I am the Good Shepherd

Homily for Fourth Sunday of Easter B - 21 April 2024

My first-hand experience of sheep farming many years ago when I was in my last year of school, proved that it is a less appealing than the idealistic, romanticised pictures we see of a shepherd leading his sheep. I found that catching a sheep is extraordinarily difficult. They are so skittish, and they react to the slightest movement, making it very challenging to catch one. I learned that the most effective method a catching a sheep is to pretend to the sheep as convincingly as possible that you are not trying to catch it. And at the last moment to dive with arm outstretched and hand-ready to grab a leg. They are much bigger and stronger than one would expect, so the next steps are crucial. Once you have a hand hold on the sheep’s leg, you have to drag yourself to the sheep and roll on top of it to pin it down. And then you call for reinforcements.

Good Sheperd Sunday

This fourth Sunday of Easter is known as Good Shepherd Sunday because the Gospel reading is always from the “I am the Good Shepherd” sermon of Jesus from John’s Gospel. It is a Sunday when we think of the shepherding love of God for us in Jesus.

This Sunday is also known as Vocations Sunday because it is a day when the Church prays for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Priests are called to be shepherds of God’s people, like Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Right from the beginning, Jesus intended that some of his disciples would teach, lead, and nourish his people with the sacraments. And right from the beginning these leaders were called shepherds. The word, pastor, comes from the Latin, pastore, which means, shepherd. Priests are shepherds or pastors, and the work they do is pastoral work.

The Shepherd-Sheep Relationship

For most of us here today, because we have always lived in a city, the image of a shepherd and sheep is rather foreign and perhaps not so easy to relate to, but consider that in the time of Jesus, a shepherd leading and pasturing a flock of sheep would have been a very common sight and Jesus’s use of this image would have resonated with the people who listened to him. They would have known so well the intimate relationship between a shepherd and his sheep.

In other contexts the image of sheep is not necessarily a positive one. If you had to refer to a friend or a neighbour as a sheep, they probably wouldn’t be happy with you. Yet, the most common way used to describe the relationship between God and his people, in the Scriptures, is the shepherd-sheep image. For instance, one of the best-known psalms, Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd, is a classic example of how God shepherds us, his people. The psalm speaks about the intimacy between shepherd and sheep. The Lord is our Shepherd; he guides us, nurtures, and protects us, and leads us.

This image of the shepherd-sheep relationship is also very common in the teaching and parables of Jesus. Remember the parable of the Good Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine and goes in search of the sheep that is lost. When he finds it, he brings it back with great joy carrying it over his shoulders. The Emmaus story in Luke's Gospel which we read part of last week is an illustration of this parable of the lost sheep. Like the shepherd who went in search of lost sheep until he found it and returned it to the fold, Jesus pursues the two disciples who are walking in the wrong direction and puts them back on course.

Our Need for a Shepherd

One way to enter into the profound and beautiful meaning of this Good Shepherd image is to consider our own need for the equivalent of a shepherd. If you think of it, it is pretty standard for us to often ask questions like: What must I do? What direction must I go in? What is this life about? Like sheep in the wilderness, we face challenges, dangers, insecurities, and complexities. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, helps us and guides us to navigate the maze of life with its demands, spiritual longings, and physical needs.

Jesus uses this shepherd-sheep image in our Gospel reading for today to describe who he is for us and our relationship to him. With this image of a shepherd, Jesus assures us that we can place our trust in him. There is a tenderness and compassion in him, and a love so great that he was willing to lay down his life for his sheep.

Jesus says that he knows his sheep and his sheep know him. This knowing is more than the ability to recognise a voice or a familiar face. The knowledge Jesus is talking about is an intimate, interior knowledge. Those who know one another like this are bound together from their insides out. Jesus claims that their mutual relationship mirrors his relationship with God the Father. The First Letter of John describes this relationship with God by calling us children of God.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, knows us intimately, and wants to establish a direct and personal relationship of intense love with each one of us. Jesus also says that his sheep know him. Can we say we really know him? He is the Good Shepherd but are we good sheep? Good sheep know their need for a shepherd. They seek to know the shepherd. They know what the shepherd has done for them and they are filled with gratitude.

Priestly Shepherding

In our first reading for today’s Mass from the Acts of the Apostles, we read of the shepherding, pastoral work of Peter, one of the first priestly vocations. Peter was inspired by his experience of the risen Christ, the Good Shepherd, to preach the Gospel. The essence of Peter’s preaching is that Jesus laid down his life for us so that we can receive salvation. Jesus himself gives the basis for this in the Good Shepherd Gospel by saying that he chooses to lay down his life for us and he will take it up again. This is precisely what we are celebrating this Easter season, that Jesus sacrificed his life for us on the cross, out of love for us, and to heal us and restore us to God.

You may or may not take this as a compliment, but I hope you will see the beauty in it, that Pope Francis has repeatedly said that priests need to have the smell of the sheep. Of course he means that priests are to insert themselves into the lives of their people, to know them, be close to them, and support them. Pope Francis is continually challenging priests to be like Jesus the Good Shepherd to their people. People must get a glimpse of Jesus in their priests.

As we enter more deeply into this intimate Easter relationship with Jesus our Shepherd, we realise that Jesus uses priests to concretely care for his people. Jesus calls us to live as families and Christian communities, in which we are served and nourished by the preaching and sacraments given to us by priests. This Sunday, young people are challenged to hear the call of the Shepherd, particularly to vocations to the priesthood. We are called to pray for young people as they discern God’s calling. May they have the courage to consider if God is calling them to service in the priesthood. Young people need to be encouraged and helped to recognise a calling. We speak of fostering vocations, which means creating an environment for young people and raising them, to be open to a vocation.

Vocations to the priesthood don’t often just appear out of nowhere. They come in the context of family, and friends, and parish life. Jesus himself says in the Gospel that we must pray to the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into the vineyard; but not only must we pray for vocations, we must work for vocations. We can ask our young people: Have you ever dared to consider that the Good Shepherd is calling you? What would it take for you to hear his voice? What would it take for you to respond?

This Sunday we are invited to be good sheep who know our Shepherd. We are invited to enter into an intimate Easter relationship with the Good Shepherd, who laid down his life for us.