Pursuing Wily Ones: A Shepherding Vision

At Tierra Nueva we train and mobilize shepherds who seek after lost sheep until they are found, bringing them back to secure “home” settings where their return is celebrated amongst friends and neighbors.

Since 1982 when Gracie and I began Tierra Nueva in Honduras, the prophet Ezekiel’s special focus on lost sheep and call for shepherds has deeply affected us. This image animated Tierra Nueva staff  in Burlington to such an extent that for years we were all pictured hugging sheep on the staff photo page of our website.

After strong words reproaching the shepherds of Israel for their self-focus, Ezekiel writes:
“Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. My flock wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill; my flock was scattered over all the surface of the earth, and there was no one to search or seek for them” (Ezek 34:4-6).

We have witnessed firsthand widespread neglect of the poor in Honduras--visible now in a massive Exodus of migrants in search of refuge. Here in our own country we witness harsh treatment of immigrant workers, and severe sentences and fines for the incarcerated, and inadequate infrastructure for the addicted. We are inspired by God’s missional leadership of a movement in pursuit of the excluded, visible in the next verses:

“For thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. “As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for my sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day” (Ezek 34:12-13).

The Lord will “bring them back,” “gather them” and “feed them in a good pasture,” and “they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture.” (34:13-14). Psalm 23 fills out God’s shepherding vision even further!

We see that Jesus himself identifies with this movement when he says: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (Jn 10:11)

“Seeing the people, he [Jesus] felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. “Therefore beg the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.” (Mat 9:36-38)
When Jesus is critiqued by religious leaders for eating with tax collectors and sinners he tells the parable of a shepherd who leaves the 99 in the open field and seeks after the lost sheep until he finds it. Caring for the many who are already gathered should not keep people from going out after the ones who have wandered off.

We have sought after today’s equivalents of “lost sheep” through our regular presence in the county jail, state prison, in migrant labor camps, low-income housing units, on the streets and throughout Skagit County. We see a need for a renewed emphasis on this seeking and finding focus everywhere we go around the world.

More recently, we have been especially drawn to the actions of the shepherd in Ezekiel and in Jesus’ parable: gathering, feeding and bringing to rest, celebrating returns.
“When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing” (Luke 15:5).

We often act out this parable in groups, making sure to select a strong enough person to play the shepherd and a small enough person to be the sheep. In Glasgow a tall, strapping man (once a stone mason)went in search for a shorter, smaller man who played the lost sheep. Both men had recently been released from long prison sentences. In Paris, a tall African immigrant “shepherd” sought after an older white middle-class Frenchman. Both men were visibly moved when they were physically “found” and carried back. Each of these shepherds placed their finds across their shoulders and returned to cheers from the group, and we went on to read the next verse.

“And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’” (Luke 15:6)

We have seen over and over that those we connect with in jail and through out other outreach efforts need special, deliberate attention that we are now more inspired then ever to offer.

The shepherd gets personally involved to the point of laying the found sheep on his shoulders—making sure each one feels secure and protected. Raising up disciples of Jesus involves building trust through giving people personal attention and love (for a fuller treatment of this see The Beautiful Gate: Enter Jesus’ Global Liberation Movement.

Sometimes sheep who have wandered can be difficult and wily characters. However the shepherd doesn’t correct the sheep but rejoices when he brings him home to his friends. We at Tierra Nueva feel called to bring those we find to the equivalent of “home,” which here doesn’t equal a return to the 99. Home evokes security, familiarity, safety, and friendship.

The shepherd calls together his friends and neighbors, inviting them to celebrate the sheep which was found.

Here at Tierra Nueva we are deliberately trying to implement this vision. We have a number of sites that serves as circles of friendship, where people are gathered around Jesus—the master Good Shepherd.

In our Tierra Nueva building these include our Sunday worshipping community, evening Psalms reading group, morning Gospel reading circle led by Julio and also our Monday and Wednesday Family Support Center activities. We also enjoy sharing weekly meals together after Sunday worship, and community events.

Outside the jail we include: Kevin’s pastoral assignment at Mt Baker Presbyterian Church in Concrete, Salvio, Victoria and Julio’s visits to migrant families in their homes, our weekly Bible studies in men’s and women’s pods in the county jail and with Spanish-speaking inmates at the nearby prison. We have developed a series of Bible studies that build upon each other, for our growing circle of gathered people, so that they can grow in their faith (See Guerrilla Gospel: Reading the Bible for Liberation in the Power of the Spirit).

Through our weekly staff prayer and The People’s Seminary we seek to continually equip and strengthen our staff and others as shepherds adept at seeking, finding and gathering people affected by incarceration, addiction and immigration. We seek to follow Jesus in laying them on our shoulders, rejoicing, and bringing them into circles of safety and friendship, joining with the heavenly host:

“In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Welcoming and Becoming Strangers and Aliens

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We have spent the past ten days with Sub-Saharan African migrants in Egypt and Morocco—most of whom are undocumented. Spending time with these vulnerable and courageous people has refreshed our perspective on life and faith.

I share these thoughts on migration and immigration in response to disturbing news articles I’m reading about anti-immigrant rhetoric in the USA and Europe–and I hope to dissuade people of faith from any collusion with negative attitudes and the promotion of restrictive policies.

This past Sunday I preached at an underground church made up or largely undocumented African immigrants living in Morocco. Morocco is now the preferred crossing point for Africans seeking to enter Europe—though many have no choice but to seek passage via war zones like Yemen, or failed states like Libya.

At the Moroccan-Spanish border, high fences, dangerous waters and strict immigration enforcement are keeping migrants from leaving the African continent. Hundreds of thousands are blocked, settling in a foreign land. Many more are currently en route from countries ravaged by war, political impasses and poverty.

People told us of tremendous suffering in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo. “To tell people not to leave their country is like telling someone to not jump from a burning building,” a pastor from Congo told us. He and another Christian leader recounted going for days without eating in order to give what little they had to their hungry children.

Many of these migrants are Christians. We spent four days worshipping and studying Scripture together with a group of 40 French-speaking pastors and leaders who are taking our Certificate in Transformational Ministry at the Margins. They were from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Guinea– all French-speaking Sub-Saharan African countries.

People told us harrowing stories of having to pass through the Sahara desert, where they were robbed of everything of value (including their clothes and shoes) at gun or knife point by marauding gangs. Others told us of having to drink urine or die. Migrant women are often raped and forced into prostitution. We prayed for healing for women who had been infected with the AIDS virus through forced prostitution.

Pastors recounted how they regularly officiate at funeral services for acquaintances and even family members who drown in attempted crossings of dangerous waters at the meeting of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean in over-crowded inflatable boats. These leaders needed deep comfort and encouragement as they accompany migrants battered by traumatic experiences.

One man in his early thirties named Jean-Luc from Cameroon told me how God spoke to him repeatedly to leave his country and head to Europe as a missionary. He journeyed overland through Nigeria, Niger, Mali, and Algeria, working for small change along the way. Like many others he spent several months in the Sahara desert in Algeria, struggling to pull together enough money to pay smugglers to get into Morocco.

Jean-Luc has been in Morocco since February, but is finding it difficult to get work. He makes the equivalent of 6 to10 dollars a day, cutting firewood for bakeries. Yet his sights are set on God’s call on his life, wherever that will take him—to win people over to Jesus.

Morocco is 99% Muslim. It is illegal for Christians to evangelize Muslims. This leaves established churches (and other Christian organizations like the seminary where we were teaching) to focus their theological formation on African immigrants and other foreigners. Since migrant churches are made up largely of undocumented immigrants living their lives under the radar, there is little stopping them from reaching out to Moroccans or Muslim migrants.

People told us how they prayer walk their cities and neighborhoods, reach out to homeless migrant youth coming from new countries like Guinea, meet three times a week for worship and prayer and see their churches growing and the need to plant new ones in other cities. They were eager for our training to support their demanding, front-line missions.

Gracie and I worshipped this past Sunday with 60 plus African migrants in a damp, musty underground room accessed by a steep cement staircase. All I could think about as people danced and sang were Jesus’ words to his disciples: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Are we Western Christians counted among these meek?

I preached on Hebrews 11, which highlights Abraham’s exodus from his country to a place he was to receive as an inheritance.

“By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise, for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:9-10).

This Biblical passage seemed written for these dear people, and yet it appears to offer very little concrete hope for a secure material future in this world. This verse most certainly challenges today’s entitlement mentality, and growing security-conscious “me and my country” first attitudes.

“All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb 11:13).

Is this how you see yourself, as a stranger or an alien? If we have died with Christ and we have a new identity according to the Spirit, then I believe our identity according to flesh (nationality, race, social class…) must be submitted to a higher allegiance to Jesus and the Kingdom of God.

This passage in Hebrews 11 spoke directly to this African congregation. They “are seeking a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” I keep asking myself if this is in fact what I am seeking.

“Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God— that is your God!,” I proclaimed to radiant faces. “For God has prepared a city for you!” (Heb 11:16)

Hebrews 11:33-35 describes these very stranger/alien people of faith as having “conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection.”

The people told us their own stories of healings, face-to-face encounters with Jesus, and even resurrections from the dead that they had witnessed. Others could certainly identify firsthand with adversities like “mockings and scourgings, chains and imprisonment…being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (Heb 11:36-38).

As I read on about “people of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground” I asked the congregation “how many of you have wandered through the Sahara desert?”

Hands went up around the room, including those of some who were still children and adolescents! They are counted among the people described as heroes of faith—and God is not ashamed to be called their God! These are the meek who will inherit the earth, “having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect” (Heb 11:39-40).

As we fly home now, I am thinking of the thousands of migrants from Africa heading to Europe and Central Americans en route to the United States. I know from years of travel to Honduras that gang violence and poverty make life near impossible.

May we not harden our hearts to the poor and desperate.

Undoubtedly many of these migrants are people of deep Christian faith, willing to risk all to seek a future. I hope that we will not oppose the spiritual renewal God wants to bring into our nations through those who come bearing good news. I hope we can welcome vulnerable migrants, keeping our ears open to legitimate asylum claims.

Rather than taking the side of border and law enforcement, may we identify with the one who “has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). May we remember some of the earliest appeals in Scripture to embrace the foreigner.

‘The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” Lev. 19:34

“Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body” (Hebrews 13:1-3).