The first
assignment I give in my confirmation class, for 13-/ 14-year-olds, is to write
a short essay about which virtue they most want to grow in, as they prepare for
and receive this sacrament. I was
surprised when a full half of them wrote about courage. The other half, by the way, were pretty
evenly split between faith, hope and love.
The better I get to know 14 year olds, the more I wish they would work
on prudence… but, no, courage was the virtue most of them wanted to grow
in. And they knew well what heroic
exercises of that virtue look like, but that wasn’t what excited them the
most. They longed to be able to exercise
a day-to-day courage, a courage that is gloriously mundane. They wanted to be able to stand up for what
was right when that wasn’t popular, to not go along with the crowd, to dare to confront
a friend about something when they feared a hard conversation about
something. And the fear that held them
back from doing that, was fear that if they dared stick out, then they wouldn’t
belong, wouldn’t be accepted, would be stranded from the flock.
And I don’t think
it’s just 14 year olds who have these kinds of fears. People fear not belonging, because the senses
of belonging we have can feel so fragile.
Hand in hand with this, strangely, is the fear of committing to
something, making a commitment that will inevitably involvement sacrifice,
heartache and grief, but is the only route to finding that deep, intimate
belonging. To some extent, that’s what
this vocation Sunday celebrates: it celebrates that we still have people that sacrificially
and lovingly commit to belong: to a spouse in marriage, to a community through
religious vows, to priesthood. And we
need a Sunday celebrating this because it’s become rare! Fears about belonging emerge with a concomitant
crisis of commitment.
Today’s gospel
brings the Good News that God commits to us.
God doesn’t half-heartedly care for us, like a hireling who cares for
sheep only if exercising the care is less hassle than losing the paycheck. God doesn’t care for us as a means to some
reward. God cares for us as the Good
Shepherd, as the shepherd who cares because he’s committed to his sheep. We belong.
We are the sheep of his pasture.
He has claimed us, and we are His.
His embrace of us in baptism, His calling out – “Look! My beloved daughter, my beloved son!” – His indwelling
in us with His own Spirit… all of that is His claiming of us, His shepherding
of us, intimately known and invited into intimate knowing.
And we need
that shepherding, we need that care and concern, because there are things we
fear in the world. The world, created aflame with God’s love, has grown cold,
let darkness seep in. Our world knows so
much isolation, hatred, violence, sin and sorrow. Shepherds in the ancient world really did
sometimes have to make huge sacrifices for their sheep, and some were actually
killed by wolves and thieves. Where the
hireling abandons, the good shepherd stays.
Our wounded warring world grieves God as much as it does us, because of
how deeply He is committed to us. And that deep commitment is a promise, never
to give up on us. Instead, in Christ, our
good shepherd enters into the world of sin and death, absorbs it and transforms
it. Transforms us.
Because His shepherding
isn’t something static. He won’t leave
us surrounded by wolves and thieves, fighting off first one, then another,
leaving us to always fear the next attack, to fear that we might be tempted
into attack ourselves. No, the good
shepherd leads. The good shepherd acts to
lead us, his flock, transforming us as we go, so that we might be able to live
lives confident in our belonging, living out our true vocation, daring to offer
ourselves self-sacrificially, lovingly, courageously as witnesses against sin
and selfishness. He leads us home, to
that place where we can live wholly and holily in harmony with our flock, and with
our shepherd.
As humans,
fallible forgetful humans, we need tangible, embodied, humane reminders of our
belonging, of the confidence we can have, that can give us the courage to
follow where our Master trod. Marriage
and family life is certainly a beautiful way of incarnating that reality. For me, it’s come through religious
profession, taking vows in my religious family, the Congregation of Holy
Cross. By our vow of poverty, we share
all possessions in common, and help each other learn to trust in God as
provider. By our vow of obedience, we
share all decisions in common, and help each other learn to listen for the Good
Shepherd’s voice. By our vow of
chastity, we share brotherhood in common, and help each other learn to seek
single-hearted intimacy with Christ.
When I made my
final profession of vows, professing to live forever what I’d been living a
year at a time for the previous few years, it was an amazing experience of
acceptance and belonging. It made real
in my heart what I knew was already true in baptism, but enfleshed that
reality. And, as someone who felt
securely held, I gained the courage to reach out. Which I needed because the very next day I
was ordained deacon, and then nine months later, priest. That was a year ago today. In this time, still so short, I’ve
encountered God and the people of God together call out of me a participation
in His shepherding that I must always be in awe of. It is the Good Shepherd calling, “Come. Follow me.”
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