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| A shepherd leading his sheep in Palestine |
Last week I had the privilege of going
to the Holy Land for the second time. It was an extraordinary
experience to suddenly be standing in the very places that we so
often read about in the Scriptures and to see what they look like.
Two things I saw struck me, especially in relation to what Jesus says
in today’s Gospel. One day during my first trip, we were
celebrating mass in the place that is celebrated as ‘The Shepherd’s
Field’ where the shepherds are said to have seen the angels in the
sky when Jesus was born. As we were getting ready to celebrate
this mass the heads of two sheep popped up over a hill that was at
one end of the field and looked at us. Then they came towards
us and right into the middle of us, sniffing us, poking around in our
bags and curious as to what we were about. They weren’t
afraid of us at all. It struck me that they were a very
different kind of animal to the sheep I grew up seeing, which are
very nervous of people. These sheep even looked quite
different. Later in the trip as we drove along in our bus I
noticed on one of the dusty hills that we passed, a shepherd walking
along with a line of sheep behind him, one after the other.
This is not something you see here either. Where I grew up the sheep
have to be herded and driven, but it made much more sense of several
things that we hear about Jesus ‘leading’ his sheep and the words
in today’s Gospel, “I know my sheep and mine know me.” In
this case they were obviously following the shepherd because they
knew him and trusted him. They had some kind of relationship
with him. I understand that the shepherds who look after those
kind of sheep also have individual sounds to call each sheep.
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| Wilderness around Palestine |
This Sunday is known as Good Shepherd
Sunday, and also vocation’s Sunday. The two are very much
linked together. We usually think of a vocation in terms of a
religious vocation, but in fact only a very small percentage of
people are called to priesthood or religious life. However, all
of us have a vocation, or ‘calling’ (which is what the word
vocation means), and that calling is to live the life of faith.
One of the things that is quite
striking about the Christian and Jewish faith is that God is the one
who seeks us out first and calls us to be in relationship with him.
God is the one who comes looking for us. In the book of Genesis when
Adam and Eve have suddenly become aware that they are naked and they
are afraid, it says that God came to the garden and called to them.
“Adam, (which means ‘human being’) where are you?” But
after the first sin (the ‘original sin’) the first humans are now
afraid and suspicious of God. Adam replies, “I heard the
sound of you in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked,
so I hid” (Gen 3:10).
One of the consequences of the first
sin (whatever exactly that was we don’t know, except that it was
some kind of a rejection of God’s authority, or rebellion against
God’s word) was that we became afraid and suspicious of God and of
each other. We still suffer with this fear/suspicion of God.
After a natural disaster, or even a tragic accident, how often do we
hear it said, “Why would God do this?” We are not always
convinced that God is good or that God has our best interests at
heart and yet this is what God continually tells us through the
Scriptures: “My plans for you are for peace and not disaster.”
“I have loved you with an everlasting love.” In spite of
our mistrust and confusion, God continues to seek us out, to help us
know him. And in the Gospel today Jesus gives the beautiful
words, “I am the good shepherd...the one who lays down his life for
his sheep.” The Lord gives everything for us, including his
life.
Our primary vocation or calling is
simply to respond to God and to enter into relationship with him.
How we respond to that call is through our life of faith. It is
never forced on us; God simply invites us to follow him. The
wonderful thing is that it can be lived in any way of life and in any
circumstance; also that there are as many ways of living it as there
are people. The tragedy is that often we get so caught up with
the worries of this life that we lose sight of what our life is
about. Sometimes it is only when a tragedy happens, or we
become sick, that we are jolted awake and we begin to realise that we
are forgetting what we are here for; that is, to come to know God, to
learn to love and serve and to choose God who is our fulfilment.
Our first calling is to be in
relationship with God.
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