When using shepherds as a metaphor, we often think of leaders and rulers. But when Jesus acted like a shepherd, he fed people.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about portions of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 6:30-34, 53-56). There are two stories that don’t actually have a lot of content to them: Jesus arrived somewhere and found a crowd waiting (or one had followed him), and then he taught them.
As we’ve been reading through the Gospel of Mark so far this year, I’ve been aware of a sub-theme I don’t think I’ve noticed before: how Jesus keeps on looking for a day off, and not getting one. And indeed, in the first of these stories Jesus comes along, a crowd follows him, and Jesus “had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
Now, shepherd is a multi layered metaphor in the scriptures of Christians and Jews. the Hebrew people in the Psalms frequently used the metaphor of shepherds to refer to a ruler. They also, of course, famously used it to refer to God in Psalm 23. The Messiah that was promised? Well, all the shepherding imagery that came with that related to that same image of shepherd as guide, as leader, as ruler. Sheep need to be led.
But when Jesus found people waiting for him, or when Jesus found the people who had followed him, and he saw them as sheep without a shepherd, his response was not to tell them what to do. His response was to feed them: to feed them upon the word of God, to feed them on actual food (the lectionary has left out the feeding of the 5000, but that’s actually one of the stories that lies between these two passages). Jesus proceeded to see that the people he met were fed.
We’ve been thinking of shepherding all wrong.
We’ve been thinking of shepherding as the exercise of power. We’ve been thinking of shepherding as the exercise of guidance. We’ve been thinking of shepherding as, “I lead. You follow.”
But the shepherd that God gave us, the Good Shepherd that God gave us, was one to make sure that we were cared for, that we were fed, that we were whole.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
Stories of prophetic transition – when responsibility for the task of speaking God’s messages passes from one prophet to another – are rare in the Bible. The closest parallel in the Old Testament is the transition from Moses to Joshua as the Hebrew people prepared to leave the desert and enter the Promised Land. Indeed, we find that story echoed here, as Elijah and Elisha – the mentor prophet and the successor prophet – made Joshua’s journey in reverse, crossing the River Jordan to exit the Promised Land before Elijah’s mantle fell on his successor’s shoulders.
One problem we face in this story is that the names of the two main characters sound almost identical. Elijah was the elder of the two men. He was well known in the northern kingdom of Israel as a thorn in the side of Israel’s monarchs. He had had great moments of triumph, and he had had sad occasions of failure. After a great success in persuading Israel’s King Ahab of God’s power through the ending of a drought, he had fled from the wrath of Queen Jezebel, resulting in his visit to the mountain of Horeb and God’s unhappy question, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
There at Horeb God had additional tasks for Elijah, and one of them was to appoint Elisha as prophet in his – Elijah’s – place. Elisha has an “sh” in it, which sounds a lot like a “j,” and I’m afraid there’s not much I can do about that except to say one is younger and one is older. A lot.
The authors of First and Second Kings weren’t clear how long Elijah and Elisha worked together. From the way they described Elisha’s, the younger’s, reactions in this story, it sounds like it was long enough for the younger prophet to develop a deep relationship with the older. His cry of “My father” as his mentor was swept away sounds like a deep cry of grief.
The account really focuses on Elisha, the younger one, doesn’t it? He gets the best lines: “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” The various other prophets they meet come to him, not to his teacher, to tell him about his impending loss. “Yes, I know; keep silent.” All the emotionality of this story as it’s told concentrates on Elisha, the younger one, right up to the point where he tore his clothes in grief. As Steed Davidson writes at Working Preacher, “Clearly Elisha would prefer to have his master remain. His clinging onto Elijah as they travel may look pathetic but reveals the intimacy of their relationship, one that transcends the conventional father-son relationship of a prophet with his students (verse 12).”
But. That’s not how it struck me this month. I’m feeling just a little bit more like Elijah, the senior, the mentor, the one whose time is drawing to its close. When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.
That’s not because I’ve had any bad medical diagnoses, by the way, and although somebody asked me not too long ago about a rumor that I’m soon to be called away from Hilo, that’s not happening either. I’ve developed a sabbatical plan that will have me absent from pastoral responsibilities for three months in 2025. The sabbatical commits me to remain with Church of the Holy Cross for three years after that. So. I’m not anticipating Elijah’s whirlwind.
I confess that feeling ill for so many days, however, has me considering my own mortality. Ash Wednesday comes up this week, and I hear its refrain, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” “You turn us back to dust and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals,’” wrote the poet in Psalm 90. “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.”
For any of us, the boundary between this life and the next lies in a place we do not and cannot know. It might be years away, and it might be tomorrow.
It’s not just mortality, though. I’m serving as advisor to a Member in Discernment of the Hawai’i Island Association. If you’re not familiar with phrase, that’s someone who is in the process that leads toward ordination in the United Church of Christ. It’s not the first time. Ironically, one of my previous advisees has already retired. Another serves a church in Connecticut. A young man I worked with in a youth group many years ago asked me to bring the charge to him at his ordination. There have been others.
I’m deeply aware that this advisee will mostly likely continue his career in the Church when mine has reached its end. Part of my responsibility as his advisor is to help him bring out his best so that the Church he serves – the congregations and the wider Body of Christ – receive the full blessing of his gifts. I’m not just supporting him and the congregation he currently serves – he’s a licensed pastor at this time – I’m supporting the Church that I may never see.
I can’t make that happen alone. It’s up to those who follow me as well. As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Elisha’s salvation comes in the long silence after the glory. It comes when he still has no idea whether Elijah’s ‘double portion’ of God’s spirit will rest on him, or not. It comes when he chooses to stand up, shoulder his grief, take up his teacher’s mantle, and cross the threshold into a new and unfamiliar life.”
Spoiler alert: Elisha – the successor – did take up the mantle, and he did find himself with a “double portion” of his mentor’s spirit. Jason Byassee observes at Working Preacher, “The rabbis count Elijah doing eight miracles in scripture and Elisha 16. Double. The transition from a beloved elder to a new and untested younger doesn’t have to be a loss. It can be a gain, a doubling, a greater portion.”
The transition can be a gain, even when it’s from me, or from you.
Thirty-six years ago in seminary, I had a complaint. I felt then – and continue to feel now – that I received training for a church and social environment that was already shifting, which if it still existed at all would cease to exist pretty soon. Seminaries have struggled to address that massive change with a little success and a lot of failure. My own alma mater merged with another Divinity School in 2017. Seminaries I considered attending have ceased to offer the Master of Divinity degree. It’s been rather depressing.
My first call was to two congregations in neighboring towns in Maine. One of those churches closed its doors years ago. The other churches I’ve served continue to worship and minister, but I spent seventeen years on the staff of a conference – which merged with two other conferences a few years ago. The simple truth is that membership in UCC congregations has been declining throughout my career, and we are not alone. The percentage of United States residents who are found on the membership lists of communities of faith is just under half.
So I wonder how I, as Elijah the elder prophet, can support those who will almost certainly have to build new ways to encourage and nurture disciples, to equip them with what they need in order to do God’s work, and to assist them as long as possible along the rugged roads of the journey? How can I, and how can we as a congregation, both recognize that the future will be different from the present, but that it must be in order for the Gospel’s power to be better revealed? How can we experiment, and learn from success and failure, and pass on the word that these are the things we haven’t tried? How can we approach the banks of the Jordan River with our successors at our side and endorse their prayers for a double helping of our spirit?
Those of you wearing Elisha’s, the younger one’s, shoes – you’ll have to help us with this. You may have noticed that people tend to think that what once worked always will work, even when it hasn’t worked for some time. Mind you, your ideas might not work either, but bring them. If things are going to fail, let’s fail in new ways.
And if you, like me, are wearing Elijah’s, the older one’s, shoes, well: can we bring Elijah’s grace to these times of transition? Can we let our successors follow along even though we’re not sure it will be good for them? Can we let ourselves step away from what we’ve always done and always had responsibility for because it’s their kuleana now? Can we face the sorrow and loss of the whirlwind with hope and confidence in those we leave behind?
Because when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric does make changes to his prepared text while preaching. Sometimes he makes those changes deliberately, and sometimes not.
The image is The Prophet Elijah − the 17th century icon, provenance − Weremień. Now in the Historic Museum in Sanok, Poland. Photo by Janmad – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9385535.
What happens when responsibility and leadership passes from one generation to another? Hopefully, a double portion of the spirit – but also grief.
Here’s a transcript:
This coming Sunday is the last one before the beginning of Lent. That makes it Transfiguration Sunday. I am not, however, thinking about the ninth chapter of Mark. I’ve been thinking and preaching about the Transfiguration story almost every year for the last few years. Instead, I’m thinking about the second chapter of Second Kings (2 Kings 2:1-12), which is Elisha’s farewell to Elijah.
One could wish that the two prophets had names that were more different from one another, so that you could keep them apart. Elijah was the older of the two. He had been significantly engaged with the monarchs of Israel, particularly in trying (with some success and a good deal of failure) to encourage King Ahab and Queen Jezebel to rule more faithfully. Elisha was the younger one. He would have been Elijah’s student. It was clearly understood by the two of them that it when it came Elijah’s turn it to retire, Elisha would be the one to succeed him.
And that’s the story in the second chapter of Second Kings.
There is something of a travelogue. They journey from one place to another. They meet groups of prophets who are apparently living together, possibly training together. They warn Elisha, the younger one, that his master will be taken from him, and he says, “I know. Be silent.”
We have all had that experience of knowing that something unpleasant, undesirable, painful, is coming and not wanting to hear it from others.
They crossed the Jordan River in another instance of the river becoming dry for long enough to cross, and Elijah asked Elisha what he would like to receive from him. Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. Elijah said, “That’s a difficult thing and not mine to grant, but if you see me as God raises me from the earth, then your request will be granted.”
As it happened Elisha did see Elijah swept up from earth in a whirlwind. He fell to his knees and he tore his clothes.
We are each one of us successors to the previous prophets. We are heirs of the message. We are its bearers in our own time. And we are those who will equip another generation, or more than one generation, to bring it to yet more people after we are gone. I think Elisha’s request for a double portion of the spirit — oh, my goodness. Imagine if each of us had done that, generation after generation after generation, what would the world be like if we could dedicate ourselves to the spirit of God as Elijah did, and as Elisha did.
But also on that very human side: Even as Elisha must have rejoiced to know that he had received that double portion of the spirit, he still fell to his knees and tore his clothes, because his mentor, teacher, and friend was gone. And even with his double portion of the spirit he was in grief.
None of that changes. People depart from us, sometimes for a short time, and sometimes until we meet again in eternity.
And we do grieve.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
