I guess we all know that life can be difficult. That seems rather obvious. It’s not easy trying to make one’s way in this world, not easy trying to figure out what path one should take, what choices one should make. For example providing for ourselves and our families? All sorts of things can go wrong, jobs can be lost, economies can tank, investments and income can take a nosedive.
Staying healthy? Well, we can do everything right and still be at the mercy of illness and injury. Building strong relationships? Much easier said than done. Sometimes WE mess them up, and sometimes OTHERS are ultimately responsible for their disintegration. Raising children? M Enough said. It almost never goes as planned. Yes, life is hard, and uncertain, and at times, heartbreaking as we all know or can imagine.
And so the words we just heard from the mouth of Jesus on this, Good Shepherd Sunday, can be extremely comforting. It gives us so much hope to believe that,
“No one can take them out of my (Jesus’) hand.”
Who wouldn’t be grateful for that sort of love, that sort of care, that sort of security? Who wouldn’t be edified knowing that God loves us that much, and that we don’t have to make our way through life alone? God is always with us, comforting us, guiding us, forgiving us, protecting us, holding us in the palm of his hand. It’s not an overstatement to say that we are entirely dependent on God for everything, and that he wants nothing more than to provide us with everything we need to find our way, that is, to live life to the fullest.
Yet, with this truth, with this reality, with these comforting words of Jesus comes a kind of trap, a kind of danger. (There almost always is!) You see, our belief in God’s infinite care and concern for us can actually lead us to choosing a life in opposition to the one God wants for us and from us. How is that possible? Well, sometimes we can interpret these words and others like them to mean that this world is solely the responsibility of God and no one else. It’s up to him to make of it whatever he wants it to be.
The hungry person on the street? Well, God will make sure he or she has enough to eat.
The person who just got evicted from their home? Well. God may have closed a door, but he’s certain to open a window.
The guy with a bad addiction? Well, maybe if he just prayed a little more.
The person grieving the loss of a spouse? God probably just wants her to move on and get over it.
The woman struggling with matters of faith? Well, God will help her figure it out on her own.
The person with no friends? Well, he always has Jesus. That should be enough.
I guess you get the picture.
And so, believing that God is “in charge”, that God is the one who is “on” for making sure everyone’s needs are met, for making sure that every prayer gets answered, can actually lead us to “washing our hands” of the very things God is asking of us. And yet, in faith, we must believe the opposite – that being in God’s hands is not the only place we and others are. We must believe that we are in each other’s hands too – that is, that God often provides for his children not from the “outside”, but precisely through each of us, through each person who explicitly (or implicitly) responds to God’s grace by passing that very grace, that very love, on to others.
In fact the early Church had to quickly understand this. We’ve been hearing their story each week in our First Readings from Acts. At first, the Church simply had a great story to tell, one the world had never heard before. But eventually, that wouldn’t be enough to ensure that the Church would continue and thrive. No, what would be the game-changer was the Spirit-filled lives of those who believed – the way they forgave, the way they were generous, the way they shared what they had, the way they showed mercy, and the way they loved.
Saying the right things, believing the right things was good but not enough. LIVING the right way, my dear friends, was the only way others would come to know the depth of the faith of those early disciples, and come to truly know the power of the resurrection – the power of the Risen Lord alive and well and at work within them as individuals and as a community of faith.
And that hold true as much today as it did two thousand years ago.
And so, let’s rejoice in God’s great love for us, rejoice in being in the hands of Jesus. But let’s not use that belief as a kind of excuse to do nothing, an excuse to neglect our duty, an excuse to tell others by our actions, “You’re not my problem.”
Rather, let’s respond in love to the One who has loved us first, knowing that’s what true faith is all about.
Short Story ( a true story)
St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) relates this incident about a boy. “Once I picked up a child and took him to our Children’s Home; we gave him a bath, clean clothes, and everything. After a day, the child ran away. Somebody else found him, but again he ran away. Then I said to the Sisters: ‘Please follow the child and see where he goes when he runs away.’ And the child ran away the third time. There under the tree was the mother. She had put a small earthenware vessel on two stones and was cooking something she had picked out of the dustbins or garbage cans. The Sisters asked the child: ‘Why did you run away from the Home?’ And the child said, ‘This is my home because this is where my mother is.’” — True! Wherever our mothers are, there our home is.
Father Boat