There were two statements that Jesus made in the gospel that
made a great impression upon me. “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and
mine know me … I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I
must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one
shepherd.” How well do we know Jesus as
our Shepherd? While Jesus may know us as his sheep, do we know Jesus as our
shepherd? Just how quick are we as human beings to supplant Jesus with some
other shepherd?
In the gospel, Jesus warns his disciples about the false
shepherds that abound in the world, quick to abandon the sheep they were hired
to guard when it became too inconvenient or dangerous. We all have experienced the
false shepherds of our world. Throughout human history, humanity has raised various
people, and various movements as our shepherds, and they have not served us
very well. Whether it be charismatic leaders like a Julius Caesar, Napoleon,
any particular king or queen whose name is followed by “the Great,” or president,
commissar, prime minister, etc., if they are human, they are going to fail us
as shepherds.
We have made political movements our Shepherd. Democracy was
going to save the world, but has failed. Monarchies, Communism, Fascism, all
have failed humanity as political systems. The economy of the Soviet Union
collapsing upon itself proved that the Communist proletariat paradise was not
the shepherd. The Great Depression of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2007
illustrated quite clearly that the Capitalist Free Market economic system was
as disastrous a shepherd as its Communist counterpart.
It was purported, especially following the Second World War
that science was the new shepherd that was going to save the world. As we have
experienced, while improving human life, science has equally complicated and
endangered human life. In the ‘60’s, we
proposed that pharmaceutical drugs, particularly psychedelic drugs was the new
shepherd with drug prophets like Dr. Timothy Leary proposing that we “turn on,
tune in, and drop out.” However, the drug culture of the 60’s in didn’t improve
one’s consciousness, but destroyed it.
Time and time again, those people, philosophies, and other
things we have raised as a people to the level of shepherd have failed us and
abandoned us. There is only one Shepherd and that is Jesus. There is more to
following Jesus than just naming him our Shepherd. We, as religious people,
have always before us the temptation to
create from among our companion disciples a shepherd other than Jesus. St. Paul
encountered this within the Corinthian community.
This community was so divided that Paul questioned the
validity of the Eucharist they celebrated. We hear Paul addressing the
community thusly … “it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by
Chloe’s people, that there are rivalries among you. I mean
that each of you is saying, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to
Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Is
Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of
Paul? I give thanks [to God] that I baptized none of you
except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can
say you were baptized in my name. For Christ did not send me to baptize but
to preach the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so
that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.” (1 Cor 1: 11-15,
17)
Does any of this sound familiar in our present time? I have
wondered if Paul would look at our present Church and write, “it has been
reported to me about you, my brothers/sisters, that there are rivalries among
you. I mean that each of you is saying, “I belong to John Paul II,” or “I
belong to Benedict XVI,” or “I belong to Francis I.” Were John Paul, Benedict,
or Francis crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of John Paul,
Benedict, or Francis?” In other words, with a Church as polarized as the
political world around us, have we lost sight of the one shepherd, Jesus
Christ, and have, like a bunch of groupies, elevated our particular religious
rock star to the level of shepherd?
While I highly value the religious leadership of John XXIII
and Francis I, this is no way diminishes the contributions to the Church that
John Paul II and Benedict XVI have made as religious leaders. Have any of these
four popes made mistakes? Of course, they have, some more than others. However,
as devoted disciples following Jesus Christ, not a one of them would begin to
assume for themselves the title that solely belongs to him whom they loved
and served to the best of their ability. They have never forgotten who The
Shepherd really is, nor should we.
For all of us who call ourselves disciples, we must first
and foremost be disciples of Jesus. Jesus tells us that he knows his sheep and
his sheep know him, as intimately as he knows the Father and the Father knows
him. Let not charismatic leaders religious or political, or other things
distract us from who is the real Shepherd, for it is only Jesus, who is the
way, the truth and the life.
