A few years ago I had the privilege
of going to the Holy Land. 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 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 we have here in Ireland, which
are very nervous of people. They 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. Here 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.
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 the fact that it is first God who seeks us out and calls us to enter into a 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) 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 and 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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