Good Shepherd Homily
When I hear Jesus calling himself the Good Shepherd, the first thing that comes to my mind is a catechetical program for kids. It’s called the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, or CGS for short, and it’s a Montessori-style Catholic curriculum for children, beginning with toddlers and continuing through confirmation.
CGS was created in Italy and you can find it all over the world. The CGS curriculum moves at a slower, quieter pace than “normal” classes. A session takes at least 90 minutes, and a special room has to be set aside and decorated in a certain way, and so I am always grateful when administrators find a way to fit it into a school or parish’s busy schedule.
CGS engages both the head and the heart. The classrooms are typically decorated with lots of well-made wooden objects, beautiful fabrics, little liturgical and Biblical sets and dioramas that the kids can pick up and handle. The physical environment of the classroom communicates patience, a deep wholesomeness, an invitation to joy and wonder. You walk into these rooms and the goodness washes over you.
Anyway, that’s the first place I go in my heart when I imagine Jesus as the Good Shepherd. If I stick with the image, I start to see Jesus guarding a meadow, a paddock, a space clear and safe for everything that is innocent, beautiful, and true. A space where we, the sheep, frolic and gambol, on lush grass, under the Lord’s steady, protective, loving gaze.
The thing is, when I hear Jesus call himself the Good Shepherd, the second moment or set of emotions that wash over me, after I’ve blissed out on CGS and paddocks, is when I actually get a little angry. I start to argue with God: “you know, there are an awful lot of wolves out there. Where are you? And some of your hired men, some of the adults who are supposed to be the shepherds on your behalf? Many of them do run away and lose their courage when the wolves circle. I also see more than a few sheep drifting off, getting devoured, plucked. Where are you, good shepherd?”
But then comes a third moment: the Bible study phase. When we study these scriptures, we learn that when Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd, he is self-consciously aligning himself with an older passage from Ezekiel 34:
“Woe, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat; you clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatted calves, but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak; you have not healed the sick; you have not bound up the injured; you have not brought back the strays; you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and scattered they became food for all the wild animals…they wandered over… all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them….As I live, says the Lord God…I am against the shepherds, and I will hold them accountable for my sheep…. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths…I myself will search for my sheep and will sort them out…I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and…darkness. I will bring them…into their own land, and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses…they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strays, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.”
When Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd, this is the mantle he’s taking on. When he adds Good Shepherd to his many titles, he is staking a claim to divinity. He is eyes wide open about the danger we’re all in. Right there from the beginning, he is not denying the suffering, but he is promising accountability to the wolves and hirelings. He will step up himself to gather and feed the flock.
With Ezekiel in mind, we can re-read today’s Gospel with new confidence. Today’s Gospel explains how he feeds his flock, how he gathers us in, how he deals with wolves.
Jesus says that he is the good shepherd because “I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” The sheep hear his voice, and we know him in a way that echoes the intimacy between the Son and the Father. As we tune our hearts and minds to his voice, we enter into the inner life of the Trinity.
Further, “a good shepherd lays down his life….No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.” Here Jesus refers to his free, atoning, reconciling sacrifice, followed by his resurrection, a revelation that his patient suffering was not meaningless and has been vindicated. When we participate in the Eucharist, we participate in this redemption, and profess our faith in his patient way of responding to evil.
Friends, the imagery of the Good Shepherd is an invitation to mysticism. This Gospel does not deny that there are wolves and hirelings in the world. But as we know from the twenty-third Psalm, the shepherd creates a space, a new way of living even in the valley of the shadow of death. The Lord is our shepherd, and we shall not want because he leads us on the right paths, he shows us that better way.
After my fit of anger at the wolves and hirelings, after Bible study to unpack what it all means, it turns out that the things we told the kids were true all along. The Good Shepherd has a catechesis for adults too. His classroom might fit awkwardly with busy schedules and world-weariness. But if we are intentional about putting ourselves in times and spaces where his voice can be heard, if we allow ourselves to become familiar with his voice, he will feed us and restore the soul.
