Good Shepherding

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Holy Name Parish, West Roxbury

ACTS 4:8-12

JOHN 3:1-2

JOHN 10:11-18

 

GOOD SHEPHERDING

Today we hear John tell us a story to teach us the basic principles and values of the New Testament.  We hear Jesus talking about the Good Shepherd taking care of his sheep and all the other sheep in the world.  

How did the Shepherd learn to be a good shepherd?  How many ways are there to be a good shepherd? Is there a Good Shepherd School?  

This powerful image – of Jesus caring for us as our shepherd – is very popular.  The Sheep are part of the paintings on our aspe – the twelve sheep. How can we make this idea of Good Shepherd and Sheep work of us today here in West Roxbury?  What can we learn from this sermon today to help us live out the Gospel message?

Preparing to write this homily I remembered a nursery rhyme – THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.  The rhyme is a building rhyme – it builds on itself one line at a time –

The last paragraph of the rhyme – putting all the pieces together – reads:

This is the farmer sowing his corn

That kept the cock that crowed in the morn

That waked the priest all shaven and shorn

That married the man all tattered and torn

That kissed the maiden all forlorn

That milked the cow with the crumpled horn

That tossed the dog that worried the cat

That killed the rat that ate the malt

That lay in the house that Jack built.

The story builds one line at a time.  Layers of the story that create the rhyme.  And i think that Good Shepherds are made that way – one thread after another – one teaching moment after another – some planned – many unplanned.  That is how we create good shepherds.

You know we just returned from our Youth Service Project trip to New Orleans.  You could say that the chaperones were the shepherds for the trip but the Good Shepherd is a much bigger idea than a week of service far away from home.

How did those 22 kids get to go on the trip.  What do we do as parents that are part of the Good Shepherd story?

Parents are part of the Good Shepherd story.  From diapers to nursery school to grammar school to beginner’s soccer and t-ball and all the other layers of adventures that parents go through with their children.  Religious education, early trips to Sunday Mass and receiving the sacraments and learning more about Jesus.

Dinner table conversations, etiquette, rules for a discussion, how to respect elders, follow through on things, wash floors and wash dishes, do laundry, and help each other.  Parenting is shepherding. Parents teachers and priests help to to build these threads of virtue and knowledge and love and respect that creates the opportunity for kids to become Good Shepherds.

Some of these layers are already woven into the fabric of our children.  They go off to college ready to weave different colors of new threads to the tapestry.

I saw this idea of weaving threads of experience into a fabric of our lives to create a Good Shepherd after watching and listening to some of the people we worked with in New Orleans.  We did construction and we also visited with and worked with people who were serving others. The construction was hard work in a home that was still being put back together 12 years after Katrina.  It was gratifying to see our leaders teach the kids how to lay floor tile and then watch as the young leaders taught other kids how to lay floor tile. They worked as a team that had been working together for a long time.

As we visited with and worked with other projects during the week I was overwhelmed with all the things that some of these unselfish local leaders had done and were doing.  I kept thinking how does someone do all these things? How do they get to the point in their lives where they are using every waking hour and every dollar they have to help someone or get ready to help someone.

Take Lori Wilson who runs Rescue Stables – a full time police officer – who lost a child, supports her disabled husband, is a horse crime investigator, was a Veterinary Technician, leases a stable to take in horses that are sick or abandoned, Chaplains to Young Marines at a nearby air base, plays the drums at her Church, performs as a singer when she needs money, is recovered from a broken back, runs 5 miles a day, breaks mustangs, teaches young offenders who fail the court ordered training programs, takes in foster children, and preaches the gospel through her work and her encounters.  Ask one of our kids about that encounter – be prepared to listen for a while.

Take Constance, in the lower ninth ward that is still rebuilding 12 years after Katrina. She says her blue hair make her a rock star at city hall where she advocated tirelessly for people who are still trying to make it back from the flooding.  She is a master gardener and maintains the main entrance to her part of “Make It Right” redevelopment.

Or Gail who retired after 17 years in the Navy.  Gail was married with three children and then adopted children and then was divorced and ran into some tough times.  She visited a food pantry many times as she worked her way back from hard times. She always thought she could run a better food pantry and now runs one.  Around 500 people come once a month for a bag of groceries. And as we worked with each client as they came to get their groceries, we met some wonderful people Gail has found to help her.  I worked with a 77 year old woman who grew up picking cotton on her grandfather’s farm. The stories never end.

Or Leona Tate, who decided that she had an important story to tell.  She is a chapter in the history of New Orleans. She talked to us about her story in her museum.  Leona was five when the courts finally decided that had to integrate the public schools in 1960. Leona and two other girls were picked up by US Marshall’s and taken to McDonough 19 to start her first day of first grade.  No one knew what school would be the first school. By the end of the day every parent of a white child in that school came to school and took their kids home. Leona and her two black classmates were alone in the school for 18 months.  Leona said that her parents were the heroes – she only did what she was told to do.

There were more people and stories.  But you get the idea. More threads for the fabric.  More ideas and inspiration and role models to learn from and remember.  

You parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters start to create the fabric – you begin the tapestry that makes your children who they will be.  One encounter at a time. You start the work as their Good Shepherd – and then our children sew in their own experiences – from the places they go and the people they meet and the lives that they live.  

And then they might become the next generation of Good Shepherds.