TO LISTEN TO HIS VOICE AND FOLLOW IN HIS FOOTSTEPS
The scene is tense and conflictive. Jesus is walking about in the Temple area. Suddenly, Jews gather around him, harassing him in a threatening manner. But instead of being intimidated, Jesus openly reproaches them for their lack of faith: You do not believe because you are not among my sheep. The Gospel writer says that when Jesus finished speaking, the Jews picked up rocks to stone him.
To prove that they are not his sheep, Jesus dares to explain to them what it means to be among his own. He underlines two characteristics, the ones that are most essential and indispensable: My sheep hear my voice… and they follow me. After twenty centuries, we Christians need to remember once again that what is most essential about being Jesus’ Church is to listen to his voice and follow in his footsteps.
First, we need to awaken in us the capability to listen to Jesus. We need to develop much more in our communities a sensitivity that is alive in many simple Christians. These Christians manage to get what Jesus means, as they hear the Word that comes from him in all its freshness, and to be in accord with God’s Good News. John XXIII said on one occasion that “the Church is like an old village fountain, from which fresh water should always flow.” We should see to it that the fresh water of Jesus keeps flowing in this twenty-century-year-old Church.
Society bombards our consciences with a barrage of messages, slogans, images, media releases and complaints of all kinds. If we do not want our faith to go turning progressively diluted into forms of superficial religiosity that are dying out, we need to learn to put in the center of our communities the living, concrete and unmistakable Word of Jesus, our only Lord.
It is not enough, however, to listen to his voice. It is necessary to follow Jesus. The time has come to choose between being content with “bourgeois religion” that eases our consciences, but suffocates our joy, and learning to live our Christian faith as an exciting adventure to follow Jesus.
The adventure consists in believing what he believed in, giving importance to what was important to him, in defending the cause of human beings as he did. It is about being close to the defenseless and the helpless as he was, being free to do the good he did, trusting in the Father as he did, and facing life and death with the hope with which he faced them.
There are those who go through life lost, alone and adrift. If they can find in the Christian community a place where they can learn to live together in a more dignified way, with greater solidarity and freedom by following Jesus, the Church will be offering to society one of her best services.
April 17, 2016
4th Sunday of Easter (C)
John 10, 27-30