Given at Oakwood on June 11, 2010
Note: This reflection is laid out graphically to be read aloud, not as a literary piece. The original file is attached in case your browser doesn't display the formatting correctly. Comments from Sister Smith are contained in the parentheses, and the text in color relates to the theme of Search and Rescue. The list of timelined Search and Rescue missions was obtained at www.informationplease.com under science/disaster.
In looking over the three sets of readings for this special feast, I was interested to compare and contrast the themes to see how Year C differs; and I was amazed at what I found in the congruence of the readings for Year C with our world and its needs this June, 2010 ….
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Year A lays out … who we are meant to be BECAUSE we are chosen by God. It really describes the aspirations and goal of our vocation as Christians and, of course as religious…
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Year B is more descriptive of who God is, how God has loved us in and through the long hidden mystery revealed in Jesus’ life and death and outpouring of the Spirit… so we may be filled with the fullness of God!
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And then there is Year C… quite different from the other two…
It is about Mission: God’s “Search and Rescue Mission…for the helpless, the hopeless, the lost, the broken…”
“Search and rescue”… does that phrase ring a bell?
It should, for we have heard it used continuously since January of this year…
Search and Rescue has unfortunately, been the major theme and activity on this planet since the year began… the focus of Search and Rescue is a sudden calamity that befalls a segment of people. The catastrophe rallies the whole population that is able, to search for and rescue (alive) the victims of the catastrophe that has just struck their area; the victims, unable to help themselves having become trapped, helpless, broken, disoriented perhaps, lost, hopeless by the terrifying event which has come upon them suddenly…
Both the rescuers (who suffer often sacrificing sleep, proper food, well-being and may have to put themselves in the same danger …)
and
the victims-being-sought experience great pain, hardship, fear and desperation in this process…
This shared experience of fear and pain often forge a strong bond in the process…
(I invite you to listen prayerfully to this list of Search and Rescue Missions…2010)
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Jan 12 7.0 earthquake HAITI +200,000 dead, · + 2,000,000 people, homeless. 3,000,000 people in need of emergency aid.
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Feb 27 8.8 earthquake CHILE +700 dead, 2 million displaced, countless missing
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Mar 29 Two female suicide bombers struck Moscow subway, 39 people dead
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Apr 4 7.2 quake in MEXICO felt in CA, most damage to the twin cities of Mexicali and Calexico on the Mexico – United States border. 4 dead, 100 injured.
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Apr 5 W. VA mine explosion killing 29
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Apr. 10 Crash of Polish plane killing President, First Lady and 94 Polish dignitaries
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Apr 14 7.1 earthquake CHINA kills 400+ and injures 10,000
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Apr 14 Volcanic ash spew in Iceland sends ash plume over N and central Europe closing air space for a week, stranding thousands
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Apr 20 Oil rig explodes in Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana coast 11 workers dead, 17 injured; begins spewing oil which was estimated to be 30 million barrels by May 27; damage incalculable to date
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May 3 Floods in the South Eastern US: Tenn, Kentucky, Mississippi, 24 died
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May 8 Russian Mine Blast, 43 + died
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June 11 Flash flood in Arkansas Park, 20 confirmed dead, dozens missing
And surely this is not all that could be mentioned…
After praying through this list, we have no difficulty understanding the frame of reference today’s readings present to us beginning with the …
Entrance Antiphon:
“The thoughts of His Heart last through every generation;
that He will rescue them from death … and
feed them in time of famine…” Ps 32: 11, 19
Ezek. 34:11 - 16 For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will look after and tend/take care of my sheep. .. As a shepherd takes care of his flock when he finds himself among his scattered, (which devastates the flock) sheep,
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The text is unusual the way it suggests that the Shepherd, the Lord Himself, is changed, deeply moved… must rouse himself for the struggle as the situation unfolds… he must leave everything set to the task immediately… Search and Rescue…
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Because the scattered of the flock are so overwhelmed by the situation, they are powerless to do anything for themselves except cry out from wherever they are, as long as they can ….
(the shepherd considers how …) I will “take care of” my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it ( the storm came and it …) was cloudy and dark.
I will lead them out from among the peoples and gather them from the foreign lands; I will bring them back to their own country and pasture them upon the mountains of Israel [in the land’s ravines and all its inhabited places].
In good pastures will I pasture them, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing ground. There they shall lie down on good grazing ground, and in rich pastures shall they be pastured on the mountains of Israel.
I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD.
The lost I will seek out,
the strayed I will bring back,
the injured I will bind up,
the sick I will heal … , shepherding them rightly.
The Liturgy guides the response of the victim, left in terror from the catastrophe… putting before us the well loved…Psalm 23…
(Like most of us, I always loved the psalm, but never saw it so clearly juxtaposed with catastrophe as today….)
The Psalmist makes an enormous leap of faith in the Shepherd and what the Shepherd can and will do for us: There is nothing we can do in the catastrophe perhaps… except turn the words over and over in our hearts and believe and hope against hope…
The LORD is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack.
In green pastures you let me graze; to safe waters you lead me; you restore my strength.
You guide me along the right path for the sake of your name.
Even when I walk through the Valley of Death …
I fear no harm for you are at my side; your rod and staff (support) give me courage.
You set a table before me as my enemies watch;
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
(For Now, evil pursues and tries to overtake me… but …)
Only YOUR goodness and love will pursue me all the days of my life, so I will be able to dwell in the house of the LORD for ever and ever…
In Romans, Paul reminds us that God is not undertaking this MISSION because we are so good and worthy,
Rather, God is rescuing us because we have no other who will, because we are so desperate, so needy, so “un-godly…”
And… Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.
But God, the Shepherd, proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners: scattered, lost, wounded, wandering in the dark, Christ underwent the ultimate catastrophe with and for us.
To quote Richard Rohr:
“If God does not love us because we are good…
but God loves us because God is good; that changes everything!
God will be WHO God wants to be WHERE God wants to be,
WHEN God wants to be…
The Lord makes very clear in today’s Gospel how/ who God want to be for us when we are helpless, hopeless, trapped, lost, scattered, wounded, broken... and puts it in ways the people of Jesus’ day (and many parts of Africa, Asia, still…) know by experience very well… and so…
Jesus recounts the Parable of the GOOD Shepherd (not the hireling) who leaves the others, the ninety-nine, to begin the search and rescue MISSION for the one who is lost…
“And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.”
During just this last six months, we are aware of instances where the victims, buried for many days, when all hope was gone, miraculously were found and emerged alive… and ALL who witnessed them were touched by the joy and tears of the rescuers and the rescued…
No one wants search and rescue to go to the next stage: SEARCH AND RECOVER ,
which, contrary to the usual meaning of the word, is not a good thing, because it means the rescuers have failed in their MISSION
and are now left to do what they never wanted, always dreaded: to recover and bring back the remains, the dead…
Today’s readings… picture the Lord in a manner reminiscent of Exodus 2:23-25, 3: 7-10
“… the Israelites groaned and cried out because of their slavery. As their cry for release went up to God, the Lord heard their groaning and was mindful of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He saw the Israelites and knew. . . .
The LORD said, “I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering.
Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land…”
This is the God of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, Who knows the pain, exhaustion, frustration, helplessness - in the flesh – that people, His people, are experiencing in these days … And assures us God is in the process with us, calling out to us, “stay where you are, “ I am coming… I am searching and will find you, rescue you from all that is pressing down on you… For our part, while we wait, we “pray unceasingly” through the seemingly endless ordeal with the act of faith articulated by the Psalmist… who puts these words in our mouth so we can remain praying …until the Shepherd finds us… and … He is coming….
Refrain: “Like a shepherd He feeds his flock, and gathers the lambs in His arms,
holding them carefully close to His heart, leading them home.”
“Like a Shepherd” by B. Dufford
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