HOMILY (Monday, April 14, 2008): LIVING IN A BROKEN WORLD
Ezekiel 34:11-13:God has then granted life-giving repentance to the Gentiles too.
John 10:11-18: A good shepherd lay down his life for the sheep.
The readings are all about the leadership of the good shepherd giving his life for his sheep, especially in times of danger. God takes care of his people, not only in Israel but all over the world. We want to give a contextual hermeneutics of these texts in three points: first, the danger of discrimination between Jews and Gentiles in the same community of Jesus’ followers; second, the contrast between the Good Shepherd and the hired man; third, the call to lay down his life for others.
1. The danger of discrimination: what is going on?
The circumcised believers confronted Peter, saying, “
You entered the house of uncircumcised people and ate with them”. But Peter replied: “
God has given them the same gift he gave to us when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ…” Peter and other believers live in a divided world: Jews vs Gentiles, Chosen people vs heathen people; Romans vs Barbarians; circumcised vs uncircumcised and so on …Throughout history, people live in these unfriendly divisions and classifications: one drop law here, religious casts there and so on… Some weeks ago, I was reading a novel of
William Faulkner (Light of August) to understand the social impact of Jim Crow Laws on popular American culture some decades ago: isolation, alienation, racial identity, blood and so on... Apartheid laws in South Africa, Nuremberg laws in Germany, Indian reservation here, casts divisions in India etc… all these social, economic, religious divisions have shaped today our way of thinking and living in a wounded world. The danger today is not a wolf; it is those discriminations which make people fragile, weak and frightened. In the context of scarcity, these people fight desperately to survive.
In the
Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, the Trinity looks at the world and said: “
Let’s a redeem humankind”. Then Jesus was sent to gather people as God’s family under the flag of the good shepherd. That is why he said in the gospel: “
there will be one flock, one shepherd. This is why my father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again”. But the Jews did not understand the grace given to Gentiles. Reading this text of the Acts of the Apostles, I remember what I heard during the last STL colloquium about the Catholic Church in Louisianna: there are Catholic parishes for white Christians and for Black Christians. All of them are united by only one bridge, the cemetery where people are all equal and free from all anxieties. From Jerusalem to Louisianna, the distance is not big. There are many other examples where religion fails to unite the casts, where politics divide people and economics push to death. The danger is not the wolf outside; it is the failure of the redemptive project for humankind because of that cultural bias, social prejudice, political division. Today Professor Jeffrey Sachs from Columbia University will give a lecture at Harvard on poverty in a crowded planet. Indeed, economical inequalities are growing to the extent that the world is becoming ‘a
graveyard of shattered hopes and an open wound that threatens world security”. To heal the world, Christianity as presented in the first reading, has to move from Jewish sect to become a world community of love and faith.
2. The good shepherd and the hired man: How does Jesus act?
Brothers, many of you have worked in hospitals, in refugee camps, in prisons, in the streets. We have experienced how life is so fragile. The meaning of the good shepherd becomes significant: to protect life. Like Walter Mondale in 1984 and his successors Democrats in 2008 using the ad of danger, Jesus used the parable of a frightening wolf. But instead of playing the easy game of fueling fear, he defuses the potential crisis of otherness by gathering people: “
I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice…”. In fact, Jesus reminds us that he does more than vote for a bill called “Responsibility to protect”. He does more than give solutions to problems of life. He is Life (Zoe), always ready to give and to protect life.
Then, like any good speaker, he compares himself by contrast with a hired man. When he sees the wolf attacking, the hired man runs away “
because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep”. Indeed, brothers, money may corrupt minds and hearts of people. Just an example: in 2003, 17 thousands soldiers from the United Nations were hired in DRC to observe the process of peacekeeping and the elections. These observers were paid to count the number of the dead and to make the report after any clash between Congolese army and rebels. Any time the situation became worse, they were the first to run away, leaving people entangled in the trap of death. The irony is that they were so well-paid that they did not want to stop war. Abusing their power, they exchanged food with sex with hungry women and girls. Powerless, we saw the behavior of these hired men with humiliation and anger.
Brothers, when Jesus talks about hired man unable to protect the weak sheep, we may think about these companies which make money on war, those pharmaceutical industries making money on disease and scourge decimating powerless people. But maybe, we may think about ourselves when we find many excuses to run away from any emergency to protect and to rescue. Have we ever met homeless people at Harvard Square barely covered in the cold winter? We usually find good reasons to close our eyes: “
I do not have spare change; it is not my business; the challenge is bigger than my mean; I will lose my position; Darfur and Tibet are so far from here, etc…”. We call it realism, wisdom, facilities argument and so on…
3. The call to lay down his life: what to do this evening?
Brothers, when we understand how the material coltan is taken from Lubutu and becomes a part of our cell phone, how the oxygen we breathe comes from the Amazon forest, how the danger of uranium depletum in the nuclear industry, the danger of global warming and so on… threatens all human beings, then we understand how connected we are to each other. We understand that we share the same fate of humankind and we need a leadership of protection of life.
We are telling the story of Lord Jesus the good shepherd leading the Church in this broken world. It is fine. So what? There are no recommendations. Instead, I would like to share with you two stories. I took the first from a book of Karen Amstrong. “One day in Auschwitz, a group of Jews put God on trial. They charged him with cruelty and betrayal. Like Job, they found no consolation in the usual answers to the problem of evil and suffering in the midst of this current obscenity. They could find no excuse for God, no extenuating circumstances, so they found him guilty and, presumably, worthy to death. The Rabbi pronounced the verdict. Then he looked up and said that the trial was over: it was time for the evening prayer”. Again, what comes next? Let’s go together with Jesus to heal the world and to protect people.
The second story took place in Mogadishu (in Somalia) during the “Operation Restore Hope”. An American Marine was looking for a military informer living beyond the red line, in a deadly region of war. A boy of nine years old knew the hidden location and volunteers to escort him. The soldier hesitated but no one was ready to go, except that little boy. Putting his little hand on the weathered hand of the warrior, the boy started walking until they crossed the red line and arrived. Impressed by the courage of the boy, the Marine asked him what he wanted to do when he will become adult. Reassured by such a protection of the soldier, the boy replied: “I want to be alive”. To celebrate the Good Shepherd is to protect people, to help them to stay alive and in good shape and to tell them “Good to see you” or “Salamu” or “Nice to meet you”. To lay down our live is to pray like Father Timothy: “Dearest Lord, teach me to be generous, teach me to serve as you deserve, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for the rest, to labor and not to ask for reward. Save that of knowing that I am doing your WILL”.
Emmanuel BUEYA sj
