“I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep.” (John 10:14-15)
The Shepherd has two credentials: his intimacy with his sheep (he knows them and they know him) and his total dedication of laying down his life to protect them
There is no need for words to explain today’s Gospel (John 10:11-18). Just open your eyes and look around you today. Look at those who endanger their lives to provide us with essential services – here is the presence of the Good Shepherd.
Look at those who literally and figuratively give their lives as first responders, as medical personnel, as accompaniers of the dying and the grieving – here is the presence of the Good Shepherd.
Open your eyes to see the presence of the Good Shepherd all around you saying: “I have no hands but yours, I have no heart but yours, I have no mouth but yours…”
In a letter to his mother in December 1808, St Eugene wrote:
I will just tell you that the Lord is rich indeed and above all very generous, for indeed he amply repays us for the poor little deeds we offer him. What does the world amount to? Indeed, far from setting any value on the sacrifice we make of it to God, ought we not to count ourselves most blessed that he lets us strip ourselves of all that is contemptible, abject, perilous, to receive in exchange all that is greatest, most consoling, in a word his very self.
If people but knew the gift of God!
Eugene’s wording – I want to turn away wondering what he is going on about. His language, the words he uses. I refuse to allow them to be a barrier this morning.
“…strip ourselves of all that is contemptible, abject, perilous…” What could be so bad, so evil, so dangerous? I begin to reflect and realise how this might be personal – something that is okay for many but which for myself might easily eat into my very soul. What could entice and entrap me?
There are many things that I have allowed to entice and entrap me – not because they were intrinsically evil in and of themselves, but because of how I used or abused them. “I looked for happiness outside of God…” I remember how I have allowed myself to be caught up in things; I think of my addiction to alcohol and drugs. Not evil for everyone but for me; how I focused only on them, allowing them to become the focus centre of my life, no matter what it took to get them. I used them to comfort myself, console myself, to value them above all else. Just one example but there have been many. They
were not evil in and of themselves, but what happened within me when I used or misused them led me away from being ‘human, Christian and holy’.
AA and their 12 Steps showed me a way back particular way of living pulled me back from that abyss and it was a very real gift from God. There have been so many gifts from God; how God has allowed other things to happen in my life so that I might see the true light behind their darkness.
Even this pandemic we are experiencing can be seen in different ways, for it has allowed, even demanded that we focus on ourselves, to do our personal ‘spring cleaning’ as it is and get rid of all that we don’t need or use. We begin to see the goodness of each other and how this is all gift from God.
God as our good shepherd in all instances of our lives.