4th Sunday of Easter C - Homily 1

Homily 1 – ANZAC Day

In today’s Gospel Jesus stated: The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice. Earlier in the chapter that today’s reading was taken from, Jesus had likened himself to a Good Shepherd.

In claiming that role, he laid claim to what had come to be accepted as the role especially of God. Centuries before, the prophet Ezekiel had called God the “Shepherd of Israel”. He had looked to God at a time when he, and most of the people, had despaired of the incompetence and moral bankruptcy of the political and religious leadership of the time.

Within a few years of his prophecy, the nation was destroyed; and anyone who was anyone deported to Babylon. The monarchy – the political leadership – was dismantled. With no temple, the priests – the religious leadership – lost their former purpose. In time, a remnant of the people returned to their Holy Land. They rebuilt a temple, but the Davidic kingship was not re-established.

Jesus made his claim to the role of the Good Shepherd during the annual festival  commemorating the Dedication of the Temple. It was a popular festival. Almost a century and a half before, Judea had come under the crushing control of a megalomaniac called Antiochus Epiphanes who declared himself divine and erected a statue to himself in the temple in Jerusalem. That was the last straw for his Jewish subjects. They revolted under the leadership of the Maccabees: they broke free of Antiochus, and rededicated the temple.

In time, the Maccabee line of kings turned out to be no better than their predecessors. They soon gave the office of Chief Priest to the highest bidder.. During the life-time of Jesus, Annas had bought his office of High Priest from the Romans. So much for leadership!

It was in this context that Jesus’ claim to be the Good Shepherd gets its relevance. Jesus’ claim, however, was not to structured, political leadership. It was something superior to that. He saw himself, and his life-style, as the criterion according to which all human leadership must be assessed. All leadership is essentially fallible and potentially corruptible. We don’t need to have read too much history to be aware of that. 

Today we commemorate Anzac Day. Lived examples of courage stir something in our psyche, perhaps, particularly, in the male psyche, and sometimes so powerfully, but unnoticed, that we need to be careful of it. 

But along with the courage of the ordinary soldier that the day commemorates was the colossal incompetence of their Military High Command. They sent thousands of trusting soldiers on what proved to be an impossible, and totally unnecessary suicide mission. What were Australians doing there, anyway, invading Turkey? And then the High Command followed up that tragedy with the brutal killing fields of Belgium and France. So much for leadership!

As well as commemorating Gallipoli, we are also being confronted at this time with so many in positions of leadership in the Church, even high up, admitting that mistakes were made in the whole area of clerical sexual abuse of defenceless children. How come that we, bishops and clergy, got away with it for so long?

It’s possible to have too much respect for leadership. There must be ways for keeping leaders accountable, whether they/we be political or religious leaders; and the more authority we give, the better our structures of accountability need to be. It is too easy to allow loyalty to blind judgment.

Yet, it is because we comprise this kind of Church, this kind of world, that Jesus comes among us this morning as bread broken and cup of wine shared – as body crucified and blood shed. And the risen Christ here in our midst says to us: Peace be with you.

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus said that the sheep that belong to him listen to his voice.

Where, how, do we hear his voice? Ultimately, through a duly formed and informed conscience – no easy matter. To hear the gentle voice of conscience, we must be constantly tuned-in to it. There is no substitute for that. At the same time, we need to  be able to tune out, not just our own personal wants and fears, but the powerful brain-washing of the media, of the spin doctors, and, simply, of much of secular and religious culture in general, that deaden us and lead us to take too much simply for granted.

It is only to the extent that we listen to Jesus and that we follow him, that we begin to live the eternal life he promises us, and provide hope and enlightenment for the world in which we live.