Eat My Sheep

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
11.25.07; Rev. David Williams

Scripture Lesson: Jeremiah 23:1-6
watch it here: part 1; part 2

In October or November of every year, as we Presbyterians dig our way into the joyous budget season, an e-mail pops into the inbox of pastors and treasurers at each of the over 100 Presbyterian churches in our presbytery. The powers that be are sending us a number, a number that every church needs, the number that sets up the base salary of every Presbyterian minister in the Washington metropolitan area for the upcoming year.

Being Presbyterians, of course, we don’t just pick that number out of the air. That number is based on a highly complex series of equations that includes national level data on ministerial wages, information on the regional housing market, and cost of living projections for the area, which are then multiplied by the percentage of games the Redskins have won this year. Let me tell you, it’s been a very, very disappointing season.

At the end of the day, the base salary of a Presbyterian minister in the DC area ends up being pretty much equivalent to the average salary paid to a Metrobus driver. Most pastors think this is fine. It’s as it should be. Pastors shouldn’t be raking in the big bucks.

Or…should we?

Apparently, there’s a contingent of pastors out there who think that the ministry isn’t for the meek and the lowly. It’s for those who are willing to set a standard of success for their gathered flock. Among many pastors of larger churches, particularly pastors of big churches with massive media ministries, the argument is that a pastor should be paid what he or she is worth. If you’ve gathered a flock in the thousands or the tens of thousands, if you’re watched by millions on T.V., you’re basically like the CEO of a successful corporation. If you’re the CEO of a major subsidiary of AmeriChrist, Inc., then by cracky, you need to be living like a CEO.

In fact, it’s gotten so intense that earlier this month, Senator Charles Grassley launched an investigation of several big name television ministries. Why, you may ask? Well, for some reason, the Senator was miffed by a few things he’d heard.

Like, for instance, when Kenneth Copeland Ministries celebrated their 40th anniversary, they apparently thought it might be nice to give a little present to Ken. I mean, c’mon, it was just a little two-million dollar token of their esteem. Presents are apparently very popular among the pastoral elite. Another ministry, Paula White Ministries, is in trouble for giving Bishop T.D. Jakes a Bentley for his birthday. A Bentley? He got a Bentley for his birthday? Schwing low, schweet chariot! I hope Rev. An takes note of that...my birthday is next month! I never realized that when the Apostle Paul talked about spiritual gifts, he meant luxury automobiles.

Paula White Ministries is also under investigation for, among other things, charging the costs of cosmetic surgery to the ministry. That’s hardly fair, though, is it? How can Paula White Ministries bring people to Jesus if Paula White doesn’t look like she’s 21 again?

All of the pastors in question seem to have a taste for travel in private jets. One of them, Joyce Meyer, also bought a $23 thousand dollar marble toilet for her headquarters. Hey…people have needs. Don’t go hatin’. And anyway, if you’re the shepherd of a big enough flock, where in the Bible does it say you can’t live like that?

Well…gee…where to begin? I suspect that the prophet Jeremiah would have something to contribute on that subject. Jeremiah was a notoriously grumpy prophet, who lived and preached six hundred years before Christ, during the time of the fall of Jerusalem in the face of the might of the Babylonian Empire. Most of his teaching and proclamation was aimed directly at the wealthy and the powerful of Judah, those in the royal court and the priests of the temple.

Today’s passage was a challenge to the “shepherds” of Israel. By shepherds, Jeremiah was referring to those in power, those charged with guiding the lives of the people. According to the passage we’ve just heard, the folks in positions of power have misled the people, and have caused the flock to be scattered. In their place, God is going to find other leaders, ones who will help bring the flock back together.

But as we listen to this little passage, we have to ask ourselves: what…specifically…have the current batch of shepherds done? The metaphor of herdsmen and their flocks is great, but it doesn’t tell us very much about what the leadership had done or failed to do.

For that, we have to look to the broader context of Jeremiah, to the passages that come before and after this little chunklet of verses.

Before today’s passage, in Jeremiah 22:13-17, the prophet lays into the royal household of Judah. Why? Because those leaders enriched themselves at the expense of their people. They built themselves huge houses made of only the finest materials, taking from those in need and giving to themselves. Justice and righteousness were put second. Their personal prosperity was put first.

After today’s passage, in Jeremiah 23:16-17, Jeremiah goes after the false prophets of his age. What was the message that those prophets were bearing? It was a message of well-being. It was a message of prosperity. Everything is going to be just fine. It shall be well with you. Just keep giving to the temple. No calamity shall come upon you.

In both instances, what was proclaimed and what was lived was a prosperity based in falsehood. Leaders used their power to amass great wealth for themselves. Leaders convinced people that all they needed to do to be doing well in the world was to give and give and give to the temple....which, conveniently enough, meant that the priests and prophets would do well.

But those kinds of shepherds aren’t the sort of folks that God entrusted with his flocks, and the modern purveyors of the Gospel of prosperity are perilously close to meeting that dark standard.

In last Sunday’s Washington Post, finance columnist Michelle Singletary, whose advice is usually sound and wise, took a little issue with Grassley’s challenge to these ministers. She made the CEO argument, saying that if these pastors are running a large organization that has revenue equivalent to that of a big for profit enterprise, they should be compensated accordingly. If that means they’re living large, well, that’s their right. “They haven’t taken a vow of poverty,” she said.

On one level, that may be true. But the standards to which Christian leaders should aspire aren’t the standards of the for profit world. They aren’t even the standards of the nonprofit world. Those who are called to leadership in the body of Christ shouldn’t starve, sure. But neither should they live in a way that doesn’t reflect the community they serve. The heart of the Gospel message that Christ brought to us is not that we are called to serve ourselves and our own needs. The self-serving approach to the world and to how we live and work may play well with the ethics of our culture...but those aren’t the values that define the Christian life.

As Presbyterians, our task as members of the church and leaders of the church is to hold one another accountable to the servant ethic that Christ himself embodied. It’s why we’re so open about how we pay our pastors, and why we strongly...strongly...encourage all of our members to be engaged in and aware of how our congregations act as stewards over our resources. Each of us, in our own way, is called to be a shepherd over the flock. That means stepping away from the me-first value that defines the consumer culture around us. Why?

Because a shepherd that looks out for number one isn’t one who cares for the sheep. At the end of the Gospel of John, the great command given to Peter isn’t eat my sheep.

It’s feed my sheep.

There is a difference.