|
I am the good shepherd. I know mine, mine know me.
Over the last few weeks, we have been reading
from the Gospel of John and it hammers away
at this metaphor of the Good Shepherd.
We will get slightly different parts over the next few weeks,
but today’s version is a powerful one about
how a good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
That is the image, a good shepherd.
But I sometimes wonder if we really internalize that message?
Do we really understand what he is trying to say?
We say it! Yes but do we really understand.
We even have the cross right over the altar
to emphasize that he has already given his life for us.
But somehow I think we struggle with understanding
what it means to be loved in that way.
The best way to understand this metaphor for us
is how much our parents love us
and how much our parents lay their lives down for us.
Any parent here or at home will say,
“Yeah, I have really laid down my life.
I gave up so much for my children.
Everything I do is always around my children.
Everything I do is because I want my children
to have what they have.
I do what I do, so my children are what they can be.”
But if we think about that, and we do have to think about it,
because we take the love of our parents for granted.
We do not realize how much of an impact it has had.
If we really understood it
then we would have a whole different view of our discipleship.
Let me break it open for a second.
I am not a parent like many of you,
but let me give you an example of something I witnessed.
It is really powerful.
When my brother Paul was dying of pancreatic cancer,
one of his biggest struggles was that
he was leaving his children behind.
He did not mind dying himself,
but the fact that the father of his children was dying
was more painful to him than anything.
That he was not going to be there for them in some way,
that he was letting them down in some way by dying, by leaving early,
that was the most painful part of dying for him.
That was his biggest struggle.
A lot of our conversation was
Paul asking me to be there for them
and do a whole lot of things like that.
He fought extra hard so that his kids could witness
how much he loved him.
He did not fight for himself.
He fought for them.
I remember one day when we were talking about it.
At one point he was not able to take food directly
and the only way to live was to take food direcltly into his veins.
He was extending his life by taking food directly into his veins.
This is a complicated and dangerous process
but his son, Dominic, was doing this every day flawlessly.
Absolutely amazing to see him do this every day.
Even trained nurses would struggle to get this procedure right.
I finally said to him, it is enough.
You have done enough.
It is time to let go.
He said, “No, they want to do it, and they want me to fight.
And so I am going to fight not for me, but for them.
I want them to know how much that I love them,
and that even though I am going to die, that I know,
I want them to know that I am always going to be there
and I will always fight this much on the other side for them.”
He laid down his life for his children.
This is one of the reasons why my brother Paul’s children
have fared so well after the early death of their father.
They know completely, without any shadow of doubt
how much they were loved by their father.
And they have done really well in very difficult circumstances
because they knew they were loved completely through and through.
That sort of love changes us from the inside.
We feel different and are different when we feel it.
I know all our parents are human.
They are not without failings,
but they love us and they would lay down their lives for us.
If we can understand that reality
then can we understand that God sent his son among us
so that we can understand how much God loves us.
Christ comes among us and says, “I am the good shepherd.
I lay down my life.
No one takes it away from me.”
He says “Nobody takes this life away from me.
I lay it down.
I lay it down, and I will take it back up again.”
He is trying to communicate how much he loves us,
just like my niece and my two nephews
are transformed by the knowledge,
the sure knowledge that they are loved
and that will get them through all the difficult times.
So you and I should be able to know how much we are loved by God
and by Jesus, and that should be able to get us to the good times.
Now, if we really know God, he says,
“I know mine and mine know me.”
If we really know that love in our heart,
really deep down not just a head thing,
but a heart realization, then life is very different.
Then we are not afraid of anything.
Not even afraid of death.
Just like my brother, he was not afraid of death.
He was not afraid of anything. Why?
Because he knew he was loved.
He knew that where he was going is a good place.
I am convinced of that.
Many of us say we believe, but we struggle with believing.
We are afraid to believe.
And I do not know why.
Sometimes we are winged creatures destined to soar like eagles
but most of us walk around like chickens.
And we do not fly.
We just follow the other chickens.
We just go wherever the other chickens go.
But we are called to soar like an eagle.
To do that, we have to be willing to jump off the cliff and soar
and let the wind take our wings and carry us.
And when we are carried up,
there is nothing that we should fear
because we are loved by God.
What does that mean for us ultimately?
It it means that we need to operate out of freedom.
That we are completely loved by God,
and that we are called to pass that love onto others,
to love, yes, our children.
That complete and absolute abandonment,
to give ourselves completely away to our children,
but it cannot be just our children
because even non-believers do that.
It must be everyone and maybe most especially
those who do not have somebody in their life
who is willing to love them;
most especially those who are a little bit broken by life.
Whether they broken by something
they themselves have done to themselves
or by what somebody else has done to them,
or those who are struggling with being accepted,
the LGBTQ community,
or those who are struggling
because they are divorced and remarried and they feel rejected,
or those who are immigrants
who feel that they have no place to call home anymore.
And now they have come to this foreign land
and they still feel rejected.
Or many of the other multitude of people
who feel isolated and pushed to the side.
If we really believe, then we will not act like the chickens
and we will not kettle along with them.
We will instead soar like an eagle
and we are going to pass on our love recklessly to all. Why?
Because we have so much love given to us
that we have no need to be stingy with our love;
because a good shepherd loves us and lays down his life for us.
And we are called to share that love for everyone
because there is enough, not just for us, but for all.
And we are meant to be part of the awe.
So today, let us really hear and internalize this message from Good Shepherd.
He loves us, he lays down his life for us,
and, as John says, we are now called children of God,
all of us; that we are loved completely and absolutely.
Let’s soar like eagles, passing our love on to others
and accepting the love of everyone who gives it to us,
but then passing it on to all who need it.
I am the good shepherd. I know mine, mine know me.
| 
