John 10.22-30
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This past week of course we have been,
collectively, through a true spectrum of emotions with all the events which
have unfolded in Boston. It was hard to maneuver them at times. I couldn’t keep up with it all as times. And there were moments when letting fear win
out, when letting fear reign, was almost too easy.
For me
personally this past week was particularly hard. On Friday morning, one of my
closest cousins, Jackie, died in Milwaukee. Jackie was only a year
younger than me. She was a very successful basketball player in her college
days at NDSU and was one of the first members of the family (after me) to get a
Master’s Degree in our family. I was particularly close to her and her death has
hit me very hard.
In moments in
which innocent people die in horrible acts of terrorism and violence, when
loved ones die, it is hard in this Easter season to say, with
any real enthusiasm, “Alleluia.”
Last Wednesday,
at the Wednesday night Mass at St. Stephen’s, I mentioned that I had just
finished a wonderful book about the great Leonard Cohen song, “Hallelujah.”
If you do not
know this song, I highly recommend you listen to it sometime. It is an incredible song. The book, called The Holy and the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely
Ascent of “Hallelujah” by Alan Light, is a fascinating
look at this one song that has taken on so many different interpretations over
the last almost fifty years.
I still cannot listen to the Jeff Buckley version of the
song to this day, with its one long exhale at the beginning, without crying.
At one point in the book , a Presbyterian pastor, who utilized
the song in a service in Canada (Cohen’s home country), said this.
“There
are days, I am sure, when you and I and even the great King David could only
muster the cold and lonely Hallelujah. It may be that the cold and lonely
Hallelujah is a turning point that marks our salvation... The cold and lonely
Hallelujah is a surrender to the mystery and backhanded glory of God.”
This past week,
many of us have truly experienced the backhanded glory of God. And doing so, is not easy. In fact, it is
hard. But, this backhand glory of God is a reality.
This morning, on
this co-called Good Shepherd Sunday—the Sunday in which we encounter this
wonderful reading about Jesus being the Good Shepherd—we also encounter the
compassion of our God. Yes, even in the
backhanded glory of God, we also experience the compassion of God. This encounter with the Good Shepherd makes
all the difference in how we go forward, after that “turning point in our
salvation.”
This image of
the Good Shepherd is probably one of the most perfect images Jesus could have used
for the people listening to him at that time. They would have understood what a
good shepherd was and what a bad shepherd was. The good shepherd was the
shepherd who actually cared for his flock. He looked out for them, he watched
them. The Good Shepherd guided the flock and led the flock. He led the flock to a place to eat.
This is an
important aspect of the role of the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd didn’t feed
the flock. Rather the good shepherd led the flock to the choicest green
pastures and helped them to feed themselves. In this
way, the Good Shepherd is more than just a coddling shepherd. He is not the
co-dependent shepherd. The Good Shepherd doesn’t take each sheep individually,
pick them up, and hand-feed each one of them. Rather, he guides and leads the
sheep to green pastures and allows them to feed themselves. The Good Shepherd
also protects the flock against the many dangers out there. He protects the flock from the wolves, from getting
too near cliffs, or holes, or falling into places of water
Let’s face it,
there are many dangers out there. This past week, with all the events unfolding
steadily in Boston, and in our own personal lives, we know there are dangers
out there. And frightening dangers, nonetheless. There are many opportunities for us to trip
ourselves, to get lost, to get hurt.
If we follow the
Good Shepherd, if we allow ourselves to be led by him, we realize that those
pitfalls are difficult, yes, but they don’t defeat us. Of
course, the journey isn’t an easy one. We can still get hurt along the way. Bad
things can still happen to us. There are predators out there, waiting to hurt
us. There are storms brewing in our lives, waiting to rain down upon us.
But, with our
eyes on the Shepherd, we know that the bad things that happen to us will not
destroy us, because the Shepherd is there, close by, watching out for us. We know that in those bad times—those times of
darkness when predators close in, when storms rage—he will rescue us.
Most importantly
the Good Shepherd knows his flock.
“I know them and
they follow me,” Jesus says in today’s Gospel reading.
If one is lost,
he knows it is lost and will not rest until it is brought back into the fold. This is the kind of relationship we have with Jesus as the
Good Shepherd. We are know him because he
knows us. He knows us and calls us each by our
name.
In
Jesus, we don’t have some vague, distant God. We don’t have a God who lets us
fend for ourselves. We instead have a God who leads us and guides us, a God who
knows us each by name, a God who despairs over the loss of even one of the
flock. We have a God who even, in God’s backhanded glory, knows us and loves
and cares for us. All
these are important images, vital images to explain the relationship God has
with us and we with God.
But the Good
Shepherd doesn’t end there. This isn’t just about me as an individual and
Jesus. The image of the Good Shepherd
must be taken and applied by anyone. Any of us who follow Jesus are called to
be good shepherds in turn.. We must love
and love fully those who around us. We must care for those people who walk this
path with us. We must look out for our loved ones and even our enemies, and we
must shepherd them in whatever ways we can in our own lives.
Again,
this is not easy, especially when it seems we are lost at times, when we are
falling into the traps life sets before us, when we feel aimless in that
backhanded glory of God, when our alleluias feels cold and lonely. But,
that’s the way God’s backhanded glory works, sometimes. Sometimes, God’s works
through our brokenness and helps us to guide others in their brokenness. Sometimes the best Good Shepherd is the one
who has known fully what a lost sheep feels like, who knows the coldness and
loneliness of being that lost sheep.
So,
on this day in which we celebrate the Shepherd who leads and guides, let us not
only be led, but let us also lead. On this day that we look to the Shepherd who
guides, let us be guided and let us guide others. And let our alleluia on this Good Shepherd
Sunday, even if it is a cold and lonely Alleluia, still be an Alleluia
nonetheless. Let it be the sound we make, even in the cold and lonely places we
sometimes find ourselves in. And let us,
in that place, know that, even there, even there in the backhanded glory of
God, we are still experiencing the glory of God.
Amen.
1 comment:
Thank you, Jamie. I appreciate you.
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