Still Responsible

The divine calling of elder brings a burden. It means you care for no earthly reason, and your caring cannot be expected to follow any human logic.
On the one hand, you can see how easily the sheeple love lies. Yes, the myths are preferred over truth. You’ve probably heard about the Mayan Calendar business. The popular version among the sheeple is the world will end on the 21st on this month. That would be fine with me, but I rather doubt it. That’s because the truth about the Mayan Calendar is simply a matter of celestial accounting, in which the next new cycle begins on that date. Even that isn’t unanimous among those clinging to that religion. So while the fake fear spread like wildfire, and still burns wildly out of control, the honest correction is not just ignored, but covered up by the sheeple. People in the main are stupid — defined as refusing to listen to the truth.
Calling them “sheeple” is not necessarily an insult, unless you consider it an insult to sheep.
But you can’t therefore dismiss them, much less hate them. The divine calling starts from the recognition people are stupid. That’s why they need elders, and it’s why God laid down the Covenant of Noah. Not just revealing the Laws, but adding a means to enforcement. It requires constant watching, just as shepherds do with stupid sheep. These days, that includes using dogs to keep them in line, which fits very nicely in the parabolic image. What we learn from proper divine symbolic logic is His plan for government under Noah was nothing resembling democracy. It calls for elders, ostensibly blood kin to whom everyone would tend to feel a sense of accountability, to make decisions based a wise understanding his flock will tend to be stupid.
The more of them there are, the more stupid they are. Not in every way, because with a strong presence of social training and pressure, most people prefer to stick to the customs. They are too focused on things which don’t matter all that much, but it’s as much as they understand. Sheep generally confine themselves to eating, drinking and making more sheep. While there are some good applications of that parabolic image, it’s also the bad truth of humanity. A big difference is how they are intelligent sheep better at getting themselves hurt. Yes, it’s cynicism, and it’s what God expects of His called elders. Indeed, a critical element in our cynicism is we need to constantly remind people God intended us to live in a tribal social system. They are current very stupid about that, but I keep trying.
That’s because I love as God loves. I don’t have any love He didn’t give me, so it pretty much has to look like His. Knowing the vast majority will not accept the truth, I keep promoting the truth with the same patience as any shepherd. Good will surely come out of it, but it’s a dirty job. It’s easy to just throw it all aside and walk away, but I can’t. I simply cannot do that. Nor can I change the sheep from being sheep. It’s not efficient by anyone’s standard, but it’s what we have to work with, and it won’t get any better — ever. Not in this realm, at least. So while on the one hand it sounds elitist to speak of them as sheeple, on the other hand, elders are the antithesis of the predators in elitist circles.
Allowing a resentment to grow will cripple your service as elder. I wrote a couple of days ago how many called elders are simply rejecting any sheep they can’t lead easily, by charging high fees for their shepherding (psychotherapists and life coaches). Charge a high fee and you can pick and choose your clients. Real elders don’t work like that. We take what comes, expect the worst simply as a matter of routine, and rejoice at the few moments when someone gets it. Meanwhile, we let the general climate of resistance from the sheep, and even hostility, just roll off our backs.
There are limits to the parable, of course. I don’t go after a wandering sheep with physical force, but with words and moral persuasion. If the Spirit of God doesn’t keep you in safe pasture, there’s nothing I can do for you. I’m not a leader; it’s not the same thing as elder. It’s the worldly component of what we all imagine pastors do when they serve properly. Pastors serve in the same fashion, but on a spiritual level. While my aim is spiritual, my calling is to work on the worldly level of operations. Pastors do the same work on a spiritual level. Our work overlaps a lot, but it requires both of us; that’s how God does things. He has a civil leader and a ritual leader. It’s part of Zechariah 4. That’s how churches are organized in the New Testament, but Western Christians never understood this.
You come to the point you love like God, knowing it is mostly one-way, a unilateral love where you give, and they sometimes notice that it is love. You don’t let frustration ruin it for you, because you are the storehouse of sacrificial love. You don’t really need them in the human sense; you need the sanity of obeying your calling.
You still love them, and you are still responsible.