One Flock, One Shepherd

One Flock One Shepherd April 14, 2008

Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter

by Beth De Cristofaro
“I was at prayer in the city of Joppa when in a trance I had a vision…‘What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.’” (Acts 11:5, 9)

I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep…I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. (John 10: 11, 17)

Piety

Lead me, Shepherd, with perfect assurance that within your fold I have life and truth.

Shepherds in Israel

Study

http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/041408.shtml

Jesus’ use of the beautiful, comforting image of The Good Shepherd caused me to reflect on what being a sheep is actually like. It’s not an idea that is comfortable for me – I think of sheep as thoughtless, motivated by stomach, glands and flight responses. Sheep mill about in groups with little individual identity and are driven here and there by yapping, four-legged herders. This isn’t what I have in mind for my life. But this is not what Jesus has in mind, either.

Imagine the landscape of the holy land, for example. The life of a sheep might be brutish and short. No rolling green, lush pastures as we see in the Virginia hills, for example. This is dangerous, rocky land. Sheep range in order to eat and are dependent on the shepherd for safety and food. Jesus knew that the lives of his followers would also be rocky and strewn with cliffs and predators. He promised them safety within his pasture which was not the world they had been used to.

Also, sheep were important. They were life and death. Besides providing food and clothing, sheep fertilized the fields as they grazed and gave status to the family. Sheep provided the sacrifice to the God who chose Abraham’s descendants. Sheep were not pets or afterthoughts. Lifestyle revolved around sheep.

Peter, Stephen, Phillip were hardly the sheep of my imagination. Their belief in the road on which the Good Shepherd was leading them was so strong that they were willing to turn over the beliefs of 1,000 years. Peter taught: “I was at prayer in the city of Joppa when in a trance I had a vision… I also heard a voice say to me, ‘Get up, Peter. Slaughter and eat.’ But I said, ‘certainly not, sir, because nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time a voice from heaven answered, ‘What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.’ (Acts11: 5, 7-9)

Jesus used the image of a sheep knowing that his sheep must be lions at heart. He asks that as he, the Good Shepherd, lay down his life for his followers then and now, we must be willing to lay down our life for Him in the person of neighbors and strangers. We are all his beloved sheep. Being a sheep is not to be thoughtless, led by appetites, fearful of noises and snapping jaws. Being a sheep of the Good Shepherd is not a spectator sport but calls for courage and trust in the truth of the Shepherd.

Action

There is a picture in a child’s book that shows Jesus reaching down to rescue the lamb, fallen off a steep hill. As a child I looked at that picture and wondered how could that sheep be so stupid? Well, now I know. I have experienced moments of feeling trapped on cliffs where I fell because of my missteps, sins, or those of others. I can’t know what is in the heart of those I meet each day. Are they falling off cliffs of their own choosing? Is it bad judgment or evil which places them in peril? Look at each person today with no judgment but rather love, as the Good Shepherd loves you. This love does not have to accept sin but it does have to accept the truth that the Good Shepherd loves the other as much as he loves me. Jesus wants us to seek unity – one flock, one Shepherd. (John 10:16) Say a prayer for those you meet today.