we do not fit heaven's purposes into our lives. It is imperative that we learn that here before there is no place or purpose for us there. This life is our opportunity to declare that we are aligned with heaven rather than against it. This is our time to claim our role as caretaker, as shepherd of our portion of the flock. None of the shepherds above were accused of breaking commandments; they were not even directly accused of sin. They were accused of neglect and selfish behavior. Crimes we are all guilty of committing at times in our lives. And because we are all guilty of them, the "flock" is as scattered and desperate now as it was then.
- TEND MY SHEEP
Jesus anticipated that God's flock would require shepherding in future generations, that is why He exhorted Peter to take care of His sheep three successive times; and it is why that text is still alive today.
In John 21, Jesus asked Peter: "do you love me?" When Peter answered that he did, Jesus responded: "Feed my lambs." Jesus asked again and a second time, Peter answered yes. Jesus responded: "Tend my sheep." The third time Jesus asked, Peter became distressed, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." It was so important to Peter that Jesus knew he loved Him. A final time, Jesus answered: "Feed my sheep."
It's probably important to you, too. You want God to know that you love Him. From Jesus and Peter's exchange, God told us how to truly love Him: by tending to His sheep. You do not have say that you love Him three or three billion times to make it true or known. You just have to tend His sheep. Do that and He will know.
We are so loved by God that he used His final hours on earth to exhort the disciples to tend to, to feed, His flock. Instead of exhorting the disciples to follow rules or rituals, He urged them to take care of people. Selflessly, Jesus turned the attention away from Himself and onto others.
SHEPHERD THE FLOCK
How do we shepherd the flock? Fittingly, we can look to 1 Peter 3;5 for the answer.
There is hunger in the world; and certainly, there are people who need food. But there is another type of hunger prevalent in the world as well. We are called to feed both. There is a hunger we can fill with our behavior. There is hunger, a restlessness, a desperation in the world that can only be filled and calmed by the lifestyle God has outlined for His children. If we know it, we have to live it. And by living it, we feed others with a way of life previously foreign and unattainable to them.
Our temperament and choices are a type of food the people around us eat by observing it, by being recipients of it. They adopt the lifestyle when we evidence that it works. That is fills and calms empty, restless souls. What are the elements of this lifestyle?
Unity of mind. Sympathy. Brotherly love. Tender hearts. Humble minds. Bless instead of curse. Speak truth. Turn from evil. Do good. Seek and pursue peace (1 Peter 3:9-11). We "feed" (metaphorically) the world by doing the reverse of what the people did in Ezekiel 34. We strengthen others with our friendship and support and with our own strength, with the resources we have and they lack. We heal the injured with our kindness and empathy, by providing our time and attention. We bind the injured with truth when the world showed them only deceit; we bind their wounds with steadfastness when the world abandoned them. We seek the lost when we reserve harsh judgement; when we try to know them, understand their circumstances. We pursue the lost when we pursue their restoration rather than merely observe their destruction.
We have to feed others when others in the world starved them of family or friendship or opportunity. We have to clothe others when pain and shame and injustice have stripped them bare. We cannot dominate the people weaker than us; we must express mercy with gentleness. Ultimately, the thousand plus pages of the Bible are teaching us, urging us to simply... be kind. Humans have complicated life so much that we require so much lecturing, so much encouragement, so much example to do a truly simple thing: love people.
Those who do so live under God's gracious gaze (1 Peter 3:12).Those who shepherd the flock are shepherded by The Shepherd.
- SHEPHERDSHIP
For God has declared Himself so: "Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all the places where they have been scattered..." (Ezekiel 34:11-12).
In response to the selfish neglect and cruelty of the irresponsible shepherds, God replaced them with Himself. Although a cruel and selfish person neglects and harms the sheep, it is not the sheep that will ultimately suffer. For God has spoken, "I will feed My flock and I will make them lie down... I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong, and feed them in my judgement." (Ezekiel 34:15-16).
Our spiritual Father is a shepherd and He wants His children to continue the trade. He is a peace-provider, a chain-breaker, a soul-savior; and as we are made in His image (Genesis 1:27), we have both the ability and responsibility, to draw those spiritual elements out of ourselves and into the world. Willingly. Eagerly. Selflessly. Humbly. (1 Peter 5:1-3).
Those who adopt shepherdship now receive as well as reinforce God's peace and blessing, rescue and security.
Jesus' life and Resurrection provided us with a Shepherd. Emulate the life He lived. 1 Peter 2:25, "For you were like sheep going astray," but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. It has been declared that each of us have gone astray. Maybe in the past, maybe in the present. God wants you to shepherd the people in either place.