Fourth Sunday of Easter, cycle A

John 10:1 - 10

I sort of sympathize with Jesus’ audience who don’t understand what he is trying to tell them. I’m confused as well; is Jesus the gatekeeper, the shepherd, or the gate? Are we the sheep? Who are the thieves and robbers? Who are the strangers that came before him? Sometimes I wonder if Jesus was just having fun with them.

But I hear two things in this gospel passage. The first is that the sheep follow the shepherd because they know his voice. What does a sheep get out of the shepherd’s voice? He certainly can’t understand the words. The only reason he follows the shepherd because he hears his voice is because that is preferable to any other action for the sheep. He knows that the shepherd will see that he is fed and watered; he knows that he will be kept safe, and as the psalm says, he will be made to lie down in green pastures; and he has probably experienced the gentle hands of the shepherd who removes brambles from his fur and patches up cuts and scrapes.

And so the sheep hears the shepherd’s voice as a sign of security, of peace, of satisfaction. Jesus constantly tells us to have faith in him. He wants us to trust him,the way a sheep trusts his shepherd -- not on an intellectual level, because we can’t trust what we fully understand. Trust by definition means that there is an element beyond our understanding in this relationship. I think that is where we sheep often fail. We want certainty, we want to hang on to what we know; we create a whole web of things that make us secure, and that’s where we put our trust. So how do we know we are on the right path in knowing the voice of our shepherd? Saint Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, gave us a way. It has to do with first, recognizing decisions. A lot of times we tend to just choose the easiest path when we come to a decision point, perhaps not even seeing that this is a fork in the road for us. Second, we try to see which direction would would best be for God’s honor and glory; usually the first thing we think about with decisions is which is better for us. Third, we ask God for light, knowing that he will answer us; Fourth, we weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the potential outcomes of our decision, thinking about what God hopes for us; Fifth, we consider the most reasonable answer, and Sixth, we present our tentative decision to God and ask God to confirm it. The more we do this, the more we hear the shepherd’s voice, and the more we become capable of recognizing those competing voices which are not the voice of the shepherd. God is ready to help and the process described by Ignatius is actually acted out by Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. He’s the model; he's the shepherd. And all of Mary Magdalene’s doubts and sadness were lifted when she heard the shepherd say her name; she recognized his voice.

The second thing about this passage is that peculiar claim Jesus makes that he is the gate. I’ve read about how shepherds would lay across the entrance to the sheepfold so that sheep could not leave and predators could not get in. I guess that makes sense, but we eventually end up asking ourselves whether we are in or out, and whether those people who aren’t like us are out or in. That doesn’t seem to fit with what Jesus wants us to know.

Jesus is the gate in the sense that our passage from the sheepfold to the green pastures must go through him. Christians during this lifetime are supposed to have a foot in this world and a foot in heaven. We go back and forth, engaged in the building up of the kingdom through our work, through our relationships, through our taking up our crosses. Christians are supposed to be transforming society, not hiding out in an upper room somewhere. But the only way we can really transform society is to keep going back to the one who comes down from heaven, who brings with him the pattern of the New Jerusalem, the city on the Hill that represents our goal. We study Jesus, as much as we can by reading the gospels, by seeing what the Church teaches and trying to understand it; and by looking for Jesus in each other, especially in our fellow Christians. We can't build up the kingdom of heaven unless we know what heaven is like. Jesus is the bridge between this world and the next, and the Christian goes back and forth, intentionally seeking to be a more perfect disciple, with God’s help, since none of this is possible unless God is involved. As Saint Paul told us, every good thing comes from God.

So the more I listen, the more I hear his voice; and the more I recognize that voice, the more I trust and the less I depend on the stuff that I have accumulated that makes me feel secure -- all of which I know deep in my heart can disappear in a flash. Our coronavirus crisis is a hint at that.

And the more I go back and forth between this world that I am supposed to be turning into God’s kingdom and the model for that kingdom, Jesus himself, the more I know that there is only one gate, and the more I will confidently go through that gate some day to rest forever in heaven. All God wants for you and I is that we become saints, and all he asks of us is to let him make us saints.