April 17, 2016

 4th Sunday of Easter C Acts 13: 14, 43-52; Revelation 7: 9, 14-17; John 10: 27-30 Do I ever wonder how much God loves me? When I look at my infidelities….my giving-in to the temptations of the devil…to my petty jealousy…to my getting even…to my moods of selfishness…to my sinfulness…do I think because of these God has rejected me or God can’t possibly love me? There is no where in the Gospels that Jesus says this. Instead He has a comeback in today’s Gospel where He says, “My sheep hear My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Fathers hand. The Father and I are one.” To really understand Jesus’ words we have to see it in context of what has been happening. There has been an ongoing dispute between Jesus and some of the Jewish religious officials. They felt that Jesus had been keeping them in suspense and not telling them ‘Who He was…it seems that He was claiming to be the Messiah…is this what He means?’ Today they are asking Him again to not mince His words and to speak plainly. Jesus has repeatedly told them He is the Messiah…they haven’t listened…so today He uses the imagery of sheep and shepherd to confront them. He is saying that those who believe in Him are also those who belong to Him. St. Anthony Messenger Press in its exegesis work Sunday Homily Helps says, “It is all about hearing His voice, knowing Him, and following Him. There is a certain paradox in all this. In order to believe in Jesus, one must first be called by God. The Gospel expresses it this way, ‘No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draw him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (Jn 6;44) Those who believe in Jesus and belong to Him receive the gift of eternal life. Just as the Father gives life, so does Jesus give life. Jesus and the Father do the same work. So what is true of one is true of the other. No one can take the believer out of Jesus’ hand. This is part of Jesus’ divine mission—to protect and guard all who believe in Him.” So it is not how I feel about God it is how God feels about me. Jesus tells us repeatedly that God loves each of us all the time. Perhaps the bigger reflective question is ‘Why do I need answers…can’t I live just knowing I am loved? Isn’t that enough for me? What more do I need or want to survive here and in the afterlife?’ The Gospel isn’t words, it’s about life…it’s about Jesus who loves me the way I am and says ‘let Me come into you.’ This is what it is all about…this is THE relationship of love…God loving me and what I do sooner or later is to act on that. You see the Gospel cannot happen in our head alone. The Gospel message is about relationship. This God loves me. God is totally beyond me and yet totally within me at the same time. Fr Richard Rohr in his book Yes, And…has a section entitled How Do We Love God? in which he says, “We have put our emphasis on trying to love God, which is probably a good way to start—although we do not have a clue how to do that. What I consistently find in the mystics is an overwhelming experience of how God has loved them. God is always the initiator, God is the doer, God is the one who seduces us. All we can do is respond in kind, and exactly as a wonderful spiritual writer, Meister Eckhardt said, ‘The love by which we love God is the very same love with which God has first loved us.’ The mystics’ overwhelming experiences are full body blows of the Divine loving them, God radically accepting them. And they spend the rest of their lives trying to verbalize those experiences, invariably finding ways to give that love back through forms off service, compassion, and nonstop worship. But none of this is to earn God’s love; it’s always and only to return God’s love. Love is repaid by love alone.” It’s all about God and God in my life and loving me right now all the time. This relationship between each of us (His disciples…His sheep) is brought out clearly in John’s gospel and I think most explicitly in John 14:23, Whoever loves Me will keep My word and My Father will love him/her and we will come to him/her and make our dwelling with him/her.” Jesus is not mincing His words…He is saying it plainly. I think it is good to explore the images that He used and to see how the people He addressed understood those words If we lived in Israel in Jesus’ time we could readily see what He was saying. Sheep were the main source of meat, milk and cheese. Their wool provided clothing and were also used as sacrifices in their liturgy. The sheep were ‘not smart’ but they depended totally on the shepherd 24/7. When night came, the local shepherds would gather their sheep in a pen for safety. One or two together with the sheep dog would stay on guard watching out for thieves or wild animals. Then in the morning each shepherd would call out his own sheep to follow him to pasture. Jesus said this, ‘My sheep hear My voice, I know them, they follow Me.’ They do not follow the other shepherds. Jesus is saying this to us. We have listened to Him, we have learned from Him, we follow Him….sometimes not as directly as we would like, we’ve even wandered from the fold….sometimes far away but it seems that we are always drawn back to God and that is where we are at today reading this blog. We get sidetracked by today’s society and the ads and billboards persuading us to go for material things that really can do a number on us and distract us from spiritual things. And we know that if we want to belong to Him, we do have to pay attention to Him and His voice. This means shutting off all sorts of other attractions and a taking time to pray and reflect and be filled with grace-giving sacraments. The sheep analogy is a good one because sheep may not be smart but they are smart enough to know they need their shepherd and to recognize His voice. This is what Jesus is telling each one of us today… are you listening? Come I have the words of everlasting life. So we reflect: • Where have I heard Jesus’ voice or seen signs of the Spirit calling out to me? • Where has God surprised me? • How am I living today? Am I living with God in view? • Is my head matched up to my heart and my soul? • Do I love me as much as God loves me? • How am I surprised by love? • Do I believe that all people are equal in Jesus’ eyes? • Does Jesus love me any less when I am weak and fail? Does Jesus love me more when I do what He asks? • Why do people put human limitations on Jesus’ love? Sacred Space 2016 says, “Those who identify with Jesus hear His voice and come to know and trust in Him. They follow in love, wanting only to be in relationship with Him. Lord, thank you that You always know me. I am forever held in Your hands in a deep and intimate relationship I pray for those sick folk who no longer recognize the ones they loved, and for those who care for them. Be their Good Shepherd in their valley of darkness.”