BECOMING A LABOURER AND SHEPHERD

WEDNESDAY, TWENTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Ezek 34:1-11; Ps 23; Mt 20:1-16

Shepherds of God’s Flock

We falter many times, mainly because we have failed to understand our relationship with God. We belong to God, and everything we have comes from him. If we all belong to God and he cares for everyone as his own, then we must also care for ourselves and for each other. From these relations, we have come to understand our natural need for communion with God and with each other. The wisdom that comes from awareness of God and our relationship with him enlightens our minds to understand that we come from God and are returning to him. The desire for unlimited life is the natural witness to our going back to God. Our ability to know or acquire knowledge of the universe is a testimony that we come from God, for intelligence, which is the operation of rational light within us, points to the presence of the divine image in us. Hence, by creating us, God continues to work in us through knowledge of the material universe and our human nature, and guides us to communion with himself. The introduction of sin by the devil made this natural journey to God difficult, if not impossible. Because of sin, we tend to self instead of tending to God in all things.

This blindness caused by sin is the reason for the problems of the shepherds of Israel, of whom the Lord complained through the Prophet Ezekiel. Their problem is the human problem. But their culpability is greater because God has revealed his word to them. God’s revelation through the Law and the Prophets was greater light to guide Israel on the path leading to divine communion. The abandonment of the Law and the Prophets is the ruin of the shepherds. Everything becomes about us when we abandon the word of God. Therefore, God accused the shepherds thus: “Shepherds, the Lord says this: Trouble for the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Shepherds ought to feed their flocks, yet you have fed on milk, you have dressed yourselves in wool, you have sacrificed the fattest sheep, but failed to feed the flock. You have failed to make weak sheep strong, or to care for the sick ones, or bandage the wounded ones. You have failed to bring back strays or look for the lost.” Only the word of God, which enlightens our understanding, enables us to walk the right path to God and to commune with him. Just as Adam and Eve lost their light when the serpent deceived them, they turned away from God’s injunction. The shepherds of Israel turned their attention to themselves when they ceased to focus on God’s words.

A shepherd who remains focused on the word of God plays the divine role, for he carries out God’s will and not his own. Through such a shepherd, God continues to tend to his flock. “The Lord says this: I am going to call the shepherds to account. I am going to take my flock back from them and I shall not allow them to feed my flock. In this way the shepherds will stop feeding themselves. I shall rescue my sheep from their mouths; they will not prey on them anymore.” We must focus attention on the word of God and his presence with us, so that we do not put ourselves first. In the Gospel, the first labourers in the vineyard were concerned only about themselves, and had no concern for other labourers left unhired. But the landowner has concern for all, for they are all his sheep. So, he recruits and pays all in the work of tending his flock, so that none may be left out of his communion. “So those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came forward and received one denarius each. When the first came, they expected to get more, but they too received one denarius each. They took it, but grumbled at the landowner.” He rewards us based on his covenant with us; the word of God is a covenant between God and us. “My friend, I am not being unjust to you; did we not agree on one denarius? Take your earnings and go. I choose to pay the last comer as much as I pay you. Have I no right to do what I like with my own?” We are all part of his flock; he tends to us through the Good Shepherd, who is present in all who do the will of God.

Let us pray: O God, who have prepared for those who love you good things which no eye can see, fill our hearts, we pray, with the warmth of your love, so that, loving you in all things and above all things, we may attain your promises, which surpass every human desire. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.