Am I a good shepherd of the people and responsibilities entrusted to me?

Jesus says that he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. (John 10:11) Most of us have never been around sheep, nor would we think of ourselves as shepherds. We may view the analogy appropriate for pastors or bishops, but not for ourselves. Yet, many of us are responsible for people or work just as a shepherd is of sheep. The people may be our families, employees who work for us, customers who we are expected to serve, or even friends who may have an expectation of support. The work can be our job responsibilities, family responsibilities, or expectations flowing from our volunteer activities. As the good shepherd, Jesus distinguishes himself from the hired hand who abandons the sheep when he sees the wolf coming because he neither owns the sheep nor cares for them. (John 10:12)

Shepherd or hired hand? John was a county prosecutor in Duluth, Minnesota for many years. In one of his early cases he was surprised to discover that a former high school friend, Jim, was the defendant. Over the next 26 years John would prosecute Jim a dozen times for theft related crimes to support a chemical dependency.

For a number of years John thought Jim was just another hopeless habitual criminal. Then John recommitted his life to Jesus Christ and experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The next time he saw Jim in court he told him that he would pray for him. Jim said not to waste his time. In subsequent cases Jim would thank John for his prayers and said that he in turn would pray for John.

Then Jim was again caught with a cache of stolen goods, sentenced to prison, but learned that he was terminally ill with sclerosis of the liver. His lawyer arranged for him to be assigned to a hospice. Jim asked his lawyer to let John know his condition and to request his prayers.

Over the next six months John did more than just pray for Jim. He visited him two to four times a week. They reminisced about growing up in the 1950s and talked about their favorite baseball players. They also read the Bible together. That fall, Jim repented of his sins and surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. He died in November. “Jim loved reading and praying the psalms,” said John. “God used Jim to teach me about acceptance of suffering and perseverance, and he showed me that it’s never too late to say yes to the Lord, no matter what we have done.

John concludes, “Because God answers prayers, Jim said, ‘yes’ to Christ before he died, and I know he is in paradise today – just like another thief who died on the cross next to Jesus 2000 years ago.” (Excerpt from Hope for the Workplace, p. 46, www.zacchaeuspublications.com.)

Good Shepherd. John was a good shepherd of his responsibilities as a prosecutor and of even the people he prosecuted. Before every trial, John says, “I pray for the truth to be known, for a just result, and that everyone involved would come to know Christ.” John sacrificed his time in supporting Jim and leading him to Christ before he died. He did not run like a “hired hand” in the face of a challenge as Jesus mentioned. He persevered in going after a lost sheep in the person of his former high school friend Jim. He was faithful until he brought him home to the Father, just like “the good shepherd [who] lays down his life for his sheep.”

Does the Spirit of God reside in you?  

At the time of Moses, God would reside in the Tent of Meeting. (Exodus 33:7-11) Later, the Israelites built a temple for him in Jerusalem. In Psalm 24, we read, “Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty – he is the King of glory.” (Psalm 24:9-10)

The psalmist was declaring that the gates of the city be opened so that the people could experience God’s visitation and presence. A millennium later, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well that “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” (John 4:21, 23) He would also declare that the “the Kingdom [of God] is within you.” (Luke 17:21) St. Paul would add, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16)

God’s desire is not to reside in a Temple of bricks and mortar, but in the temple of our hearts.

Beverly who is an oncology nurse in Gilroy, California, says to her patients as she begins an IV, “Let’s pray that this IV will be painless.” At some point she will ask her patients if she can pray with them. They always say okay. At a time when medical care can become quite impersonal, Beverly says, “We get very close to many of our patients. I went to Pat’s house to help her out before she died. We’ll go to the hospital and pray with patients, even in a coma. People tell me, ‘You shouldn’t get so close to your patients,’ but I tell them that ‘this is my God job.’”

Beverly is bringing God’s presence to the patients that come to her clinic. She cares for them; she intercedes for them; as a Gospel singer and concert violinist, she sings and plays for them – she loves them just as Jesus would love them if he were physically present. He is present to them through Beverly. Read more in Hope for the Workplace – Christ in You, p. 37, www.zacchaeuspublications.com.

When we open the gates of our heart to his presence, God shares his own Holy Spirit with us. The Spirit of God comes to dwell in us and empower us to do the same things that Jesus did and even greater things. God’s love becomes our love, his strength becomes our strength and his word becomes our word – all for the purpose of bringing about his Kingdom through us to the people and circumstances of our lives.

Lift up the gates of my heart, O Lord that the love and mercy of your presence may be manifest to all whom you place in my path – my wife and family, friends, colleagues, bosses, subordinates, customers, suppliers and strangers.

Amazing!

It takes a lot of effort to support a lie. Can you remember a time when a little “white lie” led to another lie and then another?

The chief priests and elders of Jesus’ day did not know how to deal with an empty tomb and the possibility that Jesus, whom they crucified, was raised from the dead. Most everything that Jesus said and did was outside their paradigm for a Messiah. His resurrection was untenable to them. So, they devised a lie and paid those who were guarding his tomb a large sum of money to testify to the lie.

Matthew reports, “When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, ‘You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep. So the soldiers took the money and did as they were told.’” (Mt. 28:12-13, 15)

Providing cover for a lie can get complicated, taking time, creating anxiety and exacting an emotional toll. How often have we seen a public figure pay a high price for living a lie, sometimes costing them their marriage, family, career and, like the chief priests, even hush money?

In Hope for the Workplace – Christ in You, www.zacchaeuspublications.com), there is the story of Pat who had struggled to get a job after completing her master’s degree. She obtained temporary work at a small university to write a report about the effectiveness of a federal grant for a media center to improve teaching methods. When her report included survey data about the lack of use of the media center by the faculty, she was asked by the department chair to alter the data so that he and the university would not look bad. He implied that a permanent job would be in the offering if she acceded to his request, but probably not if she refused. Pat refused to go along with the lie. The job was not offered. But Pat’s conscience was clear, and her response helped her get a better job elsewhere several months later.

Truth is less complicated than a lie. It is liberating. It is cleansing. The lack of truth is an obstacle to the Holy Spirit acting in our lives, while its presence testifies to the power of God. Truth is the pearl “of great value.” (Mt. 13:46) Paul says love rejoices in the truth. (1 Cor.13:6)

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) “If you hold to my teaching…then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

How much do we value the truth? How much is a lie costing us? Let us pray for the courage not to exchange the truth of God for a lie. (Romans 1:25)

Jesus was dead. They saw him die, and they saw the tomb where he was buried. The trauma was indelibly printed on their minds and would not be easily removed.

Now he was appearing before them, but they did not recognize him. Mary Magdalene did not recognize him until he said her name, “Mary.” The disciples on the road to Emmaus did not recognize him though he walked with them until nearly dark. Only at the breaking of the bread as they began to eat were their eyes opened.

To overcome the trauma of seeing Jesus’ torturous death they needed proof to confirm what their eyes were now seeing. After offering them his peace, Jesus “showed them his hands and side.” (John 20:20) Later he eats fish to show that he is not just spirit but also flesh. (Luke 24:42-43) On another occasion, he confirms his presence with a miracle catch of 153 fish. (John 21)

Overcoming our paradigm of death and its irreversible nature is no small matter. It was true for the disciples and it is true for us. Yet, that is exactly the hope that God offers on Easter morning in the person of his son, Jesus. God became one of us to show that life does not end with our physical death. Who we are has less to do with our physical nature than with our soul and spirit, which are a created by God and mysteriously joined with our physical nature at conception.

Jesus bequeathed to both the disciples and us something to take the place of his physical presence – the Holy Spirit, which he described as giving us the power to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. The Holy Spirit enables the words of Jesus to become a reality in our lives — he is in us and we in him just as the Father is in him and he is in the Father. He says the result is that, “Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these…so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.” (John 14:12-13)

With the power of the Holy Spirit, we can experience Jesus’ personal presence in our daily lives. For me, it first happened on an October evening many years ago when I met him in a personal way and he took the sin and disorder from my life. We now meet for coffee and prayer every morning. I also see him every day in the big bright smile of our daughter with Down syndrome whose many hugs reflect her natural inclination to love.

I see him in the love of my wife and all or our children and grandchildren as they respond to his love for them. I see him in the inmates of the local jail who accept the humility of their present circumstance and seek the sacrament of reconciliation. I see him in the teenagers and college students we know who postpone career decisions to serve him on college campuses and impoverished areas.

Where do you see the risen Jesus?

Who do we seek to please – the crowd or God?

After questioning Jesus, Pontius Pilate concluded that he had committed no crime and offered to release him in accordance with the custom to release one prisoner at the feast of the Passover. The chief priests stirred up the crowd to demand the release of an insurrectionist named Barabbas instead of Jesus and have Jesus crucified. Pilate resisted at first, but then Mark reports, “Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas…He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.” (Mark 15:15)

The crowd seldom gets it right. How often do we see conventional wisdom that is not wise, popular opinion that does not reflect the truth, and consensus that leads to the wrong result?

Cynthia Cooper, the vice president of Internal Audit for WorldCom who discovered the massive fraudulent accounting in 2002, says in her book, Extraordinary Circumstances, “Most of the people who participated in the WorldCom fraud were ordinary, middle-class Americans. They had no prior criminal records and never imagined they would be confronted with such life-altering choices. They were mothers and fathers who went to work to support their families, spent weekends going to their children’s activities and church, and were respected within their communities.” In speculating on the motivation of the mid-level employees who participated in the fraud, she said they simply “felt pressured and afraid that they would lose their jobs if they didn’t go along.” (See Hope for the Workplace – Christ in You, p. 11, www.zacchaeuspublications.com)

One of the few things Jesus did say when questioned by Pilate was that he had come into the world to testify to the truth. Ironically, Pilate asked, “What is truth?” though the embodiment of all truth was standing before him in the person of Jesus. (John 18:37-38)

Like Jesus, our decisions and actions should testify to the truth. Unlike Pilate, we should not be governed by what the crowd or others want, but rather should be seeking the truth which is what God wants.

The crowd yelled, “Crucify him!” But the crowd got it wrong. God redeemed the wrong and took the cross, a symbol of Roman cruelty and oppression, and transformed it into a symbol of love, sacrifice and hope.

How often do we choose sleep instead of prayer at the beginning of our day? After Jesus and the disciples retired to the Mount of Olives following their celebration of the Passover meal, Jesus said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” (Luke 22:40) He then withdrew to pray about his impending passion. Even he was tempted to ask God to free him from the trial he was about to undergo, but then submitted to God’s will.

Meanwhile, the disciples were not praying as he suggested, but had fallen asleep. He chastises them for sleeping and not praying, saying again, “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” We know what happened next; they succumbed to the temptation of fear, and all of them scattered, abandoning Jesus at his arrest.

Jesus’ antidote for temptation is not complicated. It is simply prayer. In his suggested prayer to his disciples and to us, his concluding petition is, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Mt. 6:13)

Jesus invites us to pray just as he did the disciples. He invites us to begin our day with him and the Father. He knows from his personal experience that we will not be able to withstand the temptations we face each day without prayer. Prayer nurtures our relationship with Jesus and the Father. The temptations we face are many and varied — telling the boss what he wants to hear instead of the truth; getting angry when things don’t go our way; engaging in negative humor at the expense of others; flirting with a co-worker; overstating an item on an expense account; getting short with our spouse; or not spending time with our children at the end of a busy day.

One of my more frequent temptations is to get impatient with a store clerk or the person on a help desk when their response seems to take too long or is off the mark. When I don’t pray, my pride’s expectations are often disproportionate to the problem at hand.

With each temptation that Satan threw at Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus countered with a scripture that refuted Satan’s premise for the temptation. Prayer and scripture are weapons Jesus gives us against temptation and the wiles of Satan. St. Paul describes them as the armor of God and adds to them truth, righteousness, readiness, faith, salvation, and the Holy Spirit. (Eph. 6:13-18) To these, the Church adds the sacraments of reconciliation and the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

“Why are you sleeping?” Jesus asks. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”

How often do we ask God to free us from a difficult burden? It may be a serious illness, dealing with a rebellious child, satisfying a demanding boss, overcoming a hurt from a family member, or wanting to avoid the consequences of our own wrongful conduct.

Getting free of the burden is usually our first priority. Even if we take the matter to prayer, our first prayer is likely that the burden be lifted. Even Jesus, in a demonstration of how real his humanity was, asked God before his arrest to take the cup of his impending trial, torture and execution, along with the crushing weight of taking onto himself all the sins of humankind.

But after pleading that the cup be taken, Jesus laid down his will to God’s will. “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)

In Hope for the Workplace – Christ in you (www.zacchaeuspublications.com), there is the story of Bob, an insurance broker who made a substantial investment in a new company providing specialized insurance products, and then lost the entire investment due to the unethical practices of a partner operating the venture. A few years later, Bob read in the newspaper that the partner had been convicted of embezzlement in another business venture and sent to prison. Bob said, “I begin to sense that the Lord wanted me to go visit him in prison. My first reaction was, ‘No way!’ I was still angry with him for what he had done.” Yet, Bob was willing to let go of his will and submit to the Lord’s will, and make the visit.

Bob said, “When I walked into the visitor’s area, he was shocked to see me. Tears started to well up in his eyes. He couldn’t believe that someone whom he previously hurt would come to visit him. He was a different man. He had been attending a Bible study and was open to talk about spiritual matters. I visited him a couple more times and we would read scripture and pray.”

When he was released from prison, Bob gave him a Bible, invited him to a Christians in Commerce breakfast and continued to encourage him in re-establishing his life.

When Bob submitted his will to God’s will, God transformed his unforgiving heart, and then used him to support his former colleague’s new life.

Jesus said, “My food [sustenance] is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” (John 4:34) We worry and carry on about so many things in life. Yet, seeking God’s will in all matters might sustain us above all else.