4th Sunday of Easter (4/29/2007)

Homilist: Fr. Donald Brick

In the Gospel, Jesus refers to us as a flock and a shepherd. I came from a farm– it was a perfect ground for sheep. I came from cattle and one of things you learn being on a farm is what goes on in the lives of animals. One of the differences I learned between cows and sheep help us to understand this Gospel. You push cows if you want them to go somewhere. If you push sheep they just get behind you. They do not go at all where you want them to go. Cows need to be pushed and sheep need to be lead. It is really true you can make a lot of noise and you can scare the sheep but eventually they will try to get behind the horse or jeep or whatever you are trying to use. It is like herding chickens or kittens. The sheep are that way, but sheep are easily lead and that is what shepherds do. The do it on horses and on jeeps.

The second thing is that strangers make them nervous. If you go into a herd of cattle they do not know the difference between a friendly farmer and a stranger, but sheep do know the voice of the shepherd. It is actually true it calms them and in some ways it might be the image of you mothers who know about your children when they are babies, even before they seem to know who you are if they know the mothers voice it is different than the voice of the uncle, aunt or friend. It gets the babies attention and it calms them down and Jesus is using that image in today’s reading. The image of a sheep is very common in the bible. The word sheep appears more than 450 times in the bible. It is a primary image of our faith.

The Shepherds in the bible are the leaders in the community. Abraham was a shepherd. Abraham our father in faith, the father of the Jewish nation. Who lead the Jews out of slavery in Egypt to the promised land? Moses, what did he do for a living? He was a shepherd. King David before he was a king, what was he? He was a shepherd. The reason I mention all these things is having the imagery and understand the situation helps us to understand this short Gospel passage where Jesus talks about the Shepherd and the sheep.

First, let us talk about the sheep. He tells us that the sheep hear his voice. The question we ask in the church today, do we listen for, and then listen too and then hear the voice of our Shepherd. Are we anxious to hear the Lord speak to us. A way to gage this in the spiritual life is with this question: Do you pay any attention to the scriptures when they are read on Sunday or Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday if you go to daily mass? Do you have any desire to read the scriptures at home? It is the voice of God. This is the word of the Lord. Are we looking for this word? Do we believe that God speaks to us not in this life in our present circumstances? Christians do believe that because we have a Good Shepherd who does not abandon us. We need to listen for Him and then after we listen for Him. We have to listen to Him to pay attention to what He says and to hear it down deep in our heart. This would be true not only of scripture but also of our prayer. A man of prayer is someone who listens to the Word of God and then when God speaks we really listen.

But that is not enough because Jesus says not only as sheep do we recognize His voice and they follow me. It is that double thing for Christians it is not just about listening it is also about doing. It is the Acts of the Apostles. It is not the thoughts or the wishes of the Apostles it is about what they did. If we are going to be a church of the new Pentecost and the New Resurrection we have to be women and men who listen too and then follow the Good Shepherd when He calls.

There is never a moment in the Acts of the Apostles when someone is not after the early disciples of Jesus. In this particular passage it is the people who were jealous of them when they were preaching in Antioch, and then the women of prominence, the women had a lot of power, and the leading men of the city. It said they stirred up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas.

Those who grew up in the 50's, 60's and even 70's kind of expect the Church to be in a period of peace. It was socially acceptable to be Catholic and it was a nice thing and we were getting ahead in the world and becoming prominent in the business and economic life of our country. We came to expect the ordinary relationship of the Church to the culture is one of peace. If we look at the Acts of the Apostles that is not ever true. Some prominent theologians have said that the ordinary relationship of the Christian to the world is to expect Martyrdom. Certainly that would be expected of our brothers and sisters in the world that is hostile towards Christianity correct? One of the things we learn about the Church if it is the authentic church of the Acts of the Apostles, a church of the Resurrection and descending of the Holy Spirit is that it is a church of conflict. We should not expect the teachings of Christ articulated by the Church are to be accepted by the culture. If we are peaceful in the culture in which we find ourselves whether it be the culture of pornography, or the culture of consumerism, or the culture of abortion, or divorce. If we think that is the way it is then we are not thinking like disciples of Jesus, because this is not faithful to the live of grace we receive in our baptism. We need to look at ourselves and examine whether we are the Church.

The last line is very important because it is repeated several times in the Acts of the Apostles and it is repeated especially after Paul and Mark or Barnabas get beat and thrown into jail. The refrain that constantly appears is this the apostles were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit. It is interesting that is precisely at the time when there is rejection and persecution that they are filled with joy, because they know the Lord present in their lives and they are filled with the Holy Spirit to go forth to be the missionary Church in a new and special way.

This reading tells us something about the Shepherd which is important to understand our relationship with Christ. It tells us that the Shepherd knows His sheep. Now most of us believes that God loves us I think but I do not think we have any sense on most days how much God loves us. Would you like to know God? Would you really like Him personally? Would you like to have a revelation of God that was really real? Sure you would! But do you ever think that God wants to know you? He wants to have a really real encounter with you. This is also true! God is constantly telling how much He wants a relationship with us. The pagan understanding of God is He is there and created the world but does not care for us. The Christian understanding of God is unique in terms of the world religions. We have a God who pursues us and wants to know you in your uniqueness with all your faults and failings.

The second the reading tells us about the Shepherd is He wants to give us eternal life and for most Christians when we think of eternal life we think of life after death, so we have a God who wants to take care of us after we die. That is dismissing it pretty quickly, because when St. John speaks of eternal life He is not only talking about the life after our earthly death but He is talking about a different kind of life now, because of Jesus’ death and Resurrection we become new creatures and new men and women through our baptism and through our renewal of our baptism in each Easter season. God want to give us that gift. The Good Shepherd wants to give us that gift and we need to ask and it will be given to us. We have to really mean it when we ask we can not just say. If we ask the Lord to give us new life He will.

The third thing we learn in this reading is that each one of us is a gift to Jesus from the Father. In this reading, Jesus tells us that the Father has given us to Him as a gift. Do you think you would be a pretty good birthday gift to Jesus? Would you give you to Jesus? Really this is a wonderful theology of each Christian, each human person really, that the Father gives us as a gift to the Son. Then something happens and because of that, “No one can take us from His hand.” There are just a few words in the Gospel but they are words rich in meaning. You are a gift given by the Father to Jesus and you are in His hands and no one can take you away. Now you can leave the hands of Jesus yourself and that is what sheep do. They go across the road and they to greener pastures. They think another way is better. We are that way like sheep too. We can go away. When Jesus holds us in the palm of His hand it is not a tight grip it is a loving embrace and you and I can choose to wander away which is called sin.

This brings us to the second reading. In the Gospel reading Jesus is the shepherd and we are the sheep in the second reading Jesus is the Lamb it is a reversal of roles. If you look at this reading the reason Jesus can be our Shepherd is because He was first the Lamb of God who was offered on the altar of the cross for our sin. The Lamb of sacrifice become the Shepherd of God’s people. It is really a beautiful image. In this reading, we find an image of the Church, it begins, “I John had a great vision of a multitude which no one could count from every nation, race, people and tongue. The stood before the throne of the Lamb wearing white robs and holding palm branches in their hands.” Now anytime you see a picture of an early Christian with a palm branch that is a symbol that the early Christian is a martyr. It is called the palm of martyrdom. The word martyr comes from the Greek word to witness. It means that you and I who are a members of this great multitude called the Church means that you and I are called to be witnesses to Christ even to shedding our blood for Christ and what He stands for. The reading goes on, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Now how would you ever make a rob white in blood. It is the churches way of telling us in a symbolic way that you and I have been made white and our sins have been purified by the blood of Christ on the Cross. The reading closes with a promise to you and me if we are really faithful members of the church and if we are really transformed into this new life of Christ that He wishes to give us. This is the promise, “The one who sits on the throne will shelter them, they will not hunger or thirst anymore, nor will the sun or any heat strike them, for the Lamb who is in the center of the throne will Shepherd them and lead them to streams of life giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. It is God’s promise to you and me if we are faithful followers of Jesus the Good Shepherd.