On Feeding Sheep and Spiritual Care

Prepared message given as part of Three Rivers worship on Zoom, 13 January 2022.

Callid Keefe-Perry will bring a short message to frame our period of open waiting worship, and it's one of a series of prepared messages that we've been bringing over the last so-many months to more fully illustrate some of the core values of our emerging meeting. And as we take steps on our journey to becoming a preparative meeting, we're hoping that these illustrations and the recordings of them will answer some of the questions about who we are. And they're archived on our website.

Good morning, Friends. What you'll see in the chat coming in right now is a link. If you would like to share your answer to what would help you feel more cared for spiritually, you can tell us, and we can't promise we can make everything happen, because we're human, but if you'd like to share with some other humans what you're yearning for, what you think might help you feel cared for, we'd love to hear it. So there's an opportunity for you to let us know that with that link in a pretty concrete way.

This morning we're talking about care, and, before we launch, I do want to kind of invoke into this space my very dear friend and colleague Zachary Moon, who thinks about this all the time. Pastoral care is kind of his area of expertise. And we have written about it together and thought a lot about it over the years. And it's really come to a crescendo for me because Zachary wrote a book about Quaker pastoral care this fall, that I spent hours kind of living inside of. And it led me to where we are this morning, to think about care.

In many churches, and Quaker meetings, the phrase "pastoral care," or sometimes "spiritual care," is used as a stand-in for a kind of a number of activities, like

• being a listening presence,

• being emotionally supportive to people, individuals or families who are in crisis,

• or sometimes we would even refer to bringing food to someone who is sick or recovering, as pastoral care.

I also think that New England Yearly Meeting's description, in our book Faith and Practice, is a good description of pastoral care too. So I want to have us begin there as a kind of baseline, so we can all be on the same starting page, and then we'll play with it a little bit.

Pastoral care is a reflection of the loving concern for the spiritual and physical condition of Friends within a meeting. Thoughtful attention, careful listening, and prayer are at its heart. The impulse to offer such care grows out of the increased awareness, sensitivity, and love for one another that flows out of shared worship and a sense of unity in the Spirit. It is an extension of the direct divine care offered to each one of us. It happens most effectively in a meeting where members know and trust one another. As a religious community, we share the responsibility to be attentive to the needs and conditions of the members and attenders in our meeting.

Now, here in the context of Three Rivers, and especially with within the hosts, we think it can mean all that. And perhaps just as importantly we also think that "pastoral care" as a phrase is a way to describe a quality of other kinds of activities. And I'll give you an example.

Part of the reason that we structure our worship to include small group time for prayer and sharing is exactly because we agree that pastoral care happens best and is most effective in a meeting where “members know one another and trust one another.”

Before our daughter Nahar was born, and Kristina and I used to travel in the ministry far more often, one of the sneaky tricks that we used to pull was that when a meeting asked us to lead a retreat on deepening silent worship, what we would spend most of the weekend doing is helping people have vulnerable conversations with each other, sometimes with people they've just chatted with for twenty years. So today, when we hosts think about how we want to structure worship, we aren't just considering worship, but how we are expressing spiritual care in worship. Care isn't just something we do, it's a way we are with one another. Today when we began with a time for prayer in small groups, and asked you to hold a query about what you need to feel more cared for spiritually, we're trying to craft worship in a way that care is looped throughout.

Thinking about care this way has been exciting for me, and I find myself consistently being led to keep exploring it. One of the things I do when i'm trying to work with a word or phrase that seems to be calling me further and further in, is turn to scripture, and so I did.

There's a few passages that I've been sitting with about this, but one in particular really grabbed me as I was preparing for this morning's message. To set this up a little bit, I will note, if you don't know, that the phrase "pastoral care" comes out of the idea of "pastoral," which we get as a result of the biblical image of a shepherd or pastor "out in the pasture" with some sheep. In this metaphor the flock is the church and the good shepherd ultimately is Christ. Now that image is important here. This text we'll look at comes from the Gospel of John. Chapter 21, 15-17.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, Simon son of John, do you love me? He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that i love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep."

Now this is one of those passages where context is huge. This back and forth between Jesus and Peter happens after the crucifixion and after the resurrection. This is right after Jesus shows up while Peter and the other disciples are fishing, and then Jesus fills up all their nets with fish. I have to imagine that Peter is feeling peak awkward. As you might know, before Jesus was surrendered to the authorities, he told the disciples that Peter would turn his back on him and deny him three times. All four Gospels are clear on this. They're not always in agreement with one another, but this is something everyone agrees on. In John's Gospel, in chapter 13, Jesus says, "you will look for me but where I am going you cannot come. I will give you a new commandment that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another." And then Peter says, "Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay my life down for you." And Jesus responds, "Will you lay your life down for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows you will have denied me three times."

So Jesus tells Peter he will deny him, and Peter, I imagine, has to feel like, "No way, Jesus. Not me. I'm solid. You can count on me."

And then immediately he does deny him.

In Luke, the story goes that later that night Jesus is arrested, and after he's brought to the high priest's house, there's a servant girl who sees Peter, points him out, and identifies him as someone who is Jesus. And the text says that Peter says flat out, "Woman, I don't know him."

So when Jesus was most alone in the human world of power and struggle and pain, he was abandoned by Peter, his rock. He was abandoned and denied three times, in fact.

And now Jesus is back, and what does he ask Peter three times?

Do you love me?

What a moment.

When I was first looking at this text, I felt like this was a kind of a rebuke from Jesus to Peter, like he's gonna make him say it three times to make up for his three denials. And to be fair, that rhythm is, literarily speaking, exactly what's going on. But there's something more, too, I think.

When Jesus says, "Do you love me?" I also hear his reminder that "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." And what are the big ones for Jesus? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind." And second, "love your neighbor as yourself."

Do you love me? Then love your neighbor.

Do you love me? Then feed my sheep.

Do you love me? Then learn to know and trust one another.

Later on in his ministry, Peter writes a letter to the Christian diaspora, the exiles who are living in Anatolia, Turkey, and Asia. Folks who are far from center, but are still considering themselves part of this Christian thing that's happening. He's pretty clear in this letter (1 Peter, 4:7-10).

The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.

So this is the same idea that he learned not too long ago. Now he's sharing with others. And in it we see this braiding together of ministry and care and love of God. We're to love one another, and serve one another, using the spiritual gifts that we steward. And as we begin to be more attentive to exercising the gifts we're stewarding, then that service spills out beyond this community into the world.

What is pastoral care?

Pastoral care is intentional effort given to finding ways to maintain constant love for one another, and to be hospitable. It's about being attentive and responsive to one another's conditions even in the midst of other events. It's about being prepared to be surprised at what is needed. It is taking the time to listen for what needs attending to, and then finding a way to respond from a place of love. It's about creating the conditions for all of this, throughout the community, not only in times specifically scheduled for pastoral care concerns.

Look, we live in a broken world that has little concern for whether we're ready or not for the next big challenge. But there's also an infinite ocean of love which overflows. And this is God's grace: the gift of the possibility that we can find ways to care for one another, and the world, in the midst of it all.

Will some have a more particular call to the work of ministry of care and be especially equipped for that work? Yes. Does that mean that the rest of us get to zone out? No.

We're all called to dwell in watchfulness in worship and watchfulness in work. We are each called to be responsible and responsive to one another throughout that uncertainty. Our worship is a time of practicing what it means to act in love, to listen for love, and to let us be guided into care and transformation.

Do you love me? Then learn to know and trust one another.

Do you love me? Then love and care for one another.

Do you love me? asks Jesus. Then feed my sheep.

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If you would like to look at more writing about pastoral care, you can find that here. If you would like to let us know what you need to feel more cared for spiritually, you can do that here.