Sermon. As sheep scattered.

Sermon. 19 July 2015. St Alban's Great Ilford

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 23.1-6

Psalm 22/23

Mark 6.30-34

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the last year - the ending - of the Second Vatican Council. This Roman Catholic Council ran from 11 October 1962 – 8 December 1965. It was the most authoritative gathering in Roman Catholic thinking. It is much more important than the pope speaking alone. It was called by the then Pope, Pope, now Saint John XXIII. John XXIII was known in his lifetime as 'the good pope'. 'Good' here perhaps does not mean 'morally good' (we hope that most popes are that) so much as 'good-natured'. It means he was funny.

Among his witticisms perhaps the best known was his response to the question 'How many people work in the Vatican?' He said... 'About half of them'. Again, visiting a boy in hospital, he asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He replied: 'either a policeman, or a pope'. John XXIII: 'I should go into the police if I were you. Anyone can be pope; look at me!' And when told it would be quite impossible to have everything in place to open the Second Vatican Council in 1963, he said: 'Fine. Then we'll start it in 1962'... And they did.

But.. why am I saying this now? Well, two reasons. Firstly, I am trying my best to obey Fr Stuart's rubric for the homily, namely: 'Make them laugh!' (and thank you for implying I've not wholly failed in that). But secondly, and even more importantly, because I think that the work and significance of the Second Vatican Council are still with us. Indeed, they are things that we need. All of us who identify as 'Catholic', but really all Christians.

Let me mention just two documents from towards the end of the Council, that are 50 years old this year. There is the Decree on non-Christian religions (Nostra Aetate). This revolutionised Catholic attitudes to Judaism in particular, and to other faiths more generally. It made clear that it is wrong to say that the Jews killed Christ, or that their own covenant with Gd is over. And again, it said that the Church rejects nothing that is holy in other faiths, seeing much that is good.

And there is the document on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes). This says that the Church shares the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of all people. That Christ is, in one way or another, united to all people. And that all people of goodwill, even self-professed atheists, can be in a life-giving relationship with Christ.

So perhaps we can get some sense of how the Second Vatican Council was a gathering which preached, taught and sought goodwill, the common good... reconciliation. And it sought reconciliation based on the highest regard of what human beings are capable of. You see, because it was confident about Gd as our Creator and sustainer, it could be confident about human potentiality, for we are creatures in the divine image. If we are to make the most of our Catholic heritage, we sorely need to hold on to this two-fold confidence, both in Gd and in human potentiality. We need this confidence, for the times are hard.

*

In today's readings too we hear of hard times. Today, as every Sunday, the First Reading and the Gospel mirror, echo and illumine each other, in one way if not more. It is not hard to see the theme they have in common. The prophet Jeremiah speaks of shepherds who let the flock be scattered and uncared-for. He does so, knowing that his hearers and readers will understand that 'shepherd' here means not people who have to do with livestock, but the leaders, both political and religious,- kings and priests. This, then, is what Jesus picks up, when he sees the crowds in his own day, who are hungry, no, starving for his healing and his teaching. He sees them as shepherd-less sheep. Their leaders had failed in just the ways Jeremiah had warned about.

And... how are we, brothers and sisters? Is it not the case that the human family today is not so much a gathered flock, but like sheep who have scattered, who are lost? If so, the answer is not to look to some human being, or some group of human beings, who can lead us, telling us what to do, and punishing the disobedient. That way disaster lies. Notice that even Jesus – even Jesus! - when he sees the people as so many scattered sheep does not say: 'But now I am here to lead you!' No. He doesn't say that in the passage we have heard this morning. And he doesn't go on to say it. Rather, what Jesus goes on to do (but do come back next week to check this out)... is feed, really to feed the people, in the Feeding of the 5000.

Jesus heals; he teaches; he feeds. In such down-to-earth, unfussy, unglamorous and even unnoticed ways, he gets on with the practical matter of shepherding the sheep. And this is surely our vocation too. We are called to play some part in healing, teaching and feeding. And typically for us, too, it will be down-to-earth, unfussy, unglamorous and unnoticed.

What this means is that we need not be anxious if, as a society, we are sheep without authentic, reliable shepherds, leaders. We need not be seduced by any who claim they are great shepherds, leaders and saviours themselves. But, equally, and perhaps more pertinently for our time, we need not fear that the human family is without any shepherding at all. For if we do fear we are without any shepherding, we may be tempted to indulge the fear that we are pretty much at the mercy of those weird and never properly defined creatures, 'the terrorists' and 'the extremists'. 'Terrorists' and 'extremists' (whoever they are) are not in charge. And will not be. No, the Lord is and remains our shepherd, and Jesus Christ remains the Good Shepherd, whether we can see that in the news we hear and see, or not.

And above all, we need not be anxious here, as we gather around word and sacrament. Jesus feeds us too. And it cannot be said to often that the message of the sacraments is precisely this: no one in the history of history has ever been closer to Gd in Jesus Christ than we are, here. We can receive him, we receive him into our selves, and he can meet us at our point of need, as he did the crowds back then.

This may not solve all our problems. I will be blunt: it won't solve all our problems. But, then, in Jesus' earthly ministry, some he healed would have fallen sick again, some he taught would forget, some he fed would go hungry again. And yet! And yet, that encounter with Gd in Jesus at the point of our need, can make all the difference. It can turn all the chaos, pain and grief of our lives into an adventure, and a pilgrimage towards Gd and our own joy.

We need Gd in Jesus. And we need faith in ourselves as human beings in the divine image, as the Second Vatican Council stressed with force. But that faith in ourselves always springs not from pride in some supposed 'innate' gifts of ours, but from humility about what Gd chooses to go on giving us. I've already suggested that Saint John XXIII is a good model of such humility. So I finish with another anecdote. 

He was visiting another sick person in another hospital, run by the convent of the Holy Spirit. He was greeted at the door thus: 'I am the Mother Superior of the Holy Spirit'. His reply: 'Lucky you! What a job! I'm just the servant of the servants of Gd'. May we learn. Amen.