LIKE SHEEP WITHOUT A SHEPHERD

After completing one stage of their task the disciples gather around the Lord to assess what they have accomplished. Jesus invites them firmly and tenderly to rest a while. Because of so many requests, they have no leisure even to eat. This is the human aspect of the Lord which must be appreciated in all its simplicity and significance.

But as all those who take their pastoral work seriously know there is no “deserted place” for people who have to bear witness to the gospel. People are coming from everywhere, even arriving ahead of the disciples at the place where they were going. When he sees the crowds approaching, eager to hear the word, the Lord “had compassion for them.” That is the end of the promised and deserved rest. Sensitive to the people who are “like sheep without a shepherd,” the Lord began to teach them many things.

These sheep without a shepherd, are the poor of Palestine at the time. The “poor of the land,” as they called in the Bible, are considered ignorant and hopeless by the scribes and the Pharisees, poor because they are sinners, as the powerful and the leaders used to say. But Jesus looks after them first. He has come especially for those who are last according to society. Interrupting his legitimate rest, Jesus pays attention to them. No one is interested in them, yet they are the ones whom Jesus favors.

The text from Jeremiah shows us God rejecting shepherds who scattered instead of uniting, people who show no concern for the needs of those who are under their care. They have the responsibility of shepherds but they are not fulfilling their mission. Turning their backs on the themselves have wanted to surround the responsibility the Lord has entrusted to them would not dream of shortening their rest to attend to the “poor of the land”.

God’s response is very swift. God Himself will take up the task and, gathering the scattered sheep He will raise up new shepherds to care foe them. The model of these new shepherds will be the One sent by God to ‘execute justice the will of God. This is the reason why the One sent will be called “Lord, our righteousness.’

He will “create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace.” As Christian this is what we are called to do, to have compassion for (that is, to feel with) the poor not to betray the mission the Lord confers upon us, to build a peace based on justice and thus, to open for others “access in one Spirit to the Father".

Gustavo Gutierrez

Grace Park Cross July 20, 2003