Bad Shepherds and a Good Shepherd

 This is my homily for yesterday, the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.  Yesterday's readings are here.

You may have noticed the readings we just heard present us with a compare-and-contrast.  The first reading introduces us to the idea of bad shepherds: “Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the LORD.”  That was God, speaking through his prophet Jeremiah.  The shepherds he was referring to were the rulers of the kingdom of Judah, the bad kings who didn’t attend to the suffering of their people.

Today’s Gospel reading gives us the compare-and-contrast: it presents us with Jesus, who is the good shepherd for his people. 

God seems to have a very specific idea of what makes for a good shepherd: one who remains with his people, listening to their troubles, and responding with care and love, with protection and justice.

To help illustrate the distinction between a good shepherd and a bad shepherd, I’d like to make an observation.  My point of departure for this observation is Disney animated films.  I have four kids, and over the years, we’ve watched a lot of Disney movies – some of them many times over.  Disney movies are filled with royalty: princes, kings, queens, but especially princesses.  And Disney movies have a sort of conventional way of depicting where the royal family lives.  It’s generally in a castle, usually high atop a hill, with a town or a city situated down below.  If you’ve seen the movie Tangled, which is highly watchable, even for parents, that’s a good example of what I’m talking about.  Rapunzel and Flynn come into the town to celebrate the festival of the lights with the townspeople, but they don’t ascend the road winding up the hill to the palace until the very end, when – spoiler alert! – Rapunzel learns she is the lost princess and is reunited with her true parents, the king and queen.  Because if one is a commoner, one doesn’t just casually stroll into the palace; one must be one of the elites to gain access to that elite space.  

Aladdin takes place in a very different culture, but the basic civic arrangement is the same: the sultan’s palace is set apart from the people; in fact, it’s so isolated that Princess Jasmine finds it to be almost literally a prison from which she longs to escape and see other people and their lives.  In light of today’s readings, I would say that her longing to be among her people speaks well of her; I think Jesus would approve.

There are many other Disney films with a similar palace arrangement: Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, probably others I’m not thinking of.  

Disney didn’t invent this convention; it’s based on the reality that, throughout history, royalty always has lived apart from the commoners.  Typically, the royal palace was set apart from the town; often it was situated on the highest ground, above the homes and shops of the tradespeople and peasants; and the palace was walled off; and entrance was restricted.  None of this was accidental; it was all intended.  The whole intent and effect are to create social separation.  ‘We are the elite, who are set apart, both physically and socially, from the commoners.  So keep out, you icky peasants!’  

Now, in light of this arrangement with the walled-off elites living up above and the poor commoners living down below, let’s consider the sequence of events in today’s Gospel:

• Jesus recognized that his apostles were weary, so he invited them to get away to a deserted place
• But so many people came to them that Jesus and his disciples didn't even have time to eat 
• So they jumped into a boat and crossed to the other side 
• The people, sussing out this plan, hurried to the other side on foot and were waiting for the boat when it arrived

What may strike us here is the persistence and urgency of the people’s plight.  They are so in need of Jesus’s words and healing that they pursue him wherever he goes.  They need help now!

And here we come to the crux of the contrast between bad shepherds and Jesus the good shepherd: when traditional royals want to get away from the great unwashed horde, they retreat to their homes – their walled-off, heavily guarded, restricted-access sanctuaries: their palaces.  This is precisely why the palace was built with these restrictive, isolating features: so the elite could separate themselves from the commoners and their problems.  So the elites enter their fortress homes, they close the gates behind them, post guards, and issue orders that they are not to be disturbed.  We can imagine the guards speaking to the people through the bars of the gates: “No, you may not see the king now.  Go away.  Come back tomorrow.  Or better yet, don’t come back tomorrow.”

And now consider Jesus.  When it becomes clear that today is not the day for him and his apostles to rest, does he send the people away?  Does he have his apostles make a protective ring around him?  Not at all: instead, we’re told that he took pity on them, for they were “like sheep without a shepherd”, and he immediately began to teach them.  

Jesus is still our good shepherd today, too.  He doesn’t wall himself off from us.  Access to him isn’t restricted.  He hasn’t given his angels orders that we are not to disturb him.  On the contrary: he’s like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son: when he sees us coming toward him with our problems and anxieties, he runs ahead to meet us on the way.  

Jesus is right here, now, in the midst of us.  “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”, he says in Matthew’s Gospel.  Jesus is right here.  He’s sitting in the pew right next to you.  He might be even closer than that: right in your heart.  He wants to know what is troubling you.  Please: don’t hesitate to tell him.