Sheep without a shepherd

Written by BPNews Team | 28 January 2010

11th Sunday in Ordinary time - Father's Day
(Green) Cycle A/ Year II (June 15, 2008)
Ex 19:2-6a/ Rom 5:6-11/ Mt 9:36-10:8

Like sheep without a shepherd was the situation of the Israelites during the time of Jesus. Subjugated by the Romans, the Jews were put to the utmost mercy of the Romans. They paid a lot of taxes to them, revered their gods and goddesses and even the Roman Emperor as God, and were neglected by the Roman Empire with regard to their needs. The Jewish civil and religious leaders were somehow in conflict up to the point of causing division among themselves. The protestant bible scholar named William Barclay described the situation in Jesus’ time in these words: “The common people were desperately longing for God; and the Scribes and the Pharisees, the priests and the Sadducees, the pillars of orthodox religion of his (Jesus’) day, had nothing to offer them. The orthodox teachers had neither guidance, nor comfort, nor strength to give.” In this situation, Jesus described the crowds and with them the whole People of God like “sheep without a shepherd.”

There are times when we see within our community, society and even country that there are a lot of crimes committed such as corruption, injustice, drug pushing, illegal gambling, child-trafficking, child labors, extra-judicial killings, and so on. We also witness the corruption of moral values as immoral behaviors are done even by professionals without much remorse in their conscience. Families are already affected by the malady of our present society. We notice the fact that there are already broken families, abandoned children, adulterous relationships, marriages of the same sex, and so forth. When we can confirm these happening in our present society, we can declare with Jesus that we are like “sheep without a shepherd.”

The crisis that our society confronts is the absence of a true shepherd or leader. Many of our government officials are accused of corruption. Indeed, majority of the government employees do some kind of corruption in their own way depending upon their positions and conditions. Some corrupt their agency’s funds, others corrupt their agency’s resources and many others corrupt their working time. In the political arena, it is widely known that many politicians corrupt the government money, their power and position solely for their vested personal interests. In the religious sphere, it is very hard to see Jesus Christ in the persons of the church’s ministers. St. Jose Maria Escriba de Balaguer, Founder of the Opus Dei, described the situation with these words: “The crisis of today is a crisis of saints.” 

Amidst the crisis that we encounter both in our society and within our selves, when we feel confused, troubled, and we do not know what to do as fear is what envelops us; then let us be assured that Jesus Christ is our Good Shepherd. He is the One whom we should lean on, trust in, believe in and surrender to our whole being. Money, power, fame, friends, and other leaders may solve our problems but the solutions will not be always effective and permanent. Only Jesus is the answer to the deepest desires of our being because only He is the One who constantly shares and lays down His life for each of us, His flock. 

In order to shepherd His flock of all generations, Jesus, in this Sunday’s gospel, chooses twelve Apostles to represent Him as a Good Shepherd. Our bishops are the successors of the Apostles and our priests are the collaborators of our bishops. All of them are shepherds according to the heart of Jesus as God has promised: “I shall give you shepherds after my own heart, who will pasture you wisely and discreetly” (Jer 3:15). As followers of Christ, let us then be submissive sheep to Him through His shepherds, our church’s ministers. They may have personal flaws and scandals, yet the presence and the guidance of Christ, our Good Shepherd, are made known to us especially through them, particularly when they perform their ministerial responsibilities. Let us pray for their faithfulness to Christ and help them in their pastoral needs so that they may exercise their duties of shepherding us the way Christ wants them to be. 

As we celebrate this Sunday the Father’s Day, let us not forget that our fathers both biological and legal are also shepherds in their own way to our families. They are laying down their lives for our families by sacrificing their time, talents and strength to obtain our day to day needs. Let us thank them for being our good shepherds by greeting them “Happy Father’s Day!” And for those fathers who have not acted as good shepherds to their families, it is now the time to repent, heal the wounds in the families and make up for the things that have been lacking, making the members of the family feel the presence, care and love of the Good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ. To the priests and especially the bishop we have to extend our greetings because they are our spiritual fathers who make present to us our Good Shepherd.