This is a homily preached on Good Shepherd Sunday (1 May 2004).  I used a video projector to add some graphics to it.  This first graphic was on the screen as people entered.  (Our "church"--the Russian Cultural Center--is so hot that the projector started overheating after about forty-five minutes.)

• [Introduction] Show funeral program (below, left) for Gene Walsh
  • Show the text enlarged (below, right)

• Gene Walsh speaks of a "better offer"
  • What is being offered?
• Usually when we think of eternal life and heaven, standard images come to mind
  • Forgiveness of sins
  • Freedom from worry
  • Absence of pain and suffering
  • Happiness, peace, contentment
  • Angels, harps, streets of gold, clouds
• But basically, heaven is a relationship with God, union with God
• That relationship with God is the theme of this Good Shepherd Sunday

• When we think of shepherds, like when we think of heaven, certain stock images come to mind
• It is easy to think of the traditional roles and characteristics we attribute to shepherds
  • Care
  • Reassurance
  • Protection
  • Guidance
  • Food
  • Shelter
  • Commitment
  • Dedication
• But again maybe the basic element of being a shepherd is the relationship with the sheep
• Sheep do have a relationship with the shepherds
  • In other gospels on this Good Shepherd Sunday Jesus speaks of the sheep hearing his voice and recognizing him
  • And because they know the shepherd, they follow him in a relationship of trust and dependence
• But you can't take this idea of relationship too far
  • The sheep follow uncritically, instinctively.
  • They follow the shepherd…well, they follow like sheep!

• It is a quite a different scene that is described today in Acts
  • Again we are told that the people followed Paul and Barnabas
  • But it wasn't an uncritical, unthinking, instinctive reaction
  • The people chose to follow
• Paul and Barnabas weren't offering food, shelter, physical care
• Instead they spoke of life, eternal life, a new and different relationship with their God
  • This message filled a need for the people
  • Seemed to fit their circumstances
  • It attracted them
  • And they followed
  • It was a real decision
• This is what Jesus speaks about, offers us in the gospel today
  • He says: "the Father and I are one."
• Jesus is not talking about his identity as Son of God
  • Instead he is talking about his relationship with the God he knew as Father
• And he offers that relationship to us
• Like the Jews and the converts to Judaism in the first reading, we too also experience an uneasiness, a lack, an incompleteness, a wanting for something more
• If we listen attentively, faithfully, we know that something, some one is waiting for us
  • Is inviting us
• And then we can set out to follow

• The path to be followed is not an easy one
  • Not even for the unthinking sheep
  • They experience the hot sun, the dried up water holes, withered pastures, wolves, getting lost
• And the path is even less certain for us
  • We have to contend not only with nature and happenstance
  • But also with our own choices and decisions
• We hear the promise that Jesus holds out to us but we know the way to it is difficult
• This is the paschal mystery we hear referred to so often
  • It is in dying and rising that we find new life
  • But in getting to new life, we must die. And that is never easy.
• On this Sunday though, we are invited to focus not on the dying to self but on the reward for that, on the rising to eternal life
  • We are invited to relax and rejoice in the arms, in the care and protection of Jesus the shepherd
• The Jews had seen the temple as the sign of the reassuring presence of God
  • But then Jesus identified himself with this God-"The Father and I are one" Now the Jews were to see God in him and not in a building
  • Our reassurance and peace is to be found in Jesus whom we can think of as a Good Shepherd who looks out for the needs of his flock

• That message has implications for us because we are called by baptism to stand in the place of Jesus
  • We are his presence now here on earth
  • People are to see God in us
• In the words of the reading from Acts today, now WE are the light to the gentiles
  • That is a role and an image to be taken very seriously in a place like Cambodia where there has been so much darkness
  • We can offer light and hope to people through our relationships with them
• Likewise Acts speaks of an "instrument of salvation"
  • Jesus was that but so are we called to be
• What is the salvation?
  • Sometimes in our work here, it is material help and aid
    • Plastic sheets and cooking pots and rice and wood for a new house in times of flood; water filters; ARV medicines; school books
  • But sometimes the salvation we offer is only the relationship
    • The relationship with us that teaches about a relationship with God
• And how satisfying that relationship can be, if we teach it well
  • Knowing God and knowing that we are loved by God

• Of course none of this is easy
  • Whether we are trying to offer relationships within our family or within a village where we work
• But we can look at the experience of the disciples in Acts today
  • They endured violent spoken abuse, the leaders stirred up a persecution against them, and they were expelled from the territory
  • But the last line of the reading says: "They were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit."