Bonus Reading: Gathering the Scattered

Gathering the Scattered

Hearing many stories about sheep that went astray, I was intrigued with how the strong sense of responsibility was inculcated in the young. Saíd, a Bedouin from the Sinai, helped answer the question with an unforgettable story. By the time he was seven, his father regularly sent him out into the surrounding granite canyons of southern Sinai with their small flock of thirty goats for daily feeding. One day he returned at dusk with one goat missing. (Saíd had become distracted by the attention of a shepherd girl with another flock!) His father’s response was swift and, to my mind, harsh: “Go back out and don’t come home without it.” Even though the goat made its way back home by itself the next morning, Saíd’s father didn’t call for his son. 

The young boy searched the mountains for two days. 

When he returned home, frightened and embarrassed, his father made no apologies. Apparently this was the traditional way of learning responsibility for the family’s flock. Wow! 

As I thought about the young boy’s experience (and the incredible challenge of keeping goats together), it was hard not to sympathize with him. But another story from Mrs. Aref in Jordan revealed how important it is to take responsibility for animals, especially when they are separated and threatened. 

One night a frightening storm in the Jordanian mountains caused the tents to collapse around the animals. In panic, the flocks ran helter-skelter into the black night. The hired shepherd panicked and ran too. With thunder and rain above and slick rocks underfoot, the family members climbed and called, tracking their dispersed flock. By the end of that exhausting, dark, and rain-filled night, the Arefs tracked the scattered animals and gathered them under temporary shelter. 

In the morning they went searching for the hired hand who had deserted them in their hour of need. They were understandably angry! He was hiding behind the baker’s oven in a nearby village, afraid they would take his life.

And they could have. 

He had run when they needed him most. With these stories in mind, I now find it easier to understand the sentiment expressed in Ezekiel 34. God chastised the leaders of ancient Israel for not being shepherds. Like Saíd, distraction with their own concerns led to neglect of the flock, a passive expression of abuse. 

During the prophet Ezekiel’s lifetime, a storm of war came to God’s flock, Israel. They would scatter and be taken advantage of, and many would perish. All because their shepherds were careless and self-centered. The prophet describes the consequences: 

They were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them. . . . 

As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. (34:5–6, 12) 

Ezekiel was describing the dispersion of the Jews in the dark storm of their national exile. The nation was literally scattered across the Babylonian Empire. They had become sheep without a shepherd, a frequent designation in ancient Near Eastern literature for people without proper leadership.¹ The Babylonian rulers themselves knew that a good king was a “shepherd who collects the dispersed.”²

As a response to the plight of God’s flock, the Divine Shepherd vows to remove the non-shepherds and to go in search of his lost sheep personally: “I will seek the lost, gather the scattered, bind up the broken, and strengthen the sick” (Ezekiel 34:16 at). What a passionate portrayal of God’s intense commitment to his dispersed people. 

The arrival of this Shepherd came in the ministry of the Messiah Jesus. Seeing the crowds as sheep without a shepherd, he gathered them to himself. It’s amazing how many times the word gather is used in the ministry of Jesus (see Luke 8:4; 12:1). He purposefully surrounded himself with the exiles of Israel, forging a renewed community out of them.³ 

Jesus passed on this perspective to the leaders of the early church. In a letter addressed to “the twelve tribes scattered among the nations” (James 1:1), James wrote to believers as displaced aliens in this world, encouraging them to live by faith here as temporary residents. 

At the close of James’s letter he addresses a subgroup of the dispersed who have deliberately chosen to scatter and wander from God’s chosen path (see Psalm 95:10). To this tendency he encourages a good shepherd’s response: “My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins” (James 5:19–20). 

We might begin our reflections on the topic of believers getting lost with some introspection. Have we been wandering? One of my favorite hymns is Robert Robinson’s “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” The following lines come to me often: 

Unfortunately, this confession is all too often true for me.

As we turn our attention to our scattered sheep, let’s remember Paul’s words in Galatians 6:1: “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.” First we look inward with brutal honesty, and then we move toward gentle restoration. 

I suggest that we catalog the various ways people in our care wander off and get scattered, whether they are parishioners, employees, students, or children. Some scatter seeking pleasure over one hill or another. Seeking pleasure in work, alcohol, gambling, or pornography has led some to serious addictions. These have drifted from view; they are struggling and trapped in physical or psychological prisons. A pastor friend confessed how his marriage was almost destroyed because of a few nights one week surfing pornography on the internet. He let himself wander. 

Others are pursuing seemingly harmless interests. They have “lost their first love” for the Divine Shepherd (see Revelation 2:4). Among like-minded sheep they toy with New Age philosophy or flock compulsively around money-making endeavors. Some are scattering because of fear, running away from the very support systems that would help them. They are jumpy with rumors of change, hints of problems, a rumble in the sky. Do we see these little groups scuttling out of sight? They become homeless sometimes by choice, sometimes by circumstance. And the word from our Father who sends us out is, “Don’t come home without them.”

1. Numbers 27:17; 1 Kings 22:17. This is also a refrain in the “Lament for Ur” after the ancient city’s destruction. 
2. Joan Westenholz, “The Good Shepherd,” in Schools of Oriental Studies and the Development of Modern Historiography, Melammu Symposia 4, ed. Antonio Panaino and Andrea Piras (Milan: Universitá di Bologna and Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, 2004), 294. 
3. See Luke 15:1, the setting for the lost sheep parable.

Taken from The Good Shepherd: Forty Biblical Insights on Leading and Being Led © 2024 by Timothy S. Laniak.  Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing, Box 3566, Grand Rapids, MI 49501.  All rights reserved.