May 15, 2011 - Fourth Sunday of Easter
Reading 1 - Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice, and proclaimed: “Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the other apostles, “What are we to do, my brothers?”
Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call.” He testified with many other arguments, and was exhorting them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand persons were added that day.
Responsorial Psalm - Ps 23: 1-3a, 3b4, 5, 6
R. (1) The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
beside restful waters he leads me; he refreshes my soul.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
He guides me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side. With your rod and your staff that give me courage.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
You spread the table before me in the sight of my foes;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for years to come.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
Reading 2 - 1 Peter 2:20b-25
Beloved: If you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good, this is a grace before God.
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten;
instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
Gospel - John 10:1-10
Jesus said: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate
but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice.
But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.”
Although Jesus used this figure of speech, the Pharisees did not realize what he was trying to tell them. So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate.
Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”
Reflection
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the brilliant 13th Century theologian, the human soul can be divided into three parts:
(1) The intellect
(2) The emotions (or “passions”)
(3) The will
The intellect and the emotions seem pretty straightforward--the intellect is the part of me that I am talking about when I say that I think, or know, or understand. The emotions are what I mean when I say, “I feel.” My intellect apprehends a piece of information, e.g. that the there has been a very great natural disaster in Haiti that has left millions of people without food and shelter, and I feel an emotional response to this cognitive comprehension. The intellect, colloquially referred to as “my head” or “my brain,” knows something, and my emotional soul, commonly referred to as, “my heart,” feels a corresponding emotional reaction to this knowledge.
So what is the will, exactly? According to Aquinas, it is the part of me that decides to do something about this knowledge. It is the capacity to choose, to act. I hear that there has been a disaster in Haiti, and so I know that the people there are suffering. This suffering affects me, and so I feel as though an action on my part is required. I choose to pick up my cell phone and donate $10 to the American Red Cross by way of text message. I willed to do that.
It is not automatic; there are plenty of instances of having knowledge that ought to compel us to action that do not therefore do so. “I know that I should quit smoking.” “I know that I should eat more vegetables.” “I know that driving over the speed limit dramatically increases the possibility that I will wind up in an accident.” And yet, many of these bits of knowledge fail to translate into any sort of change in my behavior. Why? Because affirming something intellectually as true and acknowledging something as being objectively “good” does not necessarily entail willing ourselves to address it. There has to be a powerful desire to act that wells up within us. Comprehension, by itself, isn’t enough.
Today’s Gospel passage is part of the well-known sermon delivered by Jesus in which he refers to himself as “The Good Shepherd.” But Biblical Scholar Jerome Neyrey suggests that a better translation would be, “The Noble Shepherd.” What makes the Shepherd, Jesus, noble, is that he is willing to go above and beyond the requirements of his duty, even to the point of death. In Greek literature, the word used here as “nobility,” indicated a very specific sort of virtue, i.e. the trait possessed by those few whose commitment to a task might best be described the word “heroic.”
Think of the fireman who rushes into a burning building, even after it has been deemed structurally unsafe to do so. Or the soldier who runs towards the gunfire, in order to grab a wounded friend and throw him over his shoulder. It is not merely that these individuals are “good,” in the sense that, they are “good at their job,” or, “they do their job [of soldier/fireman] very well.” Rather, it is is that their execution of the job is heroic--it goes above and beyond what the role requires. “Heroic” virtue has long been associated with military bravery, and the sacrifice of one’s own life that others may live is usually held up as the paragon of valor. It is this sort of uncommon, heroic, selfless act that earned ancient Greeks the title, “noble,” and it is precisely this same word that the evangelist John uses to describe Jesus’ manner of being a Shepherd.
What makes the self-sacrificing soldier--or Jesus as Shepherd--qualify for such high esteem is that his action is purely voluntary. He chooses to do it freely, without hope for personal gain. (In fact, oftentimes certain that it will lead to his own great personal loss.) It is an act of the will, and it is the will that is so very integral to leading a Christ-like life. Jesus talks constantly about what is required of his followers, and the common theme is that action is required. It is not enough to know that an injustice exists; we must actively commit ourselves to combating that injustice, even if it is at great personal cost.
As a Christian, we should hold it as no great accomplishment to have a piece of knowledge. Plenty of people know that there are millions of people in developing countries with insufficient access to clean drinking water; or that there are children right here in our own country who lack basic health services and educational opportunities. Until our will becomes involved--until we choose to take action--we are not yet living out our vocation as being Christ to others.
The story of Peter in John’s Gospel depicts this evolution. Shortly after the “Good Shepherd” sermon, Jesus predicts his Passion, to which Peter announces that he would die for Jesus. Of course, we see that, when the moment arrives, Peter denies Jesus. Intellectually, he KNOWS what he is supposed to do, and yet his will fails to move him to action, because he fears the consequences. He is like the other shepherds Jesus references, who are merely hired hands, who are simply doing what they have been paid to do, but who would not risk their own well-being for the sheep. It is not until after the Resurrection, when Jesus returns to the disciples, and Jesus three times asks Peter if Peter loves him, that we see Jesus prepared to pass on his role as “Shepherd.” Once he is convinced that Peter really does will to follow Jesus, even to death, Jesus entrusts Peter with the role of being a “noble shepherd” as he had been. In that same exchange, Jesus informs Peter that he will lose his life as a result of it, but this time, Peter does not waver.
In our own lives, we are called to be Christ to one another... that is what being a Christian is about. Part of that role entails emulating Jesus as “Good/Noble Shepherd.” And what this means is that we will be asked to align our will towards a type of action that is aimed at the well-being of others, even if it requires sacrifice on our end. If we wish to be “noble” as Jesus was, if we wish to be worthy of delegation as Peter became, we will have to demonstrate that we are up to the task of choosing to life this sort of life. There are a great many things that we KNOW our faith demands of us, with respect to the needs of the world. And we may even feel bad about our inaction to this point. But until we will ourselves into changing these realities, we will continue to fail to be the disciples Jesus calls us to be. Our hope should come in the form of Peter--who, like us, struggled at times to will himself into doing what was hard. But Peter was offered redemption, and he was the first person Jesus entrusted with care of the flock, once he was gone.
