Monday of Week 4 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 10:11-18
Jesus gives two images of himself connected with sheep. Earlier in this chapter, he calls himself “the ‘Gate’ for the sheep.” Only true shepherds pass through this Gate to reach the sheep. In today’s passage, he speaks of the second image, identifying himself solemnly as the true Shepherd of his people:
I am the good shepherd.
This is the third ‘I AM’ statement. Jesus’ assertion that he is the Good Shepherd is tantamount to identifying himself as the Messiah.
Of course, the image of God as shepherd of his people is found many times in the Old Testament. For instance, in the much-loved Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd…” or in Ezekiel 34 where God speaks of himself as the shepherd of his people.
Jesus now takes that role on himself. He is the “good” shepherd because he is willing to lay down his life for his sheep. In this he is totally unlike a hired hand who, at the first sight of danger (such as the appearance of a wolf or robbers) will abandon the sheep. He is only being paid to do the job and has no personal commitment to the sheep. It seems that some of the religious leaders are having a finger pointed at them here. They are more interested in the literal observance of the Law than in the spiritual well-being of the people.
Jesus, on the other hand, is a good shepherd:
I know my own, and my own know me…And I lay down my life for the sheep.
His death on the cross is the clear proof of that. This is what makes him stand out from other ‘shepherds’. And the ‘knowledge’ here is not mere acquaintance or recognition, but a deep mutual understanding of each other. A knowledge that is the fruit of experience and an intimate personal contact leading to love.
But not all sheep belong to Jesus’ flock and it is his deep desire that they too should belong to his fold. This, first of all, points to the Gentiles who were not yet among God’s people. For us today, it points to all those who have not yet come to know the Way of Christ as pointing to life.
Jesus’ goal is that there be “one flock and one shepherd”. It should be the dream of all Christians too. The Father loves Jesus because of his readiness to die for his sheep. But Jesus’ death is his own free choice, an act of pure love for his sheep. He has the power to lay down his life and to take it up again. Our Shepherd will die, but will rise again in glory to take his sheep with him to the life that will never end.
But though Jesus the Good Shepherd will die for his sheep, he does so in perfect freedom. This is what gives his sacrifice such value. He willingly surrenders his life into the hands of his Father, and in doing so, guarantees his presence with his sheep for all time and in every place.
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Monday of Week 4 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 10:1-10
The Vatican II Missal offers us a description of shepherding that is relevant to today’s Gospel:
“Two kinds of sheepfolds or corrals are mentioned in today’s reading. In the common town sheepfold, the shepherd makes his special call and his sheep follow him out confidently. Out on the range, however, a “gatekeeper” sleeps across the corral opening: his body is the protecting door. So we live, pray and are saved through Jesus our Good Shepherd.”
We now jump from chapter 7 to chapter 10, omitting the whole episode linked with Jesus as the Light of the World and the dramatic healing of the man born blind, texts which we reflected on during Lent in relation to baptism. We begin today to consider two images that Jesus gives of himself: the first is that of a gate and the second that of a shepherd.
We have to imagine a “sheepfold” as an area surrounded by walls or wooden fencing but open to the sky, and with only one entrance. The walls kept the sheep from wandering and protected them from wild animals at night. Only a genuine shepherd enters the sheepfold through the single gate. Thieves and brigands will try to enter by another way, such as by climbing over the walls or breaking through the fence.
All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them.
Jesus is referring to all the ‘false shepherds’, including some of the Pharisees and religious leaders of his time who are quite unlike the true prophets of the past.
However, The real shepherd enters by the gate and is recognised and admitted by the “gatekeeper” (the one mentioned above who sleeps across the entrance). There are many sheep in the sheepfold belonging to different shepherds so the shepherd calls his own sheep out one by one. He then walks ahead of them and they follow their shepherd because they know his voice. They never follow strangers. (This is quite different from the European or Australian custom where the sheep are driven from behind.)
We are told that his hearers failed to understand the meaning of what Jesus said. They failed to realise that the parable applied particularly to the religious leaders.
So he spoke more clearly:
Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.
Here we have the second of the seven ‘I AM’ (ego eimi) statements made by Jesus in this Gospel. Again Jesus points to his divine origin by using the name of God which was given to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14).
In contrast to the ‘false shepherds’ mentioned earlier, Jesus, as the Gate and the Way, has come:
…that they may have life and have it abundantly.
This is a constant theme we have heard many times already, especially in chapter 6, about Jesus as the food and nourishment giving us life.
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Monday of Week 4 of Easter – First Reading
Commentary on Acts 11:1-18
We have now entered a momentous part of Acts which describes the inauguration of the mission to the Gentiles. It may not seem a big deal to us, but it involved a radical change in thinking for the first Christians who were all Jews, still felt like Jews and maintained many of the religious customs of the Jews. It changed the whole complexion of the Christian ‘movement’ inaugurated by Jesus.
It opens with the conversion and baptism of Cornelius, a gentile centurion in the Roman army. But it also involves a conversion on the part of Peter, who becomes aware that God’s calling in Jesus is extended to people of all races and religions. All of this is contained in chapter 10, which we will not be reading (the story of Cornelius is read on the 6th Sunday of Easter in Year B).
What we see in today’s reading is the reaction of the Christian leaders in Jerusalem to the news of a Gentile’s baptism. It involves a major breakthrough in the development of the Church’s awareness of its identity.
The Apostles and their fellow Christians in Jerusalem had heard that the pagans were accepting the word of God. We will see here and elsewhere in Acts that in matters of importance, the Apostles did not act alone. Guidance came from the Spirit. The Apostles interpreted and exhorted, but the consent of the whole church was then sought (“the whole community”, Acts 6:5; “apostles and the brothers and sisters”, Acts 11:1; “the church”, Acts 11:22; “the church and the apostles and elders”, Acts 15:4 and 15:22).
The Christians in Jerusalem seem to have received this news with mixed feelings because, when Peter went up to Jerusalem the “circumcised believers”, that is, the Jewish Christians, criticised him for visiting the homes of the “uncircumcised” and even eating with them. This recalls how Jesus too was criticised for consorting with the ‘unclean’ and eating with them, which led to his speaking the three beautiful parables in chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel about the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost Son.
The “uncircumcised” were those Gentiles who did not observe the laws of clean and unclean food and hence were in violation of Jewish regulations concerning food preparation. At this stage, it is clear that the Jewish Christians still saw themselves, even in a religious sense, as Jews. We know that they continued to go to the Temple to pray, and in this reading they have not yet changed their attitude to non-Jews—still seeing them as a source of contamination.
Peter then shares with them the dream he had. In this dream there appeared every kind of living thing that could walk, crawl or fly. He was told to kill and eat them, and he recoiled in horror. As a devout Jew he had never touched food that was regarded as ‘unclean’. He was made to realise in no uncertain terms that:
What God has made clean, you must not call profane.
And just in case Peter did not get this message, the vision was repeated three times!
Just then, he also got an invitation to join three men in going to a house in Caesarea. This house, as we were told in the previous chapter, belonged to Cornelius, a centurion in the Roman army. It seems that he was an out and out Gentile, with no connections whatever to Judaism. Peter went, together with six “brothers”, under the guidance and the approval of the Spirit.
When they got there, Cornelius said he had been told by an angel to summon Peter to his house. Peter had a special message for him to hear. Peter had barely begun to explain the message of Jesus when the Holy Spirit came down on all of the household, just as the Apostles themselves had experienced it at Pentecost. The “household” (Latin, familia) included not only those related by blood (parents, children, other relatives), but also slaves and all who were under Cornelius’ authority.
It was perfectly clear to Peter that there was no way he could deny baptism and membership in the community to this Gentile, who up to this he had regarded as unclean and a person not to be mixed with. He told the Christians in Jerusalem:
If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?
Peter could not deny the Gentiles the invitation to be baptised and to enjoy full fellowship in Christ with all believers. The Jewish believers were compelled to recognise that God was going to save Gentiles on equal terms with Jews. By divine action rather than by human choice, the door was being opened to Gentiles.
Peter explains why he allowed a pagan to be baptised. However, he does not answer the objection that he had lodged with the uncircumcised. According to Luke, Peter was considered to have been the first to receive pagans into the Church, in spite of the episode of the Ethiopian eunuch (with the deacon Philip), about which we read on Thursday of last week, and the date of the evangelisation of Antioch, to which Luke does not refer till later (in fact, immediately after this incident). Against this background, the council of Jerusalem (which we will hear about in the middle of next week) appears as a kind of sequel to, or repetition of, the discussion in today’s passage. It is clear that Peter’s leadership is being emphasised.
The people in Jerusalem accepted what Peter told them and gave thanks to God that even the Gentiles could experience “the repentance [Greek, metanoia—i.e. radical conversion] that leads to life”. They were not just repenting the past, but undertaking a complete turn-around in their lives involving a total commitment to the Way of Christ.
This story is just one example to be repeated again and again in the life of the Church of how change does not come from the centre, which in fact is often resistant to change, but from the outer limits.
The same is true of our Church today. There is always tension between the central institution of the Church and the more charismatic and prophetic elements which are often more in touch with the grass roots and with the changes taking place in society. These effect a call for change in the thinking and behaviour of the Church. In recent times, the Second Vatican Council and more recently, the Synod on Synodality, are excellent examples of this process. It is important to recognize that this tension is a good thing, and it is necessary both for progress and continuity.
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