The good news within all the hard words against those who claim to be shepherds and pastors is the ongoing proclamation that, even though so many have failed, there is one who remains a good shepherd. As the familiar words of Psalm 23 say, “The LORD is my shepherd.” Jesus’ words in John 10, “I am the Good Shepherd,” are not an isolated instance. Jeremiah and Ezekiel’s rejection of human shepherds and pastors is grounded in the promise of God’s intention to be what humanity cannot be. “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down,” says the LORD God. “I will seek the lost and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the crippled, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will watch over; I will feed them in justice” (Ezekiel 34:15-16).
In so much of the Bible, the pastor -shepherd-sheep metaphor works not as an exhortation for leaders to think of themselves or act like good little sheep-keepers. And the Bible certainly doesn’t do much to encourage the faithful in thinking of the clergy as their shepherds and pastor s. Instead, this pastor al poetry serves to expose the very human failures of would-be shepherds and, at the same, offers the sure and certain hope of a God who will care for and comfort us like no other shepherd.
For more than a generation we have been painting the clergy as pastor s, preachers,or shepherds, and the image has taken on a life of its own. Seminaries have built reputations on their ability to “prepare pastor s,” rather than simply being theological schools. Bookshelves are filled with volumes on “pastor al care,” as a biblical metaphor has become the measure of the clergy.
There is only one Shepherd Jesus Christ and through Christ it's the holy spirit of God that gives spiritual understanding and feeds Gods sheep