The Lord is My Shepherd!
The Lord is My Shepherd!
In the first reading, the prophet Jeremiah thunders against Israel's careless leaders, because they have shown no concern for the poor. The prophet also foretells the rises of a good, new shepherd in the family line of David. Then he consoles the Israelites enslaved in Babylon, by assuring them that God will lead them back to their original place in Israel. The second reading introduces Jesus as the shepherd of both Jews and Gentiles and explains how Jesus, the good shepherd, reconciled all of us with His Father by offering himself on the cross. Paul also speaks about another reconciliation between the Jews and the Gentiles, brought about by Jesus who accepted both into the same Christian brotherhood. The reading from the Gospel of Mark presents Jesus as the good shepherd fulfilling God’s promise given through his prophet Jeremiah in the first reading. Here we see Jesus attending to his weary apostles, who have just returned from their first preaching mission, while at the same time expressing his concern for the people who, like “sheep without a shepherd," have gathered to meet him in the wilderness.
Sheep nibble themselves astray: they keep their heads down, just as we tend to keep our heads glued to our jobs – until we look up and realize we don’t know where we are. It would be a very good thing to stop and rest, as Jesus said. When we look at it rightly, there is only one Shepherd, and every one of us is the lost sheep.
The beautiful and famous Psalm we prayed today (Ps 23), “The Lord is my shepherd” was written many centuries before Jesus but when we pray this Psalm it is natural for us to think of Jesus: “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.” We see Jesus’ concern for his apostles, and at the same time concern for his people. He is our shepherd, and at the same time we are sent out as shepherds. In other words, in certain roles, we are shepherds and other times we are the sheep without shepherds.
The reading reminds us of two points: we have to find time to spend time with our shepherd and at the same time we are sent out like apostles, shepherds to bring the “Good News” to others. Perhaps our commitment to following Jesus as his disciple leaves us feeling tired and overwhelmed. In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus affirm the importance of times of rest and renewal. Jesus wanted his disciples to come away and spend time alone with him. This is what we seek and find in our personal prayer and in our celebration of the Eucharist. This is the place we are fed and sent out to continue our mission.