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Greetings, SBT Readers:
Two nights ago, I happened to be driving down State Street through my old neighborhood in Chicago's South Loop, when the way ahead was blocked by squad cars and flashing lights. Both sides of the road were cordoned off with yellow tape, so I took the side street abutting the local police station, only to discover that a semi-trailer was blocking the road. For a few minutes, my car was sandwiched between the semi and an SUV, but after a few nerve-wracking moments, I was able to reverse out of this predicament and head down another sidestreet, closer to the flashing lights, towards I-55.
I thought nothing more of the incident until later that evening when I saw Chicago's Breaking News. Apparently, I had driven right into the aftermath of an earlier shootout in which one eighteen-year-old was killed, and another was wounded -- right in front of their classmates, outside their school. Cameron Rayford, eighteen years of age, gunned down just two weeks away from graduation, robbed of his future by thugs in a stolen car. Students, parents, teachers, residents -- all traumatized by yet another gun-related tragedy...
The truth of the matter is that here in the U.S., we are living in a war zone, with no city or state exempt. I think of the lyrics to Peter, Paul, and Mary's anti-war song, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" Written to lament the loss of life in the Vietnam War, the song asks, "Where have all the young men gone?" The answer, of course, is "gone to graveyards, every one" -- like Cameron Rayford, like all the victims of stray bullets and mass shootings, like all the casualties of domestic violence, like all the murdered children...
"Guns don't kill -- people do" -- REALLY???
When will we ever learn?
When?
Eastertide Blessings!
Elizabeth
SCRIPTURE REFLECTION
Link to the Sunday Readings
So Jesus said again, "Amen, amen, I say to you,
I am the sheep gate. Those who came before me were 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, slaughter and destroy;
I came so that they might have life and have it abundantly."
Jn 10:1-10
Anyone who has ever practiced Lectio Divina knows the power a single scriptural verse can have when we reverently repeat it to ourselves and reflect upon its meaning. With each repetition, the text sinks deeper and deeper into our minds and hearts, serving as a doorway into new understanding while awakening our awareness of God's Presence. The text, in fact, becomes our prayer, and the more we make it our own, the more we are transformed. Even if Lectio Divina starts as an intellectual exercise or as a spiritual discipline, when we surrender to the Word, words take on a life of their own: we hear what we need to hear and encounter the Holy One in our listening.
Though I have issues with the anti-semitic content of John's Gospel, especially in the Passion narratives, it has always been my favorite Gospel precisely because so many of its verses have a mystical dimension. Take the Alleluia verse before this Sunday's Gospel, for example:
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the good shepherd, says the Lord;
I know my sheep, and mine know me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Jn 10:14
This single verse, brief though it is, sums up Jesus' entire discourse on the Good Shepherd; everything that follows the Gospel Acclamation simply amplifies this text. Try repeating, "I am the good shepherd," and let the words sink in. Uttered contemplatively, "I am" carries us into the awareness of the great "I AM" by which God reveals Godself to Moses: “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Ex 3:14). Jesus is one with the "I AM" in goodness, in truth, in power, and in majesty; we who speak his name find ourselves kneeling before the burning bush, overcome with awe and wonder. A few syllables later, however, we find ourselves lifted up in compassion, held close by the One who has come to shepherd a people who have strayed like wayward sheep. Even if sheep and shepherds are far removed from urban and suburban living, the imagery evokes the sense of our being cherished and protected.
As fear gives way to intimacy, we know ourselves to be loved. This becomes clearer with the next line: there is nothing more intimate than to be "known," and the knowing to which Jesus refers goes way beyond factual information. Think in terms of Ps. 139:
You search me, Lord, and know me.
2 Wherever I sit or stand,
you read my inmost thoughts;
3 whenever I walk or rest,
you know where I have been...
13 You created every part of me,
knitting me in my mother's womb...
15 You watched every bone
taking shape in secret,
forming in the hidden depths...
Or think of the sensual imagery in the Song of Songs in which "knowing and being known" evokes the intimate relations of Lover and the Beloved; or the tender, parental love expressed in Hos 11:3-4: "It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love..."
Wonderfully, in being known, we, in turn, know the One who calls us by name, recognizing his voice above all other voices. Perhaps we have always heeded his voice, having always stayed on the path; or perhaps we remember what it is like to listen to false shepherds whose one goal was to lead us through briars and brambles to the edge of destruction. Either way, we now follow the Good Shepherd because we know him to be trustworthy, because he will not only lead us to verdant pastures but he himself is the gate to the sheepfold, that place of peace, safety, and abundant life...
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