No Lone Shepherds

Henri  Nouwen provides a wise perspective on the role of pastors and shepherds in the Christian community in his chapter on “The Task: ‘Feed My Sheep.’”   Here Nouwen emphasizes the value of working together, as members of a community, when providing pastoral care, guidance, and teaching.

“When Jesus speaks about shepherding, he does not want us to think about a brave, lonely shepherd who takes care of a large flock of obedient sheep.  In many ways, he makes it clear that ministry is a communal and mutual experience.

“First of all Jesus sends the twelve out in pairs (Mark 6:7).  We keep forgetting that we are being sent out two-by-two.  We cannot bring good news on our own.  We are called to proclaim the Gospel together, in community.  There is a divine wisdom here. ‘If two of you on earth agree to ask anything at all, it will be granted to you by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three meet in my name, I am among them’ (Matthew 18:19-20).  You might already have discovered for yourself how radically different traveling alone is from traveling together.

“I have found over and over again how hard it is to be truly faithful to Jesus when I am alone.  I need my brothers or sisters to pray with me, to speak with me about the spiritual task at hand, and to challenge me to stay pure in mind, heart, and body.  But far more importantly, it is Jesus who heals, not I; Jesus who speaks words of truth, not I; Jesus who is Lord, not I.  This very clearly made visible when we proclaim the redeeming power of God together.  Indeed, whenever we minister together, it is easier for people to recognize that we do not come in our own name, but in the name of the Lord Jesus who sent us.

“Ministry is not only a communal experience; it is also a mutual experience.  Jesus, speaking about his own shepherding ministry, says, ‘I am the good shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows we and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep’ (John 10:14-15).  As Jesus ministers, so he wants us to minister.  He wants Peter to feed his sheep and care for them, not as ‘professionals’ who know their clients’ problems and take care of them, but as vulnerable brothers and sisters who know and are known, who care and are cared for, who forgive and are being forgiven, who love and are being loved.

“We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers, we are not the givers of life.  We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much care as anyone we care for.  The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God” (In the Name of Jesus, Crossroad, 1989, pages 57-63).

Learning About Shared Ministry

After six years of seminary training, Henri Nouwen writes that he felt “like a man sent on a long, long hike with a huge backpack containing all the things necessary to help the people I would meet on the road” (In the Name of Jesus, Crossroad, 1989, page 51).

He also carried another weighty expectation--that ministry was essentially an individualistic pursuit.  Nouwen reports that this approach was radically challenged when he was called to live and minister in the L’Arche community for handicapped women and men in Montreal, Canada.

“Living in a community with very wounded people, I came to see that I had lived most of my life as a tightrope artist trying to walk on a high, thin cable from one tower to the other, always waiting for the applause when I had not fallen off and broken my leg” (In the Name of Jesus, page 53).

“When you look at today’s church, it is easy to see the prevalence of individualism among ministers and priests . . . You could say that many of us feel like failed tightrope walkers who discovered that we did not have the power to draw thousands of people, that we could not make many conversions, that we did not have the talents to create beautiful liturgies, that we were not as popular with the youth, the young adults, or the elderly as we had hoped, and that we were not as able to respond to the needs of our people as we had expected.  But most of us still feel that, ideally, we should have been able to do it all and do it successfully.

“Stardom and individual heroism, which are such obvious aspects of our competitive society, are not at all alien to the church.  There too the dominant image is that of the self-made man or woman who can do it all alone” (In the Name of Jesus, page 56).

Today’s church is not looking for tightrope walkers.  But there are unlimited opportunities for committed followers of Jesus—servant-leaders who are willing to pray, serve, live, love, work, and grow in communities of faith.  

Contemplative Prayer for Christian Leaders

Perhaps “mystic” is one of the most misunderstood descriptions of a prayerful Christian. But Henri Nouwen simplifies the meaning with this clear definition: “a mystic is a person whose identity is deeply rooted in God’s first love.”

For Christian leaders, becoming people of prayer will be a lifetime pursuit. As Nouwen writes, Christian leaders both today and tomorrow will need to learn the discipline of contemplative prayer “dwelling in the presence of the One who keeps asking us, ‘Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?’”

“Through contemplative prayer we can keep ourselves from being pulled from one urgent issue to another and from becoming strangers to our own heart and God’s heart. Contemplative prayer deepens in us the knowledge that we are already free, that we have already found a place to dwell, that we already belong to God, even though everything and everyone around us keep suggesting the opposite.”

While it is well and good for laypeople, priests and ministers to be moral, well-trained, eager to help others, and able to respond creatively to the burning issues of the day, that is not the heart of Christian leadership says Nouwen.

“The central question is, Are the leaders of the future truly men and women of God, people with an ardent desire to dwell in God’s presence, to listen to God’s voice, to look at God’s beauty, to touch God’s incarnate Word, and to taste fully God’s infinite goodness?”

Christian leadership “must be rooted in the permanent, intimate relationship with the incarnate Word, Jesus, and they need to find the source for their words, advice and guidance. Through the discipline of contemplative prayer, Christian leaders have to listen again and again to the voice of love and to find there the wisdom and courage to address whatever issue presents itself to them.

“When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative” (In the Name of Jesus, Henri Nouwen, Crossroad Publishing, New York, 1989, pages 42-47).

Is unconditional, unlimited love attainable?

The Christian’s love is perhaps the most important mark of a disciple. Jesus taught that everyone would know His disciples by the love they display for one another(John 13:34-35). Henri Nouwen’s reflections on Christian leadership expand our understanding of what it means to love others as Jesus loved us.

“The Christian leader of the future is the one who truly knows the heart of God as it has become flesh, ‘a heart of flesh,’ in Jesus. Knowing God’s heart means consistently, radically, and very concretely to announce and reveal that God is love and only love, and that every time fear, isolation or despair begins to invade the human soul, this is not something that comes from God.

“This unconditional and unlimited love is what the evangelist John calls God’s first love. ‘Let us love,’ he says, ‘because God loved us first’ (1 John 4:19).

“The love that often leaves us doubtful, frustrated, angry and resentful is the second love, that is to say, the affirmation, affection, sympathy, encouragement, and support we receive from our parents, teachers, spouses, and friends. We all know how limited, broken, and very fragile that love is.

“Behind the many expressions of this second love there is always the chance of rejection, withdrawal, punishment, blackmail, violence, and even hatred. Many contemporary movies and plays portray the ambiguities and ambivalences of human relationships, and there are no friendships, marriages, or communities in which the strains and stresses of the second love are not keenly felt. Often it seems that beneath the pleasantries of daily life there are many gaping wounds that carry such names as abandonment, betrayal, rejection, rupture, and loss. These are all the shadow side of the second love and reveal the darkness that never completely leaves the human heart.

“The radical good news is that the second love is only a broken reflection of the first love and that the first love is offered to us by a God in whom there are no shadows. Jesus’ heart is the incarnation of the shadow-free first love of God. From his heart flow streams of living water. He cries out in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me! Let anyone who believes in me come and drink’ (John 7:37-38). ‘Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls’ (Matthew 11:28-29)."

(In the Name of Jesus, Henri Nouwen, Crossroad Publishing, New York, 1989, pages 38-41)

Do you love me?

Before commissioning Peter to be a shepherd, Jesus asked three times “Do you love me? (see John 21:15-17). Henri Nouwen states this is a critical question for anyone who serves others in Christ’s name. Nouwen adds that it is a question that can allow anyone in Christian ministry to be “at the same time, irrelevant and truly self-confident.”

“The question is not: How many people take you seriously? How much are you going to accomplish? Can you show some results? But: Are you in love with Jesus? Perhaps another way of putting the question would be: Do you know the incarnate God?

“In our world of loneliness and despair, there is an enormous need for men and women who know the heart of God, a heart that forgives, cares, reaches out and wants to heal. In that heart there is no suspicion, no vindictiveness, no resentment, and not a tinge of hatred. It is a heart that wants only to give love and receive love in response. It is a heart that suffers immensely because it sees the magnitude of human pain and the great resistance to trusting the heart of God who wants to offer consolation and hope.

“The Christian leader of the future is the one who truly knows the heart of God as it has become flesh, ‘a heart of flesh,’ in Jesus. Knowing God’s heart means consistently, radically, and very concretely to announce and reveal that God is love and only love, that every time fear, isolation, or despair begins to invade the human soul, this is not something that comes from God.”

(In the Name of Jesus, Henri Nouwen, Crossroad Publishing, New York, 1989, pages 36-38)

Bring the light of Jesus to a secularized world

Henri Nouwen gives voice to what he calls the climate of secularization that is shaping people’s view of God, faith, and people who want to serve in His name: “We can take care of ourselves. We do not need God, the church, or a priest. We are in control. And if we are not, then we have to work harder to get in control. The problem is not lack of faith, but lack of competence. If you are sick, you need a competent doctor; if you are poor, you need competent politicians; if there are technical problems, you need competent engineers, if there are wars you need competent negotiators. God, the church, and the minister have been used for centuries to fill the gaps of incompetence, but today the gaps are filled in other ways, and we no longer need spiritual answers to practical questions.”

Nouwen, however, pinpoints a different reality. “Beneath all the great accomplishments of our time there is a deep current of despair. While efficiency and control are the great aspirations of our society, the loneliness, isolation, lack of friendship and intimacy, broken relationships, boredom, feelings of emptiness and depression, and deep sense of uselessness fill the hearts of millions of people in our success-oriented world.

He refers to the novel Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis as a graphic account of the “moral and spiritual poverty behind the contemporary façade of wealth, success, popularity, and power.”

According to Nouwen, these all turn into specific personal longings and questionings: “Is there anybody who loves me? Is there anybody who really cares? Is there anyone who wants to stay home for me? Is there anybody who wants to be with me when I am not in control, when I feel like crying? Is there anybody who can hold me and give me a sense of belonging?”

“It is here that the need for a new Christian leadership becomes clear. The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows them to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there” (In the Name of Jesus, Crossroad Publishing, 1989, pages 32-34).

Intimate daily fellowship with the Master Trainer

The time came in Jesus’ ministry when the crowds of would-be followers were growing so large that Jesus decided to organize a core group of disciples. As Dr. Bruce observes, Jesus’ teaching was “beginning to be of a deeper and and more elaborate nature, and His gracious activities were taking on an ever-widening range.”

Here is the central theme of The Training of the Twelve: “It was impossible that all who believed could continue . . . to follow Him, in the literal sense, whithersoever he might go: the greater number could now only be occasional followers. But it was His wish that certain selected men should be with Him at all times and in all places,--His travelling companions in all His wanderings, witnessing all His work, and ministering to His daily needs. “He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach” (Mark 3:14 NIV).

“They were to be . . . students of Christian doctrine, and occasional fellow-laborers in the work of the kingdom, and eventually Christ’s chosen trained agents for propagating the faith after He Himself had left the earth. From the time of their being chosen, indeed, the twelve entered on a regular apprenticeship for the great office of apostleship, in the course of which they were were to learn, in the privacy of an intimate daily fellowship with their Master, what they should do, believe, and teach, as His witnesses and ambassadors to the world”

(The Training of the Twelve by A.B. Bruce, published by Kregel Publications, in 1971, Reproduced from the fourth edition by A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1894. Foreword by D. Stuart Briscoe, copyright 1988 by Kregel Publications. Chapter 1 Beginnings, pages 29—30).