Pastors and Prophets.

Here’s what shepherds do:

They stay out on the hillside in the dark and cold whilst everyone else is snuggled up, cosy and safe at home. They place themselves in harms way so that predators have to first deal with the shepherd before they can get to the sheep. They identify with the sheep; they wear sheep-skin to look and smell like the sheep, they get to know the sheep individually – and in so doing, become ostracised by the rest of humanity. They plot the route to the next pasture and go ahead to test the ground and create as smooth a path as possible. They remain alert to dangers and fight off predators, risking their own safety for the well-being of the flock. They come alongside the reluctant sheep, they prod and urge-on the slow sheep and they go looking for the lost sheep, carrying them back when they find them.

It’s a broadly thankless task; when everything goes well, the sheep barely acknowledge the shepherd. When things go wrong, they are the first to complain. It is often a friendless role; whilst you have to become like the sheep, you are not one of them, but equally, in identifying so closely with this flock, you inevitably isolate yourself from others.

Being a shepherd can be lonely, cold and dangerous.

That’s why they need to work with prophets.

Prophets are the spies who get sent in ahead of everyone else to check out the land that God has promised and to describe it in detail to the shepherds and the sheep. Without the input of the prophet, the pastor’s tendency will always be to look at the next step, to give attention to the immediate need, to respond to the loudest bleating. But the prophet says ‘look higher, see further. Yes, the journey may be a challenge, yes it might be easier to stick around the known, the tried and tested, but we’ve seen it, here’s some of the fruit, come on!’

It’s still the shepherd’s role to protect the sheep on the way, to goad and encourage, to direct and plan the best route – but the destination is described by the prophets – they have been there, they have brought fruit back with them, it is their encouragement that spurs on.

Without the prophet, vision reduces to that which satisfies the immediate need for food and drink. Adventure is reduced to journey, paradise to the nearest accessible destination, hope to that which is tangible and leadership to the lowest-common-denominator. Being a pastor reduces to a badge of office and Pastoral Care to visiting those who are shut-in, making meals when people are ill, giving lifts or being a listening ear.

This symbiosis doesn’t just work at the macro level either. Alone, the pastoral person might empathise so much that they become as paralysed as the person they are empathising with. They might so share someone’s anxieties that they are too fearful of taking the appropriate action. They might be so sensitive to the possibility of hurting someone’s feelings that they fail to warn them of impending disaster. The prophet reaches into the situation, not careless of the issues, but seeing, alongside them, a bigger context, a fuller picture of who God is, who they are and the destination that God can still bring them to. They are hope-bringers who bring the concrete reality of the future Kingdom into today’s circumstances. It isn’t that they lack compassion or care, it is the fact that they care so passionately for the individual that they long to see them beyond the prison of the present.

Of course, it is wonderfully comforting to know that someone feels about our situation as we do; that sense of not being alone, of being understood is profoundly important. The knowledge that the pastor will protect, will defend, will risk all on our behalf is of immense value. But there comes a point when being defended from the wolves and carried back to the sheepfold isn’t enough. There comes a point when eradicating the wolves, learning to avoid the pitfalls and setting out for distant, better, pastures is what is needed.

Pastors need Prophets.

Being a prophet can be a lonely and dangerous job. The history of scripture is strewn with the bones of Prophets who were killed by those who became fed up with their challenge. They are often mocked; ridiculed for their big-picture optimism, despised for their insistence on walking the more difficult path, dismissed as being out of touch with reality. Frequently, they will find themselves having to speak the unpopular, being the agents of change, the pioneers who everyone cheers but then ignores as they wave them into the distance.

Prophets need pastors. They need pastoring, they need encouragement to look after themselves, they need healing when they forget to do that. They need defending, not only from the wolves outside, but from some of the sheep inside as well. They need reminding of their calling and celebrating as they seek to fulfil it. 

The church needs pastors and prophets - not to balance each other out, not in a spiritual tug-of-war, not simply so that pastors can be more radical than they would otherwise be, whilst the prophets are reined in by the more 'caring' pastor. Not in balance, but in unity. United in their love of God, united in their love for each other, united in their love for the flock.

Without the prophet, the pastor is just someone wandering around a mountainside in a war of attrition against the elements and predators, leading a dwindling group of sheep, around and around the same old terrain.

Without the shepherd, the prophet is just a voice crying in the wilderness, looking increasingly forlorn and sounding increasingly strident.

Come on church, insist on both.