Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:05 — 28.7MB)
Subscribe: Android
Readings
- Isaiah 55:1–5
- Psalm 136:1–9, 23–26
- Romans 9:1–13
- Matthew 14:13–21
Homily Transcript
To paraphrase Luther and Walther: ‘The sheep rightly judge their shepherds.’ To be certain, there is but one Good Shepherd and He is without error and beyond rebuke, but undershepherds — pastors and teachers — are mere men and are, thus, liable to err and are proper subjects of godly rebuke should they err. And yet not all sheep should rebuke their shepherds. Women, for instance, must not do so, for Scripture commands women to be silent in the churches and to inquire of their own husbands at home. Neither should all men endeavor to rebuke the shepherds, for the man who would offer a rebuke stands in the place of a teacher — more, a teacher of teachers —, and so he must be certain that his rebuke is grounded in truth, grounded in the Word of God, for then it is not truly the sheep who is rebuking the undershepherd, but the Good Shepherd Himself, speaking through the sheep. There is, of course, also the matter of rebuking a shepherd who goes astray with regard to matters of God’s first book (i.e., Creation), but the man who would undertake that sort of rebuke must rely upon the gifts God has given him and his conscience.
The sheep are given qualifications in Scripture according to which shepherds may be judged, but there are also examples against which the sheep may judge their shepherds — and against which you shepherds should judge yourselves. One of the most powerful and important such examples is found in today’s Epistle reading: St. Paul not only expresses a desire to save the sheep, but above and beyond this, he expresses such a strong desire to save his own race that he expresses, as a hypothetical, his willingness to be cut off for the sake of his racial brethren. I would directly address other shepherds: You may be inclined to read St. Paul’s words as extreme or a sort of pinnacle; permit me to disabuse you of any such delusions: St. Paul’s words do not express the height or zenith of what it means to be a shepherd — at least not alone; rather, what Paul expresses is simultaneously the height and the bar — the minimum. If your desire to see your own people saved does not match that of St. Paul, then may I rather strongly suggest you take up digging ditches or some other honest work with your hands, for the man who would not give everything for the salvation of his own people is unworthy to hold the office or post of shepherd. But, of course, that is a matter that is between you and your conscience and God, a matter that will be perfectly and finally sorted at the Stricter Judgement. And, for the sheep: You are entitled to such a standard of care from your shepherds, not because you are worthy, but because that is the standard our Lord and Savior has set and which He demands from those who hold office under Him.
There are many unworthy shepherds these days. Paul says that, were it a possibility (hence the hypothetical nature of his comments), he would be cut off — blotted from the Book of Life — for the sake of his people; many modern ‘pastors’ (and even more ‘priests’) could not even tell you who their people are, and many would even go so far as to deny that they have such a thing as their own people. Who is wrong: St. Paul or these moderns? They cannot both be right. If St. Paul is right to express so deep and profound a love for his racial kinsmen, then the moderns stand condemned — or even damned — by their refusal to echo the same of their own racial kinsmen.
God is not the author of confusion or disorder or chaos, and the Gospel does not destroy nature. When you became a Christian — whether it was in your mother’s womb or as a full adult — who and what you are did not change. If you were American before your Baptism, then you remained American after your Baptism. If you went into the waters French, then you came out French. Soteriology does not destroy ontology. You are not less male or female, German or Scottish, or any other such essential category because of your justification and renewal; if anything, you are more what God made you, because the process of sanctification conforms you to what God always intended you to be. If you believe that the Gospel destroys, erases, removes, or even merely suppresses or limits realities such as biological sex and race, then you have listened to false shepherds and internalized their lies. Certainly, such false shepherds will receive their due punishment from God, but you must purge such false teachings from your own mind and they must never be found on your tongue. The shepherd will receive the stricter Judgement, but that does not mean that sheep will receive no Judgement or have some sort of ‘perfect’ or complete defense at the Judgement. A woman is not her own head, but, even though her head will receive the greater scrutiny, she is not thereby fully excused.
Given the state of modern shepherds, perhaps more and greater admonition is due. Shepherd is not a mere job or occupation; to be a shepherd is to hold an office and to be subject to an attendant set of duties. If you think of your office primarily as a matter of privileges, rights, honors, or any other such things, then you are utterly unfit — resign and beg God for His mercy. Unlike the office of father, which one obtains naturally and holds for life, the office of shepherd may be relinquished. Surely, if God has prepared you for the office and called you to it, then you will be judged if you decide to neglect these gifts and refuse that call — ask the faithless servant who buried his talent or Jonah who got on a ship and sailed the wrong direction —, but it will go much worse for you if you hold such office unworthily or execute it faithlessly. The faithful shepherd is promised a crown; the false and faithless shepherd should expect only wailing and gnashing of teeth. God will not be mocked, least of all by those who claim to stand in His stead and to speak on His behalf, and yet care nothing for His sheep and seek only to fill their own bellies and service their own egos and thereby fill full their cup of wrath. In the words of St. John Chrysostom: ‘The road to Hell is paved with the bones of priests and monks, and the skulls of bishops are the lampposts that light the path.’
I fear that, in desiring never to overstep, I have been insufficiently forceful, so let me be clearer: Every time you take up the pen to write or open your mouth to speak on behalf of God, you should be possessed of a holy terror, for to touch the things of God is to take your life — and your soul — in your hands. You should treat God’s truth — all of His truth — with no less reverence than the Ancient Israelites were instructed to treat the Ark. I encourage every shepherd to contemplate Oza (or Uzzah, if you are not yet familiar with the LXX). In a very real sense, Oza was dead before David even began to bring up the Ark; he was dead because his leaders — his shepherds — failed to do what God required of them. Or did you think that your wickedness or laxity would never affect others? Cursed is the one who does the work of the Lord with slackness. Oza surely died for his own transgression, but Oza also surely could have been saved had his leaders been faithful and obeyed God’s commands.
And via Oza we come to an uncomfortable (for some, anyway) truth: The faithlessness of your shepherds will not excuse your transgressions. Certainly, there is a diminishment of fault, after a fashion, for those who act in ignorance, but you do have a duty not to be ignorant with regard to certain matters. Wives are to obey their husbands, which means they must know what their husbands have told them to do or not to do. Men are to obey Christ, which means that we must know what He has told us to do or not to do. Certainly, it is the duty of shepherds within the Church to lead the sheep truly and well, but the shepherds may lead the sheep with and only with the words and truth of the Good Shepherd, for His sheep know His voice. The sheep will follow the undershepherds who speak with the voice of the one true Shepherd, but they will just as surely — must just as surely — reject the many false ‘shepherds’ who do not speak with the Master’s voice. Should the sheep wander off after false shepherds, then we know that the Master, Who seeks the lost, will surely send other, faithful shepherds after those sheep, but the sheep must then choose to which voice they will listen, whether that of the true Shepherd in the mouths of the faithful undershepherds or the voice of the liar below in the mouths of the false shepherds, leading them into the wilderness to become goats instead of sheep.
There is no way around this matter: The sheep must judge their shepherds. You, as sheep, must discern the faithful from the faithless. Some will tell you that you must simply submit to this or that authority, and that you will thereby resolve (or even avoid) the problem, but that merely abstracts the problem by a layer or two. If you submit to some authority, then you have decided that that authority is faithful, or at least that you will treat him or it as if he or it were. God has given us the only standard according to which undershepherds may be judged faithful or faithless: His unchanging and perfect Word. You may judge any shepherd by whether or not the things he says are consonant with the things God has said before him, for faithful shepherds speak with the Master’s voice. This does not, of course, mean that you must mistrust everyone in everything, for faithful shepherds prove themselves over time, much as false shepherds reveal themselves. God will never leave us without faithful men to teach His Word, to speak His truths after Him, but this remains a fallen world and Satan will continue to try to sneak his ‘prophets’ into the churches. It is the duty of the faithful prince and magistrate to remove faithless and wicked teachers, but God has not blessed us with such a man, at least not today, and so the sheep must be particularly vigilant in refusing to listen to the voice of Legion, which is, today, spoken by the mouths of thousands of false shepherds.
Wives, God will ask you at the Judgement where your children are. Husbands, God will ask you at the Judgement where your wives and children are. Shepherds, God will ask you at the Judgement where His flock is that He entrusted to your care. We all have callings, duties, tasks set before us. According to our callings and our gifts, we will be judged; according to our duties and our faithfulness, we will be judged; according to our tasks and our diligence, we will be judged. Whether you are a pastor or a housewife, a teacher or a plumber, a magistrate or a retired grandparent, you have duties, callings, and gifts; you must be neither lax nor false. Your Lord and Savior has entrusted much to your care and He will demand much in return, and from those to whom He has entrusted greater and rare gifts, He will demand all the more. And yet we must not and, indeed, should not, take any of this as demanding or burdensome:
“For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”
The Lord God does not call you to be what you are not; rather, God calls you to be what you were always meant to be and what you will fully and truly become in eternity. It is not a burdensome thing to be a husband; it is not a burdensome thing to be a wife. Yes, as the Apostle says, you will have trouble in this life if you marry, for we, men, are fallen, and so are the women we marry, but such a small cost is surely worth the great joys of marriage, for which God designed us. And other callings are certainly similar. It is not burdensome to be a teacher, modulo the words of Hebrews 13:
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
God has both designed and equipped us for the very callings He has assigned us and tasks He has given us. We must endeavor to do these things with joy. The Lord has already done the hard work and He has even prepared our good works for us. This life is certainly not easy, but it is, perhaps, easier than we sometimes make it for ourselves.
There is a general desire among men (and women) to ‘outsource’ certain (perhaps difficult or complicated or time-consuming) tasks, and this desire is not always wrongful. If my HVAC stops working, then I am probably going to call an expert. I do not roast my own coffee, build my own cars, or translate from Russian. And I am quite happy to have other men produce the ink for my pens. It is not wrong to rely upon true expertise, nor is it wrong to rely upon trustworthy men. But there are times and topics where men must necessarily investigate (at least to some depth) for themselves. I do not need to learn to fly a modern jetliner in order to check if my pilot is competent, but I should probably fly only on airlines that require training, licensure, and screening. Similarly, you do not need to exhaustively analyze every statement made by teachers you already trust, but you should check them from time to time against the Word of God, and you should know the Word of God well enough to do that. And yes, I do encourage you to hold me to the same standard. There is no room for error when it comes to the things of God. The sheep hear the voice of their Master; make sure your shepherds are not speaking with some other voice.
Amen.