Homily for Sunday, 21 July 2024– Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34

One theme is clear through all of the readings we hear today: That of shepherding. What (or who) is a shepherd; what defines a shepherd? What does God (or what does Jesus, in our Gospel) expect insofar as the conduct of a shepherd? How is God a shepherd; how does Jesus model for us how a shepherd is supposed to act?

In the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, all the shepherds, without exception, have been bad. And so God and God’s prophet, Jeremiah, scold them angrily: “Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the LORD”! But, still, who are the shepherds who have drawn God’s and the prophet’s anger? Who are “flock of [God’s] pasture” according to Jeremiah?

In the Ancient Near East at the time of the prophet Jeremiah, in the territory we would call the Middle East today (so not only Israel), the kings and tribal rulers of many nations were compared to shepherds. So it would seem that Jeremiah, whose prophecy mostly targeted the kings of Judah, the part of Israel that included Jerusalem, compared the kings of Judah to bad shepherds.

What were the kings of Judah doing wrong? Jeremiah wastes no time in laying out the charge against them: The kings of Judah, several of them, one after another, have misled and scattered “the flock of [God’s] pasture.” This is a serious accusation! I am not sure how well we are acquainted with sheep and shepherds, sisters and brothers. I have not seen many sheep around here; there is not much room for sheep to pasture in a city like Rochester, so say the least. But sheep need two almost competing things to survive and thrive: Sheep need a large amount of land to graze, to pasture. And they need somebody, a shepherd, to tend to them, to limit the (however large) area in which they are allowed to pasture, so that they do not become lost, injured, or prey to a predator.

From my limited understanding about sheep, it is actually quite difficult for a shepherd to scatter, to “mislead” sheep. Sheep will tend to stay near a shepherd for protection. It takes intent for a shepherd to scatter, to drive away, to do violence to sheep, to put them in dangerous situations so that they will flee the shepherd against their instinct. Sheep—figuratively, the “flock of [God’s] pasture,” the people of Judah—are vulnerable creatures. God’s flock in Jeremiah is the vast majority of the people of Judah of the time who were poor peasants, who may have earned enough wages from their work to subsist from one day to the next. The “flock” depended on the kings and other wealthy elites of Judah—the small minority of the people of Judah—to give them just wages for their labor; not to abuse their labor, take land away from the poor or do violence toward them.

So, this is why I say that, for Jeremiah to charge the shepherds, the kings of Judah, with misleading and scattering God’s flock is a serious accusation. Jeremiah charges Judah’s kings with intentionally endangering, doing violence and injustice toward the most vulnerable, the most marginalized, the poorest of the people of Judah, and enriching themselves greedily in the process. In Jeremiah’s time, the prosperity gap between the few wealthy and the many poor was great and becoming greater.

I do not like that my mind drifts in this instant toward a great little French phrase with some “bite” to it, but that is where my mind is going: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. (“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”) I feel compelled to ask: Is our society (or is the society of my home country, Canada, for that matter) any better than the one the prophet Jeremiah rebukes for its injustices toward the many poor and vulnerable, the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few?

I think this is an important question to ask ourselves, especially as we approach an election in this country, just a few short months from now. I want to be clear on a couple of points: First, it is not my place to endorse or denounce any specific candidate or party for public office, especially in the very midst of an election race as this country finds itself. You will not hear such an endorsement or condemnation of a party or candidate from me, with the power of the pulpit behind my words. I know (and I am sure many of us have heard) priests and other religious authorities endorse or denounce candidates or parties. I consider this to be an example of the kind of intentional scattering, misleading of the flock; an abuse of shepherding power that prophets like Jeremiah condemned.

Second, though, I think it is appropriate—and in line with the social teaching of our Church—to appeal to all of us (strongly) to vote, when it is time to vote, for the candidates who will best protect not our self-interested accumulation of wealth if we have it, but the basic dignity and rights of the most vulnerable, the least of our sisters and brothers. I want to be clear again: It is not wrong to be materially wealthy. Our Church defends the right to private property. Yet property, wealth, prosperity must serve the more fundamental rights of those who have the least. These must serve what our Church calls “the common good.” So, it is not wrong to be rich, but it is profoundly wrong when a few accumulate vast wealth while anybody—especially in a country as rich as these United States of America—lacks the means to obtain the basic necessities of life: Food, shelter, medical care, education…

Our Church says that “the common good” should govern how we vote. It should govern those who serve our nations in public office: Not material wealth or money first; not self first; not America first (or, in my case, Canada first) or any particular nation’s interests first; not military might first, but the most vulnerable, the least of our sisters and brothers, first. So I ask each and all of us: In good conscience, formed by prayer and through our Catholic faith, please consider how well the “shepherds” for whom you are inclined to vote, those who serve in public office, serve the least of our sisters and brothers first; serve “the common good” first. No candidate and no party will do this perfectly—far from it—but there will always be perhaps good choices, better choices, and best choices on the ballot. We have a beautiful thing called a democracy, something that the poor of the prophet Jeremiah’s time and still many people in many nations around the world today do not have. Please do not take this for granted; please vote.

Please exercise your good conscience in doing so, because the alternative to our free and wise exercise of conscience in this way is the triumph of evil. It is the triumph of injustice, self-interest at the expense of the poor, sin, vast wealth and power in the hands of few. And it is already bad enough, as the prophet Jeremiah shows us today, when bad shepherds are allowed to abuse their power, to mislead and scatter the sheep, God’s people, unchecked.

But there is something still more insidious than when “bad shepherding,” ignorance of the fundamental rights of the most vulnerable, the poor, is allowed to continue unopposed. Today Jeremiah includes an interesting play-on-words: He speaks of tending to, or caring for, the basic needs of the poor. Through Jeremiah, God accuses the kings of Judah, the bad shepherds: “You have not cared for” my sheep; tended to them. But God says, “I will take care to punish your evil deeds.” I will attend to, in other words, the condemnation of the bad shepherds’ inattention to the poor, the LORD says through Jeremiah.

And, in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus shows us what attending to justice, to the needs and rights of the vulnerable, looks like. Our Gospel reading today begins with Jesus’ apostles reporting to Jesus (I imagine with some pride, justifiably so) “all they had done and taught.” Yet Jesus says to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” Rest—for the greatest of apostles, prophets, ministers of our Church to the most newly-baptized member of the faithful—is essential. None of us can, or should be expected to, labor without rest, lest our work, including our service, our ministry in God’s name should become a kind of idol, a replacement for God.

Jesus balances his disciples’ need for rest, their vulnerability to idolizing activity, with our need for attentiveness, our need to attend to the poorest, those who most need his presence, his teaching; those who are “like sheep without a shepherd.” This is a difficult balance for us to keep; I know this all too well! This past week, I was on retreat with priests of my order. It was a much-needed time to “come away… and rest a while.” If we are good servants of the Lord, good Christians, God will constantly give us opportunities to attend preferentially to the least of our sisters and brothers. But God also calls us to attend to balancing our work (service, ministry) with rest.

We not only want to avoid becoming bad shepherds or being governed by bad shepherds, uncritically, unwisely, or selfishly choosing bad shepherds to govern us or, worse yet, not choosing (voting) at all. But our Lord also invites us to “come away… and rest a while.” The Lord is “moved with pity” for those for whom work, wealth, might, nation, partisan ideology, violence, and self-interest have become idols.

And he invites us to attune our ear, our spirit, our conscience so that we can better attend to the voice of justice, the voice of the common good, the voice of the most vulnerable to injustice and exploitation. That voice is the voice of Christ our Lord and God, the Good Shepherd.

Homily for Sunday, 19 July 2015

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5-6; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34

Are you here? This question is the only text in a nondescript black font on several billboards I saw this past week while driving from New York City back to Rochester. I suppose the effect of this billboard art project is to call into question the expression we see often, especially on maps: “You are here.”

Are you here? This question was so simple that it became for me, while driving, even a bit disturbing. Are you here? Of course I’m here! But are you really here? Yes, I am here, enjoying the scenery and the music on the radio; hoping I get home without any mechanical problems with my car; thinking about the ton of work I have waiting for me once I arrive at home… Wow, I’m hungry!... I need to get out and stretch so I do not become too tired by this long trip! Yes, I’m here, I think, but maybe I’m “here” just enough that I can drive well and attentively. Have any of us ever experienced being “here,” but just enough in the present to be able to achieve or complete a task?

From time to time have any of us felt like the “vast crowd” following Jesus in our Gospel reading today, or like Jesus’ first Apostles in the same Gospel? Jesus recognizes the multitude as “like sheep without a shepherd.” The people following him might have been able to say, “Yes,” to the question, “Are you here,” if only imperfectly. “Yes, we are here, along with our many worries of daily life. Yes, we are here, just present enough to function well, at least by appearance. Yes, but…” Jesus the Good Shepherd invites this disoriented and tired crowd to rest; to listen and to be fed by his Good News and later also physically. Mark’s Gospel says to us today that Jesus “began to teach” the crowd “many things.”

What does Jesus teach them? How does Jesus act as their shepherd? Here to teach is an act of shepherding. Would Jesus have taught them about living in peace? In his letter to the Ephesians; our second reading today  St. Paul says that Jesus “is our peace.” What better way to teach and to be taught about peace than to be in the presence of Jesus Christ? Jesus is no military leader. He is not a political or business elite (this is not to say that to have political power or wealth is wrong in itself). But Jesus is the humble shepherd. In him peace is not a feeling or something we promote when we feel like it, or when it suits our political interests; our ideology. In this way Jesus “is our peace” in person and so teaches us peace.

Did Jesus teach the crowd about justice? The prophet Jeremiah in our first reading describes the “righteous” and Good Shepherd, chosen by God from the line of King David, as first and foremost a just shepherd. The name God, through Jeremiah, gives to this shepherd; to the Messiah, is “the LORD our justice.” And so justice is the most important characteristic of the shepherd to be chosen by God to care for God’s people.

And what kind of justice does God, speaking though Jeremiah, want of his shepherds? A “shepherding” justice is justice by which we care especially for those most in need: Immigrants and refugees; those who are poor; the unemployed; the sick; those who long for forgiveness and mercy; those who experience divided households and families. The greatest injustice committed by the false “shepherds” Jeremiah reprimands is this: Not to care for those most in need of God’s flock. The greatest injustice is not to care for these most vulnerable out of compassion for them; until we are able to identify with them both in their joy and suffering; until, as our Pope Francis has said many times, we have on ourselves “the smell of the sheep.” This is justice. This is the only way to respond rightly to the question that now is much more than a clever saying on a highway billboard; that is a fundamental question of justice: “Are you here”? Are we here with the most in need; those who cry out most to God and to us for relief from their suffering; for an end to all forms of violence; for our kind presence, an image of the presence of Christ the Good Shepherd, working through us?

It would not have been a surprise, then, had Jesus taught the crowd following him about justice. Jesus “began to teach them many things.” Is it not probable that Jesus taught them about the kind of justice God wants of us? Justice, like peace, is the identifying mark of the Good Shepherd; of all of us to the extent we are shepherds; leaders. We are at the same time “sheep” of God’s flock and shepherds called to care for and to love one another. God calls us to be the authentic image of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, in our homes; in our places of work and study; in our country; in our world.

But all this talk about the importance of being examples of justice and peace; about being the authentic image of Jesus the Good Shepherd, could give us the dangerous idea that to be a leader; a shepherd is based on constant activity. Or worse, it could give us the idea that we can work effectively for peace, for justice, or for whatever other value of the Kingdom of God almost without a regular commitment to prayer (sometimes silent prayer; alone; us-with-God). But without God, to be the kind of shepherd; the kind of leader God calls us to be is impossible.

Does this not seem self-evident to us? But this is precisely the dangerous thinking that Jesus tries to correct in his own Apostles. In our Gospel reading today the Apostles return from a successful mission. With great enthusiasm they report to Jesus “all they had done and taught.” And Jesus invites them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” These words of Jesus reveal to us another identifying mark of the Good Shepherd: To know and to anticipate the needs of those for whose well-being we are responsible.

In this same Gospel today, Jesus recognizes the need of the crowd following him; a people “like sheep without a shepherd.” And even though his Apostles, amid all the success of their activity; their mission; their teaching do not recognize their own need for rest; for retreat; for prayer; to be alone with God, Jesus recognizes their needs for them: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”

Like Jesus’ Apostles, we as Christians will need at times to be more active in building the Kingdom of God in our world. We will be more active in our leadership of this Church of Jesus Christ; more active in promoting justice and peace. But at other times we will need to “rest a while”; to pray; to enter into intimate conversation (many times without words) with our God.

Jesus invites us, always with his help, to find this balance. I believe this is true not only for priests like me, or for women and men religious, or laypeople in active ministry. I believe this is true for all of us. On the one hand, activism almost without prayer will make us at best into good social workers (not that anything is wrong with social work of itself as a profession). At worst, this lifestyle will endanger our faith; our relationship with God. On the other hand, solitude without community; without activity; without an element of social justice is equally dangerous to our faith.

But if we find a balance we can be leaders and, yes, shepherds in the image of Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, in our Church and in our world. We can answer the question, “Are you here”? not with “yes, but”… but with a confident “yes”!

Yes, we act for peace; for social justice, supreme values of the Reign of God! At the same time, yes, we are so alive in our prayer, the way in which we recognize intimately the voice of Jesus, our Good Shepherd; in which we can rejoice in times of solitude in deserted places with our God! Firmly and with a meaning more profound than on any highway billboard, we can answer: “Yes, we are here”!

Homily for Wednesday, 25 June 2014– Ferial

Wednesday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time 

Readings of the day: 2 Kings 22:8-13, 23:1-3; Psalm 119:34, 35, 36, 37, 40; Matthew 7:15-20

Do any of us remember a great teacher; someone who continues to have an influence in our lives? I can think of several excellent teachers I had growing up: Teachers who explained difficult concepts clearly; teachers who were stern or gentle with me when I needed sternness or gentleness; teachers I admired for their sense of humor; teachers with memorable catch phrases or rhetorical style…

The Gospel of Matthew, particularly our Gospel reading today, presents Jesus as a great teacher. Jesus is remembered for phrases still commonly used, even outside of Scripture, for instance “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Jesus uses contrasts like a “good tree” that always bears “good fruit” versus a “rotten tree” that “bears bad fruit” to clarify more complex concepts like discernment of true from false prophets. Jesus uses rhetorical questions that, I am sure, were originally humorous if not mildly sarcastic: “Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles”? Jesus’ hearers’ response to these questions would have been an emphatic “No,” perhaps with a few laughs added as if to say, “Of course not!”

Amid Jesus’ clear explanations, memorable phrases, rhetorical questions, and even humor, though, is a serious message: There are many true prophets who lead us toward God and, in Jesus’ time as in ours, there are a few false prophets, wolves in sheep’s clothing who behave as though they are gods and so lead us away from the truth; away from God. For the false prophet, the message they preach is not about God but about them.

Good fruit from bad fruit or wolves in sheep’s clothing are not always easy to discern, but this kind of discernment is possible with prayer and sometimes with experiences of failure; of our own naïveté.

In the national parks of the Rocky Mountains a few hours’ drive from my native city, Edmonton, there are repeated signs warning tourists not to feed the bears. One of my favorite t-shirts from this park’s tourist shops shows a bear standing beside a sign that reads, “Do not feed the bears.” The bear wears moose antlers on his head and holds a sign that says “I am not a bear. Trust me.”

Wolves in sheep’s clothing do not usually carry signs that read, “I am not a wolf. Trust me.” And yet Jesus teaches that we can know true prophets from false prophets; true sheep from wolves in sheep’s clothing “by their fruits.” We can know true prophets; shepherds; teachers by how authentically they speak for the Good Shepherd; Christ the Teacher instead of presenting personal whims, opinions, or social trends as truth.

For a true prophet or a great teacher of our faith, “it’s not about me” but ultimately about God. And so we pray to be able to discern true from false teachers and prophets; to discern the presence of the Teacher, Jesus Christ, among us, especially when this discernment is not easy.

Homily for Tuesday, 10 December 2013– Ferial

Tuesday of the 2nd week in Advent

Readings of the day: Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 96:1-2, 3, 10ac, 11-12, 13; Matthew 18:12-14

“What is your opinion?” Jesus asks his disciples at the beginning of today’s Gospel: If one sheep strays from the flock, would the shepherd not leave the ninety-nine sheep that did not stray to search for the one lost sheep?

I do not know how each of you would answer Jesus’ question, but my inclination is that no shepherd in his right mind would leave ninety-nine sheep vulnerable to the elements and to predator attack to search for one stray sheep!

Of course, Jesus’ rhetorical questions are meant to surprise us, as they were meant to surprise Jesus’ earliest disciples, as to the depth of God’s love and mercy for us.

Isaiah also uses surprise and the image of a shepherd to describe how much God loves us and desires that none of us be lost; that we all be welcomed; that we all be one. Isaiah writes in the midst of Israel’s exile and destruction. Jerusalem’s temple had been destroyed; its elites deported to Babylon. And yet Jerusalem, or Zion, was to be God’s “herald of good tidings.” Jerusalem was to proclaim the love and mercy of God.

Today, to proclaim the love and mercy of God continues to be our mission, even as we are all in need of this divine love and mercy ourselves. How do we accomplish our mission as heralds of the love and mercy of God? Shortly after his election as pope last March, Pope Francis called upon us as Christians to smell like the sheep, not to hide from our responsibility to seek out the lost; the outcasts; those who have been ostracized for whatever reason in our world and from our Church.

If we go out to smell like the sheep; if we go out intent upon even a small daily act of kindness or mercy, to each according to her or his capabilities; if we go out seeking to bring back the lost; the outcast; the sinner, we will have proclaimed God’s own love and mercy well. We will have lived the memory of our Good Shepherd who searches out and brings back the one lost member of the flock over the ninety-nine who have not strayed.

We will have lived the memory of this season of Advent, and preparation for Christmas, of the baby who as the supreme act of God’s love and mercy first came to us in a lowly manger. How is this for smelling like the sheep?