One of my earliest childhood memories was seeing Father
Johnson, our pastor at St. Theresa in Rhodelia for many, many years, dressed in
his overalls and rubber boots, with feed-buckets in each hand, surrounded by
hungry sheep, walking through the cemetery as we drove by. The parish did not
have a lot of money, especially back then, so he raised sheep both to keep the
cemetery mowed and to provide mutton for the parish picnic each summer.
He was a good man – a holy
man no doubt. He was especially good at building. He personally laid the bricks
and blocks on the convent, rectory, school and parish hall. He was, however,
not very good with people – especially with women in general and nuns in
particular, and not very good at preaching. You might say he was
better at pasturing sheep than pasturing people, but we loved him anyway. Even
though he told me, when I first told him I wanted to go to the seminary, that I
would never make it, he did send me a message from his deathbed, after I
finished my second year, that he had changed his mind and thought I might make
it after all. I, too, loved him anyway – loved him enough to still remember the
date of his death – January 3, 1960. He was such a big part of
my childhood that I cannot read about Jesus, the Good Shepherd, without
thinking about him and his sheep. It broke his heart to give up his
sheep when he got too old to fend off the roaming dogs that slaughtered and
destroyed them.
One day, I was watching a
program from Australia about sheep and shepherds. I was shocked by what I saw.
It did not remind me either of Father Johnson or the Good Shepherd we read
about in the New Testament with the sheep eagerly following the gentle calls of
their trusted shepherd leading them to food and water and making sure they were
protected. In Australia, they have another way to heard sheep and it is done
with barking and snapping dogs who force the sheep from behind to go where they
would rather not go. Rather than inviting from the front to follow, they
threaten them from behind if they dare try to run away!
As I sat there watching
this version of shepherding, I was reminded that we have had two kinds of
"pastors" in our church in my life-time: those who the sheep trust,
gladly following his convincing voice, and those who bark and snap at the flock,
leaving them in fear and trembling and trying to escape from such
shepherds!
It is interesting to me
that of the two words for “good” in the original Greek text are agathos and kalos.
The first means “good” as in “a good person,” while the second means “good” as
in “good at something.” The word for “good” in the gospel "Good
Shepherd" scripture is the word for “good at.” Of course Jesus is a “good
person,” but what it wants to say there is that Jesus is “good at”
shepherding.
The Latin words
for the “good shepherd” are “bonus pastor,” from which we get the word
“pastor.” This passage is most often applied to priests and ministers who are
called to be like the Good Shepherd, “pastoring” in his name. We
priests and ministers are also called, like Jesus to be “good” and “good
a what we do.” When we fail, we are often compared to the “hireling”
shepherds who are only interested in “threatening, using and abusing” the sheep
for their own benefit!
But, today, I want to
apply this story to you, the spouses and parents and future spouses and
parents, sitting here in front of me. You, too, are called, or will be called,
to be “good shepherds” of your families. You, too, will need to be “good” and
“good at” what you do. You will need to be a “good person” and “good at” being
a spouse and parent.
The late Pope John Paul
II’s new Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Two sacraments are
directed toward the salvation of others and, if they contribute to
personal salvation, it is through service to others that
they do so.” In other words, those of you called to marriage and those of us
called to ordained ministry, become “good” through “being good
at” what we do, you as spouses and parents, and me as an ordained minister.
We live in a world of
slick temptation and bad examples. It is easy to get off track and be seduced
into adopting atrociously bad behaviors simply “because everybody
else is doing it.” If we are going to be “good” and good
at” what we do, we must draw strength from something else than the culture
around us. I have also liked the image of the “tree planted near running
waters, whose leaves never fade” from Psalm 1 and the prophet Jeremiah.
“A tree planted near
running water” never has to worry about hot weather and drought: its leaves
stay green. No matter what is happening above ground, because its roots go down
deep and taps into the water. Another psalm says “He who practices virtue and
speaks honestly, he who brushes his hands free of bribes, stopping his ears and
closing his eyes to evil, shall dwell on the heights and have a steady supply
of food and drink.”
Jesus is that
life-giving water which we should be tapped into. If our roots go down deep and
tap into Him, we can stand tall and healthy. Tapping into his life-giving
water is what will make us “good” and “good at what we do.” A
connection to Jesus only on Sunday is like trying to fight off drought by
carrying water. If you are planted near that stream and your roots
tap into him, you never have to worry, you will always have a “steady supply of
food and drink,” it will be possible to be a “good person,” a “good spouse,” a
“good parent,” or a “good priest/minister” no matter who else crashed and burned
in today’s culture.
