Fourth Sunday of Easter 2023
We have a great privilege this week. Today is, as most of you know, Good Shepherd Sunday, and not just for us Catholics. But in the weekly readings, we are also given texts telling us more about our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. Still, lest we just think of a fellow in a robe and beard cuddling a little lamb, let’s allow St. Peter to have the first words:
Unfortunately, as we have the reading from Acts here, over twenty verses are omitted from Peter’s speech to the crowds. This is Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit has just moments before descended on Blessed Mary and the other faithful disciples, causing them to break out in praise in languages they didn’t even know. The phenomenon has attracted Jews from all over the world to their vicinity, as they hear their own language from East Armenia or west Cyrenica. Peter quotes from the Book of Joel to interpret. The Holy Spirit has been poured out because of the sacrifice of Jesus, His rising from the dead, His victory over sin and death. And the Spirit is not just poured out into Jewish hearts and minds, but is available to all the world, through belief in Christ and sacramental life, beginning with baptism, not with John’s baptism of repentance only, but Jesus’s baptism in the Holy Spirit and water. That was the whole purpose of Jesus’s baptism three years earlier, and His sacrificial life, death and resurrection, to bring us into intimate union with the reality of Christ, and so form His Church.
That’s the kind of shepherd we need, not just protecting us from our enemies, but defeating them and making us dumb sheep like Himself, even like Himself as shepherds to others. This is why we are anointed with oil in our baptism and some other sacraments, to make us priests, prophets and Christ-like leaders. This is why we not only repent of sin, but resolve to lead a life without sin, and with daily habits of virtue.
Fast forward a few years to St. Peter, bishop of Rome, leading His community but writing as chief overseer to other churches in what looks like a lengthy sermon. In his first letter, he is here writing everyone, but specifically targeting servants, probably slaves of wealthy Romans who were often attracted to the Christian Way. He has just told them to submit respectfully to their masters, even if they are abusive. Now Peter is not defending slavery. But he knows well what happens after a slave revolt. The story of Spartacus and others was well known. Best to be at peace until all the world understands the evil of slavery. There is grace for those who are beaten and pray for their persecutors as Jesus did. But only when the beating is unjustified. This leads Peter into an opportunity to preach about the loving path Jesus took to the cross. He could have called on a legion of angels to crush the Romans, but He didn’t even curse. He forgave. Thus He bore our sins in His own soul and body and offered Himself for our salvation to the Father. That is what we commemorate when we gather for Eucharist. And it wasn’t just the Romans with their nails and whips and rude cross that were forgiven. No, we, too, straying sheep who selfishly make bad choices, we too are given the chance to look to our Divine Shepherd and return to the fold.
Let’s consider what sheep meant in the time of Jesus and the Apostles. “Sheep produce milk and wool–they are not used for meat. Sheep are also pretty stupid, so they need shepherds to keep them from getting into trouble and being killed. Every night the sheep are driven in from pasture to a kind of low-walled fort where they spend the dark hours. The shepherds take turns guarding the flock–one stays up all night, right in the little entrance to the sheepfold. He is the gate. Then, the next morning, each shepherd comes to the sheepfold and calls out to his own sheep, who hear and follow him. Sometimes they even have special names for each sheep. Obviously, whoever does not pass through the gate to get to the sheep is an enemy–a wolf or robber.
“Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He is also the gate to the sheepfold. He is both. His relationship with us is not that of a user, but of a friend, one who nurtures us toward growth. Like sheep, we know the voice of Jesus, and we can tell his voice from that of a stranger, or someone who wants to seduce us into a new doctrine. We know Jesus’s voice because His word is clear.” We hear His word every time we gather to celebrate our Christian identity, and to offer our own gifts and take the wonderful gift that is Jesus Himself. In word and sacrament, we taste and see the goodness of the Lord, and we are happy in this life, even when circumstances are unpleasant. Because as Augustine taught, Jesus is the shepherd, closer to us than we are to ourselves.
