The Sunday Project
Recognizing the Shepherd's Voice
Fourth Sunday of Easter |
By Jacq Oesterblad
But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brethren, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him." And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
For what credit is it, if when you do wrong and are beaten for it you take it patiently? But if when you do right and suffer for it you take it patiently, you have God's approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber; but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens; the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers." This figure Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So Jesus again said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not heed them. I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
A friend and I were sharing, earlier this week, that we were both caught by surprise by this Gospel. “I know that last line so well,” he said, “but the beginning of the passage—it was like it was the first time I’d ever read it. It doesn’t feel familiar to me in the same way.”
That friend is also a queer Catholic, and I suspect that his reason for feeling a little distant from, a little alienated by, a little caught off-guard by these lines is similar to mine.
My entire life, people have emphasized to me the parts of the Gospel where Jesus warns about false prophets, narrow paths, worldly teachers. I was raised to be afraid of mistaking what I wanted to hear for what I needed to hear, to distrust any instinct that deviated from the Catechism, and to disdain those who remade the Gospel in their own image. And, of course, this was all code for “the gays.”
I don’t for a second want to suggest that we ignore the Gospel warnings. I wish we, as Church, all spent more time with the verses that make us most uncomfortable and that feel most condemnatory of our personal idols. I want to talk about the fact that it’s easier for camels to pass through the eyes of needles than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God, that we should forgive the same person for the same sin seventy-times-seven times, and that I’m not allowed to resent those who arrive in the vineyard in the last hour or come home having squandered their inheritance. I want more homilies that challenge me and ask me where the hell I was today while God’s people were hungry. I want us to spend more time acknowledging that our main experience of Christian life is our failure to live into it.
One of the things I most love about our faith is that it has different things to say to us at different points in our lives. When we’re feeling most adrift, it reminds us that we are infinitely loved. When we are feeling our own oats, it reminds us that we are small and flawed. When we are comfortable, it ought to afflict us. When we are afflicted, it ought to comfort us.
I think Jesus’s reassuring words in this Gospel are particularly meant for our ears, on this Sunday—those of us who were told that our consciences were misguided and our understanding of love badly calibrated.
“[T]he shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.”
I am your shepherd, he says, not a stranger. You will know my voice. Trust it.
There was a thread on Twitter earlier this week where someone asked people to share what they’re most thankful for as queer people made in the image of God.
Strikingly similar answers came flooding in:
“As a queer person, I’ve had to choose the person God made me to be over what others wanted time and time again. I’ve learned to trust God’s voice over all the people trying to speak for God.”
“Voices telling me to deny a core part of myself—one I fundamentally knew to be true—led me to interrogate what else they were lying about.”
“All humans need to face the moment when we decide if we’re just going to go along with what everyone wants us to be, or if we’re going to take the risks to be true to ourselves. Queerness made it easier to choose my true self. The self God created.”
We Catholics get a rulebook, of sorts, but everyone acknowledges that life is more complicated than that. That’s why we teach the primacy of the conscience and the discernment of spirits. But if I’m not allowed to trust my experience of Love and goodness and wholeness, if I have to spend my whole life fearing that my own heart is a false prophet trying to lead my astray and the voice I hear isn’t really a shepherd but a thief, then I can’t discern…anything. If the things I know to be good aren’t good, then I’m up shit creek without a paddle.
Jesus reminds me this week that I can trust myself to recognize my shepherd’s voice in my experiences of Love and goodness and wholeness.
Do I still get it wrong? Heck yes. Do I still ignore his voice? Almost always.
But when God says to me this week, “you, my sheep, will recognize my voice,” I believe him.
We all, somewhere in us, know the difference between a choice that is hard but worthy—like intentional poverty, fidelity to a partner, a lifetime of self-sacrifice to a vocation—and choices that are hard because they reduce us, because they bear bad fruit, because they do not lead to abundant life.
If we let it, our queerness can teach us how to discern the voice of the shepherd and guardian of our souls. And if we let him, he can lead us beside restful waters and into life.