WEEK 5 | HEAL
To some, the idea of shepherding carries nostalgic, idyllic connotations—as though shepherding is nothing more than strolling through grassy fields, gently petting happy lambs, and napping beside streams. But the reality of shepherding goes much further than pastoral paintings depict. Listen to the way David described his years of shepherding to Saul:
“Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears.” (1 Samuel 17:34–35)
Sometimes being a shepherd means chasing after a lion or bear, ripping a bloody lamb out of its mouth, and then killing one of nature’s fiercest predators. Whether that makes you more or less excited about the prospect of shepherding, the point is that shepherding can be traumatic. A shepherd cares for his sheep—in all situations. When a sick sheep needs to be nursed back to health, the shepherd is the caregiver on the scene. When a sheep has a broken leg or open wound, the shepherd is the first responder.
This is the reality in the church as well. At first glance, most churches seem to be places where people have it all together. But look beneath the surface and you’ll find that all is not well. People are broken, hurting, sick. Because of the role that shepherds play in a church, they are often the first people to discover the brokenness. It is a huge privilege to be the first one on the scene of someone’s pain, but it’s not an easy calling.
In this session we will continue to look at God’s rebuke of Israel’s “shepherds” as a guide to what it means to shepherd effectively. As you read through this passage again, pay attention to what the shepherds ought to have been doing with regard to their sick and injured sheep.
>> TAKE A MINUTE RIGHT NOW TO READ EZEKIEL 34:1–16 SLOWLY AND REFLECTIVELY. <<
The Sick & Injured
As we’ve seen, a good shepherd must constantly be feeding all of her sheep. And when she discovers weakness in a sheep, it’s her job to become a sort of personal trainer and strengthen the weak. Now we see another aspect of shepherding that Israel’s leaders were neglecting: they have not been healing the sick or binding up the injured.
While every sheep needs feeding all the time, individual sheep get sick or injured at different times and in different ways. This is a necessarily personalized aspect of shepherding, and it is probably the most difficult responsibility for any shepherd. It requires knowing the sheep well and caring about them enough to identify a problem and help bring them back to health.
A sick sheep would need care, rest, and attention. It might need help eating and could even need to be carried when the fold moves on. For our purposes, let’s identify the “sick sheep” with a person who has developed some sort of unhealthy pattern. This could mean anything from wrong thinking to believing lies to ungodly patterns of relating to other people. It may or may not involve outright sin, but unhealthy patterns always begin to move us away from God’s intention in our lives. These patterns can be difficult to identify. We won’t always recognize, for example, when a person’s thought patterns turn unhealthy. Maybe a habitually joyful person will begin relying more on himself than on God. Perhaps some form of pride will go unchecked. A mother who has typically been patient with her children might become snappy or short. Unhealthy thinking and behaviors like these may take some time to identify, but they are important to address.
Ezekiel also mentions the injured sheep that need to be bound up. The Hebrew word translated “injured” here means “broken” or “smashed,” which brings to mind a sheep with a broken leg. This sheep will be in a great deal of pain, and the shepherd will need to bind up the leg by wrapping it in cloth, possibly even with a splint. The injury will require time to heal, and the shepherd will almost certainly need to carry the sheep, especially when the flock is traveling through difficult terrain. For our purposes, we can identify these “injured sheep” with people who have experienced some trauma. These sheep need our compassion, guidance, and love. They may need to be “carried” in a spiritual sense as well. While this will likely be a difficult and exhausting time for you as a shepherd, it’s also likely to be rewarding as you watch God heal what was broken.
QUESTIONS | REFLECTION
1. Can you think of any examples of “sick” or “injured” people in the church? What types of illness or injury have you encountered?
2. Why are some forms of illness or injury difficult to identify (at least for a time)?
3. How can you as a leader create an environment in which people know they can safely ask for help?
Self-Inflicted Wounds
When it comes to shepherding in the church, many of the wounds we find will be self-inflicted. We looked at “weakness” in the previous session, which does not necessarily involve outright sin. For our purposes, the category of self-inflicted wounds will refer to Christians whose sinful choices bring some injury upon themselves.
Choosing sin over God’s prescribed path has disastrous consequences. There is always forgiveness, but there is often pain and devastation. Sometimes “healing the sick” and “binding the injured” will mean confronting sin and leading the way back to God. Walking in both truth and love is difficult. If you grow too enthusiastic in confronting the sin you encounter, you risk becoming judgmental. If in the name of love you shy away from all conflict, you are ignoring many of Jesus’ harder sayings. Jesus gives us careful instructions for entering into the struggles of our brothers and sisters. The goal is always repentance and restoration, but we as shepherds have a role to play in the healing process.
>> TAKE A MINUTE RIGHT NOW TO READ MATTHEW 18:15–20 SLOWLY AND REFLECTIVELY. <<
When we find a fellow Christian suffering from the self-inflicted wounds of sin, Jesus tells us to talk to that person. The goal here is love. We need to be careful to establish the truth of the situation and not veer off into gossip or our own opinions or interpretations of the situation. At every stage in this process, we are trying to “gain our brother,” to lovingly restore him to God’s design. We should also note that in the context of Matthew 18, Jesus’ instructions about how to address a brother in sin is surrounded by instructions to forgive more times than anyone would consider reasonable. Why? Because God is forgiving, and the goal is restoration, not punishment. Jesus makes the point more succinctly in Luke:
“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” (Luke 17:3–4)
When we encounter sin, we need to confront it. But we must always be quick to forgive, to restore, no matter how frequently the sin occurs.
Paul also offers us important guidance for these situations. He says, “We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (1 Thess. 5:14).
Here again Paul is calling for confrontation of sin. But notice that confrontation does not look the same for every person. Some people are “idle” (disorderly or insubordinate), and we are to “admonish” (confront or warn) such people. Others are “fainthearted” (discouraged), and we are called to encourage them. Still others are “weak” (lacking strength or even ill), and we are called to help them. With all people, we are called to be patient. Paul’s words here remind us that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to helping people in their pain, their sin, and their afflictions. We respond to each person in truth and love, following the Spirit’s guidance at all times.
QUESTIONS | REFLECTION
4. What does it look like to lovingly confront someone on his or her sin?
5. When a person you’ve confronted has repented of their sin, what are some key steps you might take with that person?
The Problem: Individualism & Fear
Much of the sickness and injury in the church goes completely unaddressed, completely untreated. Perhaps the two biggest reasons that wounds are not healed in the church are individualism and fear.
It’s no secret that our culture encourages us to live individualistically. We see it as a sign of maturity when someone is able to live independently of others and a sign of immaturity when someone needs to ask for help. We have been trained to handle our issues on our own rather than pulling others into our struggles. This often means that we languish in our pain and brokenness, silently suffering even as we pretend that everything is fine. Until we expose the lies and disease in this type of thinking, we will never be able to function as shepherds, because our sheep will constantly hide their hurts, rather than calling out for help.
QUESTIONS | REFLECTION
6. How have you witnessed individualism in the church?
7. Take a moment to picture a perfect church group in your mind, a group that perfectly “bears one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6:1–2). What would this perfect group look like?
The other major factor that hinders healing in our churches is fear on the part of the shepherds. God’s call to “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6:1–2) is a terrifying prospect for many of us. Who am I to help someone solve his problems? What healing can I offer her? I’m just as broken as anyone else—I’d just make a bigger mess of things. Many types of fears can paralyze us, ensuring that we never take the first steps to offer whatever help we are able to offer. And many of the fears you face are legitimate. At the end of the day, every one of us is insufficient to heal or transform another person. Nevertheless, God calls us into the needs of the people around us, he empowers us with his Spirit, and he guides us with his truth. Even reasonable fears must be overcome for the sake of the mission that God has given us. It’s not difficult to imagine that David was afraid when he fought off bears and lions to protect his sheep. Shepherding is not about the absence of fear; it’s about commitment to our God-given calling no matter what hindrances arise.
QUESTIONS | REFLECTION
8. What fears hold you back from being a first responder to the sick and injured people in your life?
9. What truths, promises, and resources are available to you that can help you move beyond a fear-induced paralysis?
The Call: Be a Paramedic
If you are going to function as an effective shepherd in the church, you need to cultivate your role as a spiritual paramedic. A paramedic is different than an open-heart surgeon, different than an oncologist, different than a psychologist. We don’t expect paramedics to be able to perfectly heal everything that could possibly go wrong in a human body or mind. Paramedics are so wonderful precisely because they enter a traumatic situation before anyone else arrives and work to stabilize the patient. No one expects the paramedic to take the patient home and do all of the necessary medical procedures herself. But she does bring the patient to the help he needs.
It works the same way with shepherding in the church. You are a paramedic in your ministry. You are on scene. You will often encounter traumatic situations, and your God-given calling is to help to stabilize those people. One of your most important roles is to put your arm around brothers and sisters in Christ and help them find the help they need. This could mean finding other members of your group to help meet some of the physical or relational needs you’ve identified. Or it might mean talking to a pastor or ministry leader about counseling. It could even mean taking someone to a doctor’s appointment. You don’t need to have all of the answers, but you are called to help carry someone else’s burden, to be an advocate, to assist in connecting them to the help they need.
As we have been saying, shepherding is often difficult. Sometimes it demands more than we expect. But few things are as rewarding as walking alongside another follower of Jesus in in the midst of a struggle, and watch the Healer do what only he can do.