In today’s Gospel (John 10:1-10) Jesus presents himself as the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd calls his sheep by name. He leads them. This shows us that Jesus knows each one of us by name. Jesus has a special and unique relationship with each and every one of us.
In our ever increasing Information Age, you and I have become little more than numbered people: checkbook numbers, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, plus all the computer passwords and numbers we are forced to use every day. We have all been reduced to numbers and letters.
In the concentration camps of World War II Hitler had numbers tattooed on the arms of Jews and others. These prisoners were not human beings with names, but faceless, impersonal numbers. It makes it easier to hate and then to kill numbers or categories, doesn’t it? THOSE Jews, THOSE Germans, THOSE Japanese in World War II.
When I was in the major seminary and I first started going to Florida in the mid-1960’s, I’d be standing in line at a grocery store. As I was putting my groceries on the checkout belt, I’d notice a number tattooed on the arm of the person in front of me. My heart would race and drop into my gut. “My God, this person in line in front of me survived one of Hitler’s concentration camps.”
A hundred years ago in our own country it was – THOSE Italians, THOSE Irish, THOSE Poles, THOSE Catholics, THOSE Blacks. Today we do the same with categories and numbers – THOSE Muslims, THOSE Mexicans, THOSE Illegal Aliens. Listen to our leaders today as they lump categories of people together threatening to kill or harm them.
There is an Old Riddle in the Jewish Talmud that asks: “Why did the Tower of Babel fall? The Answer: Because the leaders of the project were more interested in the WORK than in the WORKERS.
When a brick for the Tower would fall and break, the owners were upset and bewailed the loss of a brick. But when a worker fell to the earth from exhaustion, they were ignored. God destroyed the Tower of Babel not because it was reaching toward heaven, but because they were more interested in the bricks than in the bricklayers.
The same thing is true today in corporate America where the only thing that matters are
“the bricks” on the bottom line. The quarterly and yearly reports are all that really counts to management and stockholders.
The Old Riddle from the Talmud highlights the basis of rejection, prejudice, racism, and persecution. It reduces so many people to numbers and categories, making them abstractions, not knowing their name and calling by name. I know a bishop in the United States who when he visits the parishes in his diocese, refers to the pastor of the parish as, “Father Pastor” and the principal of the school as “Sister Principal.” He does not take the time or make the time to even learn their names.
This past year I have seen more than my share of medical personnel. Just within the last month, a doctor I was seeing reduced me to a category after I asked him for a more precise diagnosis – “You’re OLD, you’re 82-years old!!” is what he told me.
Jesus in today’s Gospel will have none of the above. Jesus knows his sheep and he calls each of us by name. Each and every person matters to Jesus. The sweetest sound in the world to each one of us is to hear someone say our name out loud.
To overcome prejudice, to overcome putting people into categories is to learn to SEE as JESUS SEES, to KNOW people as JESUS KNOWS people and to FORGIVE others as JESUS FORGIVES them.
This means seeing people as individuals, people with a name and a history – to be more interested in the BRICKLAYER than the BRICKS.
There was an old sheep farmer whose neighbors’ dogs were always killing his sheep. It got so bad he knew he had to do something. As he saw it, he had 3 options: 1. In the true American spirit, he could sue and bring his neighbors to court. 2. He could build a stronger and a higher fence so his neighbors’ dogs could not get in.
But he chose 3. He gave 2 lambs to his neighbors’ children. In time those lambs grew into sheep and had other sheep. The neighbor and his children got to see sheep, not as an impersonal herd, but as fuzzy animals with individual traits. His children gave each of them names. Before long, the dogs were put into pens.
This is the ONLY way that the wars in Iran, Gaza and Ukraine will ever be settled and Peace will reign. Hundreds and even thousands of years ago, rulers figured out that the only way to a lasting Peace was to have their daughters marry the sons of the enemy they conquered. Then they would never want to go to war again with their grandchildren and great grandchildren. In 2026 – we still have not learned how to make a lasting Peace happen.
Thirty and forty years ago I heard neighbors and parishioners criticize and berate Mexicans up and down. Now that their sons and daughters are married to Mexicans, and they have Mexican grandkids, they tell me the Mexicans are “the most wonderful people in the world!”
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is a Good Lord. I pray to him for the strength to overcome my prejudices. The Good Shepherd is the God of Jews and Gentiles, Christians and Non-Christians, Legal Immigrants and Illegal Immigrants, Retreads and Rejects, the Good Shepherd of you and me and the Good Shepherd of all the people we categorize as THOSE. The Good Shepherd knows every single person on the earth by name!
Who are the people YOU tend to label as THOSE people? What people do YOU no longer refer to as THOSE people?
DON’T BLOCK YOUR BLESSINGS BY SEEKING REVENGE ON PEOPLE WHO WRONGED YOU. LET IT GO. TRUST GOD TO FIGHT ALL YOUR BATTLES.
Please share my Sunday Message with others who would profit from it. Do listen to my Podcast. Over the last 6 years, we have had over 100,000 listeners who have tuned in.
