ordinary time The Sánchez Archives

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Year B

By
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

Pastoring the People of God

JEREMIAH 23:1-6
EPHESIANS 2:13-18
MARK 6:30-34

Recently, a study was conducted among a substantial group of pastors, representing different denominations of large, middle-sized and small congregations in urban, rural and suburban locales. Each pastor was given a logbook and asked to keep a record of his/her activities all day, each day for one month. When the results were tabulated, the records indicated that most pastors worked the average of a nine-hour day, seven days a week. Their duties included visitation, conducting worship services, study, counseling and administration, which incidentally, was the most time consuming responsibility requiring at least 26 hours a week for the majority of pastors.

When asked to make a few comments as to how they spent their time and energies, one pastor wrote: The pastor teaches, though he himself must solicit his own classes and inquire after absentee pupils. She heals although without medicine or scalpel. He is sometimes a legal advocate, often a social worker, something of an editor and a bit of a philosopher or poet. She must alternate as an entertainer, salesperson, decorative piece for public functions, and through it all, she is expected to be a scholar. He visits the sick, officiates at marriages, buries the dead, consoles the sorrowful, admonishes sinners and tries to remain calm and cordial when criticized for not doing his duty. She plans programs, appoints committees, spends considerable time listening to problems and complaints. In between time, he does maintenance on equipment that should be replaced, prepares a homily and preaches it each weekend to the already converted and to critics of his insights and oratory. Then, on Monday, she smiles and remains silent when some jovial wag remarks, “What I wouldn’t do for your “cushy” job. . . one day a week. . . Ha!”

Concurrent to the survey among pastors, a similar poll was taken among lay people. The Association of Theological Schools in the U.S. and Canada consulted with more than 5000 people in 47 denominations. In answer to the question, “What are you looking for in a pastor?,” the respondents cited the following: (1) humility, willingness to serve without regard to acclaim; (2) honesty, personal integrity, the ability to honor commitments by carrying out promises without compromise; (3) Christian example. Special pastoral skills and expertise ranked fourth. Among the traits most criticized were: (1) catering to self-serving motives; (2) avoiding intimacy and repelling people with a critical, demanding and insensitive attitude; (3) indulging in actions that shock, imitate or offend; (4) allowing the financial or administrative demands of the job to come before the needs of the people.

Obviously, wherever different people with their differing perspectives look at the same issue, there will be a variety of divergent and even conflicting opinions and ideas. The readings for today’s liturgy offer people of all perspectives an opportunity to sift through these ideas together. Both pastors and those who are pastored are invited to reflect upon their relationships with one another while remembering the special bond that Yahweh shared with Israel and that which Jesus shared with his disciples.

In today’s first reading, Jeremiah reminds his readers that the special shepherd-like love, with which “God led the people of the first covenant,” is to be the model for all those charged with pastoring others. Jesus in the Marcan gospel counsels his disciples in what will become one of their most difficult tasks as pastors of God’s people, i.e. to be able to strike a balance in their lives so that they might be periodically renewed by rest. Jesus also offers the example of his compassion for others, a motivation that enabled him to put the needs of others ahead of his own.

The Ephesians author underscores the purpose and goal of those who pastor, viz., to gather all, even those who have wandered far off into the nearness of God’s love, to put them in touch with the good news of peace and to struggle to put an end to hostility.

For all who pastor and for all who are called to allow themselves to be pastored, today’s liturgy offers sufficient comfort, counsel and challenge.

JEREMIAH 23:1-6

In addition to the exemplary model of pastoring which God had personally provided for the people, Israel and Judah had also suffered a long line of selfish and ineffective shepherds. The ineptitude of the overwhelming majority of the Hebrew kings has been memorialized in the records kept by the Chronicler and the Deuteronomic historians (1, 2 Samuel; 1, 2 Kings).

As a prophet for the people, Jeremiah attempted to break the downward spiral of poor leadership by delivering oracles of warning to the kings, during whose reign he ministered. Firm in the belief that the king was to conduct himself as the regent of Yahweh and to shepherd the people rightly and justly, Jeremiah confronted Jehoakaz (22:10-12), Jehoiakim (22:13-19) and Jecohiah (22:20-30) with their failures. Before moving on to critique the efforts of Judah’s next king, (in chronological order), Zedekiah, (34), Jeremiah paused in his harangue to shift his people’s vision and hopes to a future shepherd-king. It is from this juncture in his prophecies that today’s first reading has been selected.

Human failures at leadership had resulted in the weakening of the covenantal alliance; this weakness had shown itself politically, economically, and spiritually. If, as most scholars suggest, Jeremiah communicated this vision shortly before 587 B.C.E., the people of Judah had already been dealt a fatal blow by Babylon. The first wave of exiles were deported in 597 B.C.E. and within a decade, most of Judah was tottering on the brink of ruin. Jeremiah lived to see Jerusalem and the temple demolished in 587 B.C.E. Even after their demise, however, Jeremiah’s contemporaries found encouragement in remembering this oracle with its offer of hope to a return of the glory they had known under David.

Drawing on the promise made to David through his prophetic predecessor Nathan (2 Samuel 7:14), Jeremiah described the future pastor-king as a semah tsaddiq or righteous shoot (in Hebrew); this term may also mean legitimate heir. Therefore the promised shepherd would not be a foreign usurper (as Babylon had tried to foist upon Judah) or a fraud (as were so many of the former kings) but an authentic leader and therefore, a true shepherd to whom the people could entrust themselves.

Casting a sideward glance at the unworthiness of Zedekiah, Jeremiah proclaimed that the future king and pastor of Judah would be named “The Lord our justice” (v. 6). This title in Hebrew is Yahweh Sidgenu and represents a paranomasia (word play) on the name Zedekiah. Unlike this latter king who failed to pastor the people, “the Lord our justice” would, through his reign and wise governance, effect an era of peace and security. The people who had been misled and scattered (v. 1), driven away and uncared for (v. 2), and who lived in fear and trembling (v.4), placed their hopes for the future in this promised king. But centuries would pass before “the Lord our justice” would appear in the person of Jesus to seek out the strays and the lost and to pastor all the people of God with love and righteousness.

The up close and personal, selfless and compassionate quality of Yahweh’s (and Jesus’) leadership remains the model for all who aspire to lead and to pastor others. Similarly, the humble and trusting, obedient, loyal and cooperative attentiveness with which the faithful of Israel responded to authentic pastoring reminds believers of their responsibility as the pastored people of God.

EPHESIANS 2:13-18

In his excerpt from what has been called “the Queen of the Epistles,” the early Christian author invites his readers to glory in the fact that those “who had were once far off have been brought near through the blood of Christ (v. 13).” Those far off was a description that could have had several applications. If, as some scholars suggest, the author was remembering the vision of Deutero-Isaiah which promised “I saw their ways, but I will heal them and lead them; I will give full comfort to them and to those who mourn for them, I the Creator who gave them life. Peace, peace to the far and the near, says the Lord; I will heal them” (57:18-19), then, those far off would refer to the exiled Israelites in Babylon, longing to be brought near again to their homeland and to God.

However, in a first century C.E. context, those far off could have referred to those who had been estranged from God through sin and who had been forgiven and redeemed or brought near by the saving sacrifice of Jesus. After Jesus; death and resurrection, the church developed a new understanding of the term; those far off were the gentiles who had yet to hear the invitation or receive the welcome of redemption and so draw near to God. The responsibility for extending this invitation devolved upon those who already knew the joy of union with God in Christ. It is significant that when the Rabbis spoke of accepting a convert into the family of Abraham, they declared that he or she had been brought near. Among the rabbinic writings there is an account of a gentile woman, a known sinner, who approached Rabbi Eliezar with the request “Bring me near.” The nearness she sought was fully accomplished through the person and mission of Jesus.

In addition to this “far-near” terminology, the Ephesians author used another graphic means of proclaiming the unity accomplished through the saving work of Jesus. The barrier of hostility (v. 14) that kept Jews and Gentiles apart was the Torah or law. Motivated by an understandable and laudable desire to safeguard and preserve the traditions of Israel, the law legislated boundaries between God’s chosen ones and the rest of humankind. These legal bounderies and prohibitions were visibly represented by the stone partition that separated the outer court from the inner court of the temple, dividing gentiles from Jews. According to the Jewish historian, Josephus (Antiquities, 15:11,5) the partition between the Court of Israel and the Court of the Gentiles was three cubits (4.5 feet) high and was posted with warnings forbidding (under pain of death) any foreigner from penetrating the sacred placed reserved solely for God’s covenanted people. While excavating in Jerusalem in 1871 C.E., C. Clermont-Ganneau unearthed signs with prohibitions similar to those described by Josephus.

Large walls and warnings notwithstanding, the peace, unity and nearness which Jesus died to establish obviated all human attempts at segregation. Reconciled and brought near to God in Christ, all the redeemed, both those far off and those near have become a new creation (v. 15) with free and unhampered access to God in the one Spirit (v. 16).

Contemporary believers cannot help but wonder if our ancient ancestor’s description of the people of God will ever be more than an ideal waiting to be realized. As long as barriers continue to exist, we will remain a work in progress. In as much as believers continue to pledge their faith and allegiance in the one God but insist on separate creeds and cults, then we will still be among those far off in need of the power of the divine Pastor to draw us near.

MARK 6:30-34

All during the time they spent together, traveling through the hill country of Judah and the lush fertile region of the Galilee, Jesus continued to instruct his disciples. After his departure, the proclaimer of the good news would become the one proclaimed and the apostles would be the first to carry the message of salvation to others. As Jesus had pastored and tended them, so they, in turn, would be commissioned to pastor the growing community of believers until Jesus’ return in glory. Some of the important lessons Jesus imparted to his own are included in this Marcan pericope.

The primary lesson is rooted in the name apostle (v. 30). From the Greek word apostellein, the term designated “one who is sent out.” An apostle was a personal messenger or envoy, commissioned to transmit a message or otherwise carry out the instructions of the mandating agent. Sent by Jesus to preach repentance and to heal (6:7, 12-13), the apostles acted in his name and with his authority. As such, they were necessarily accountable to him; therein is the second lesson in pastoring. Notice that Mark tells his readers “the apostles returned to Jesus and reported all that they had done and what they taught.” Their words and works needed to be continually assessed in terms of the words and works of Jesus in order to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the mission.

The invitation of Jesus to “Come by yourselves to an out-of-way place and rest a little” (v. 31) is the third pastoral instruction. Jesus frequently withdrew from the press of the crowds and the demands of the ministry to “rest” for a while to pray and be renewed. In turn, he called his own to go kat-idian (Greek for “off by themselves” so that they should learn to balance work with rest and prayer. These special times off by themselves were also moments of special revelation and instruction.

In Hebrew tradition, rest was among the many blessings which God the shepherd-pastor would bestow upon the people (Isaiah 65:10; Ezekiel 34:15; Psalm 23:2). Israel’s arrival in Canaan after the forty year wilderness journey was described as a gift of rest (Deuteronomy 3:10, 12:10; Joshua 1:13, 15). One of Israel’s sapiential writers, Jesus ben Sira promised that wisdom would pastor her disciples with rest after their labor (Sirach 6:28, 51:27). The early Christians, who believed that Jesus was the messiah-pastor sent by God and the very wisdom of God incarnate understood that Jesus had the capacity to offer and bestow the blessing of rest on his disciples.

A fourth and further lesson in pastoring lay in the fact that the call to ministry is never silenced; no sooner had the apostles withdrawn to rest in the company of Jesus than the crowds sought them out. Indeed, when their boat arrived, vast numbers of needy people were already there to meet them. Although such a drain on his time and energies may have warranted some justifiable irritation, Jesus put his plans on hold. His compassion for a people, so much in need of pastoring (v. 34: “They were like sheep without a shepherd”), moved him; tirelessly he cared for them, teaching them, and then later, he fed them with bread and fish (6:35-44).

In Jesus’ selfless pastoral commitment, all who minister in any capacity in the service of the gospel, find a model to emulate and lessons to live by.

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Illustration prepared by Julie Lonneman.

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