FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER –B
Acts 4:8-12
1 John 3:1-2
John 10:11-18
The image of Christ as the Good Shepherd is one of the most endearing of Christian icons. Think of how many funerals where we have sung the 23rd Psalm: “the Lord is my shepherd.” All of this despite the fact that most of us have never seen a shepherd in the flesh. When I was newly ordained, I thought that not being part of a world which had shepherds might make it difficult for the children of the California parish where I was relate to Jesus as the Good Shepherd. At a school mass I suggested that maybe if Jesus were around today he might say, “I am the Good Principal.” That message was not well received; the students liked Good Shepherd better. It seems that children have an instinct for the significance of a Good Shepherd: someone who will lead them, protect them, show them the right path, nurture them, guide them to safety. In fact, there is a whole religious education system called the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Some images just work.
For Jesus as the Good Shepherd to do the leading, guiding, protecting we as the sheep must heed his voice. Your mother was shepherding when she said, “Don’t touch that hot stove. Look both ways before crossing the street. Eat your vegetables.” If we didn’t listen to her we’d have, at best, burnt fingers, honking horns and no dessert. Jesus as the Good Shepherd tells us how to act in order to stay safe and secure from all alarms. “I must lead and they will hear my voice.” How do we hear the voice of Jesus? What are we as his flock being told?
We hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in the scriptures, in the Bible. Today’s epistle says, “what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God. Yet so we are… We are God’s children now.” The Good Shepherd wants us to understand how precious, how blessed, how loved we are just in being ourselves. We are God’s children now even if we are a mess. We don’t need any other credential to be part of the flock of Jesus. From that truth the voice of the Good Shepherd reminds us that every person out there, everyone we meet, is similarly blessed because they share a family resemblance to Jesus. Love your neighbor as you love yourself because we are all children of God. This is particularly true, and hard to achieve, when the neighbor is making demands on us. That is why Jesus says: Whatever you do to the least, you are doing for me. The voice of the Good Shepherd tells us to forgive seventy times seven times, to love your enemies, to turn the other cheek, to stop worrying and stop judging. All these Biblical words show us how we are to live as the flock of Christ.
We also hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in the teaching of the Church. For two thousand years the Church has been reflecting of the revelation of God we have in Jesus. Today’s shepherds, those who serve as leaders in the church, have a desire to echo the voice of the Good Shepherd. When Pope Francis tells us that we have a spiritual obligation to care of the earth, our common home, he isn’t simply giving his opinion but continuing the message of Jesus for our time. When he reminds us that we have a responsibility toward the immigrants and refugees he is providing a contemporary application of the command to care for the hungry, and thirsty, the sick and the stranger, the naked and the imprisoned. We heed the message of the Church because it is a concrete manifestation of the voice of the Good Shepherd today.
Don’t forget, we also can each hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in our prayer. The Good Shepherd speaks to us in words of love. It can be a bit tricky hearing what God wants to say to us because our voice, our own desires can make it difficult to distinguish which is the voice of the Shepherd and which is ours. And there are times when we hear nothing, when we wait on the Lord and no word comes. That is why our prayer has to be consistent, even daily. It is only by praying that we learn to pray, that we learn to hear the voice of the Shepherd cut through the buzzing, booming confusion which makes up most of our lives. The Shepherd will speak to us but in God’s time, not ours.
However, hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd is not quite as straightforward as I have just described. Just as our personal prayer can be filled with other voices so the Church and, yes, even the Bible can speak in ways that obscures what God wants to convey to us. The Word from God comes to us not as a divine oracle with thunderous clarity directly from the heavens as in Cecil B. DeMille. Rather, God speaks through human instruments and those instruments – the scriptures included — are full of the preferences, prejudices, predilections, partialities, penchants, preconceptions, and proclivities that make up a human heart. Culture and custom can drown out the Shepherd’s voice – exhibit A, the acceptance of slavery in the Bible. But Jesus provides a yardstick in the gospel to test whether we are, in fact hearing God’s voice whether from Bible, Church or prayer – he wants there to be one flock and one Shepherd. We are truly hearing the voice of Jesus when we hear the call to oneness, to unity, to coming together. The green pastures and restful waters are meant for everyone. What a gift to have Jesus as our Good Shepherd. What a challenge to be the one flock who live truly as the children of God which we are. What a joy to know in the Lord’s own house we shall dwell, for ever and ever.
