A Concord Pastor Comments: The text of my Good Shepherd Sunday homily

A number of folks have requested the text of my homily for Good Shepherd Sunday

Today presents a kind of “preacher’s dilemma.”

Consider the following...

It’s the Fourth Sunday in the Easter season which is often called Good Shepherd Sunday because the gospel each year on this Sunday refers to Jesus as our Good Shepherd - which also happens to be the name of our parish, making today, in effect, our patronal feast...

And, today is also the World Day of Prayer for Vocations to the priesthood and religious life...

And, it’s the First Sunday following the leaked report on the Supreme Court’s deliberations on Roe v. Wade

And - it’s Mothers Day!

(And, I've decided to excuse myself from having to preach about the Kentucky Derby!)

The “preacher’s dilemma” lies in prioritizing these topics and trying to make of them a genuine opportunity for considering what God and our faith are asking of us.

Well, I’m choosing to begin with the last item I mentioned in my detail of the preacher’s quandary: I’ll begin with Mothers Day. And I’m starting there because it occurs to me that the first shepherd any one of us ever knew, in fact, the first shepherd EVERY one of us ever knew - was our mother. Before I had any intelligent consciousness of my own being, my own identity, my own existence, my mother was shepherding me into the world, holding me in the sheepfold of her womb, carrying me, nourishing me, protecting me, loving me, 24 hours a day, whether she was awake or asleep, 24 hours a day for about 9 months.

And for those nine months in the womb, mother and child are one in a relationship rivaled only by the relationship God has with each one of us. For, like a mother, God shepherds my life - and yours - holding each of us in the sheepfold of his divine heart, carrying, nourishing, protecting and loving us 24 hours a day, whether we’re awake or asleep, 24 hours a day from the moment we came to be to the end of time and then into eternity.

My mother was the first good shepherd in my life but she was not the last. I could not begin to count the number of people in my life who have held me in their affection, carried me through hard times, nourished me with food, kindness and wisdom, protected me from any harm they saw in my path and loved me, faithfully and unconditionally, 24/7, whether I was awake or asleep, conscious or oblivious to the love they had for and offered me.

Of all those who have loved me like a shepherd - my mother was the first. And none since my mother have loved me in just the way that she did. And the same can be just as true of adoptive mothers and foster mothers, of all the women who mother us, care for us, nourish and protect and sustain us, just as God loves us in Jesus, who is the Good Shepherd of us all.

And it’s just this love, that the Church (whom we also call - Mother), it’s just this relationship that the Church reveres, protects, defends and seeks to shepherd, in her teaching on the life of a child in the sheepfold of a mother’s womb.

Over the last 50 years or more , we’ve seen that intimate sheepfold of a mother’s womb become the arena for a moral-political contest. Two sides, armed with opposing philosophies and vocabularies, have battled it out:

On one side, those who champion women’s rights: rights which have grievously trampled on, by men, for millennia.

And on the other side, those who champion the unborn: the most innocent and defenseless of all human beings.

I wish there were , but I don’t believe there is, an easy resolution here. And I’m certain it will take much more than a decision by the Supreme Court or any action by a state legislature to achieve, to accomplish what we really need.

What we really need is someone or something to shepherd, to lead us - out of - a permissive, self-indulgent, throw-away culture that annually yields hundreds of thousands of unwanted pregnancies.

We need someone or something to shepherd - to guide us towards - a deepening reverence for personal integrity and a respect for human sexuality with its natural and inherent moral and political consequences and demands.

Now, to be sure: the political and legislative processes in our nation are both powerfully and morally significant and Christians have a moral responsibility to attend to, to participate in, the shaping of the laws that govern our land. But that alone doesn’t fulfill our responsibility as people of faith.

We need also, in our personal lives, in our roles as parents, priests and parish to more faithfully follow and teach the word, the truth, and the wisdom of our Good Shepherd, who calls on each of us - to shepherd one another.

I’ve spoken already of how our mothers are the first shepherds in our lives. Well, fathers are meant to be our shepherds, too. In fact, we’re ALL called to serve as shepherds, shepherds in the sheepfolds that include: our families, our children, our siblings and our neighbors; our coworkers and our friends, our community and our parish.

We’re called, as all shepherds are called, to hold one another in the sheepfold of our heart, carrying them, nourishing them with truth and wisdom, defending their dignity and protecting them from harm.

We’re called to clear and create a sheepfold, a pasture, a culture, where all can live in peace and where the rights of all are carefully reverenced, protected, defended and preserved.

We’re called to love one another as our Good Shepherd loves us, as he loved us when he laid down his life on the Cross for us, his flock, that we might have life - and have it to the full.

Such love, such self-giving love for others, is the vocation that is ours, all of us, simply by virtue of our being the baptized. And that’s why we pray today for new shepherds, new vocations, to lead us, shepherds who will spend their lives calling all of us to shepherd one another in love.

In today’s gospel, we heard Jesus speak these words to us:

I know my sheep - and they hear my voice and they follow me.

Pray with me that we who know ourselves as the people of Good Shepherd Parish might come to know ourselves as shepherds of one another - and of our neighbor everywhere.

And may we, by our words, our deeds and our prayer, come to know our Shepherd’s voice and follow where he leads us.

And for the moment… he leads us to the Shepherd’s table to be nourished by the Eucharist by the life he offered for us, his flock.

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