Mutual Shepherds: Peter & Paul 2012

Ezekiel 34:11-16
II Timothy 4:1-8
John21:15-19

The prophet Ezekiel tells us in our first reading this morning that God is our shepherd, and God will take care of us sheep. God will feed us and protect us and heal us. Although God is our true shepherd and pastor, today we celebrate two of God’s deputy or assistant pastors: Peter and Paul. By celebrating two of God’s most famous assistant pastors, we also celebrate ourselves, because we all serve as pastors to each other in some way. We all lead others by example, and we all follow others’ examples.
In many ways, those of us who are not official pastors actually fill a more pastoral role than those who are, because we tend to think that church officials are too different from us to be seen as example to follow. We often unconsciously dismiss what the preacher says, because we think he is merely telling us what he is supposed to say, and we are merely listening because we are supposed to listen. However, on another unconscious level, we all have people whom we observe and try to emulate, and we all have people who are watching us and taking our lead. We rarely know who is molding their lives on our pattern, and we rarely know who we are imitating.
That gives us two reasons to be careful of our actions and our observations. We need to be careful of our observations, because we need to make sure the people whom we idolize are good examples for us to follow. And we need to be careful of our actions, because we do not know who is following us. We might not want to be role models, but all of us are to someone. So, like Peter in the gospel story, if we say we love Jesus, we need to make sure we are feeding his sheep good examples to follow. Paul goes into more detail about feeding our fellow sheep in his letter to Timothy that we read today: “proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching…be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.”
That last attribute of a good pastor is the sum of the whole list: “…carry out your ministry fully.” In other words, living our vocations fully (no matter what our vocation may be), and being the most honest and mature persons we can be (no matter what our particular strengths and weaknesses are) are the most important things we can do as God’s assistant pastors. Others will then see our fulfilment and be encouraged to grow into their own true selves and live their vocations, maturing in the fullness of Christ as they take their honored place in his body.
Of course we all know instances where we have failed to live up to our potential, or when we have not met our duties as Christ’s ambassadors, unintentionally leading others astray by our actions. There are also times when we have been unwittingly led astray by those whom we follow. That is why it is so important to set good examples for others, and that is why we need to be more conscious of the people whose lead we are following, realizing that God is our head pastor, so we must follow God always, especially in those times when we – his assistants – fail in our tasks. God will overcome all of our blunders and set us in the right path to joy and peace. God is our shepherd, as Ezekiel reminds us. We merely have the honor of being his helpers. May we fulfill our tasks with joy. May we set good examples and follow good examples. May we remember our task is simply to do our best and not worry about the outcome. Results are God’s job.   AMEN