“The Gospel of Security”
May 11, 2014
3rd Sunday of the Great Christian Passover
Acts 6: 1-9; 7: 2a; 51-60/Psalm 23/1 Peter 2: 19 – 25/John 10: 1 –
10
His Excellency
The Most Reverend Ariel Cornelio P.
Santos D.D.
of the
Archdiocese of Manila
the
National Church in the Philippines
and the
Territorial Church of Asia
International Communion of the Charismatic
Episcopal Church
This is the Fourth Sunday of Easter. This is
also called Good Shepherd Sunday. This year, it is also Mother's Day.
Mothers are in their own way and in their own right good shepherds. They
provide; they lay their life down for their sheep. I don’t know of any mother
personally that is not a good mother that “hindi ibibigay yung pagkain sa anak na
isusubo na lang nila.”
Happy Mother’s Day! We have something for you
to honor you and your vocation. Do not ever belittle this vocation of
motherhood. It is no joke; it is a hard, difficult task to be a mother.
I haven’t done it yet, but I can see that it takes life. Mothers
give life and sustain it for the rest of their lives. Mothers fulfill Psalm 23
and John 10 and we salute them today!
As it is Good Shepherd Sunday, in Acts 6, what is
the origin of the Deaconate Office got to do with being a good shepherd?
I would say, “Everything!” Each of us in the Body of Christ is a
servant. Deacon means servant; minister; a waiter serving tables.
The need arose for the office to serve needs. There was a need in the
Church, in the Body of Christ as they were growing. The name of this
office is “servant.”
Thirty plus years ago, during President Marcos’
time, the Departments of the government were called Ministries – like Ministry
of Education or Ministry of Public Works and Highways. The head guy is called
Minister. They were, then, ministries. Somehow, in our history as a
nation, we forgot that term. The Ministries had workers called public
servants and I don’t know the essence of the titles.
You and I are ministers. Don’t think that if you
don't wear clerics or a collar that you are not a minister or a servant.
Deacons are not the only servants in the clergy. All of us are.
I remember Patriarch Adler, in an ordination that I was with him, him
being a bishop, was wearing a deacon’s stole. He told me before the Mass
started, "It is because all of us should not stop wearing a deacon’s stole
because no one should stop being a servant.” It doesn’t matter what you
are called. It doesn’t matter what your rank is. We are all
servants. Each of us is a servant. I told somebody after I was made
Bishop that, “Underneath my vestments, I still try to remember that there
should be an invisible deacon’s stole because we are all servants.”
In the CEC, you don’t become a priest or a bishop
without first becoming a deacon. Before you become a shepherd, you are
first to become, in structure and in heart, a servant or a deacon. It is
a prerequisite or a requirement. Shepherds must first be servants because
otherwise they are hirelings who won’t give their life for the flock or for
their sheep. The qualifications for a bishop, priest and deacon are practically
the same. We are to be servants. If you are not one of those three,
you have a legitimate office yourself. You are called the “faithful” in
the Body of Christ. In the CEC, you are an ordained minister if you are
baptized. You are ordained for service not for gain. It is for
ministry and not for lording over.
Jesus said, “The greatest among you shall be a
servant.” This is the definition of greatness in the kingdom of God. We
must always remember that we are first of all servants. We are to serve
and not to be served. In his letter, Peter obviously knew that and of
what comes with being a leader. He was the first leader and he knew what
it becomes to be a leader. You won't please everyone. You need never to
forget servanthood because if you forget servanthood, these other things will
affect you. Peter was encouraging the servants, the slaves, to submit to
their masters even to those who are unreasonable. This is coming from the
encyclical of the first Pope: submit to your master, to your leader even if
they are unreasonable.
In Acts 6, the need was there for a group of people
that was obviously being overlooked. The Hellenistic Jews complained that
they were being overlooked in the serving of food. This was in the
midst of all the miracles and the signs and wonders taking place through the
Church. They were growing and becoming a big force in the known world
then and they turned the world upside down in their generation. This
group of people was concerned about fewer shares than the other first class
citizen Jews. “Just because we are Greek Jews?” They complained and
Peter knew that in the midst of the Church’s phenomenal growth and impact.
The Israelites were like that too in Moses’
time. In the midst of the deliverance and seeing that the ten plagues
came up in Egypt and God’s mighty hand working in them and through them against
their enemy, they complained. You will always have people that even
though there are blessings around, you will hear something. You and I
need to make them see that there are a lot more blessings than what they are
complaining about. We should not be guilty of it ourselves but we
should be thankful. When we know how to count our blessings, we would realize
that we have nothing to complain about. Peter said that even if you are
experiencing something that is unreasonable and unjust and unfair to you,
submit to God.
When I was made leader, I fervently asked God for
help. I vowed to give my all, my life for service in the Church.
Ironically, and I am not complaining, that is the time I started receiving
criticisms like I never had before. Before, I was just
lackadaisical; but it comes with serving God. He puts the tests and the
challenges there to test the mettle of our servanthood. It is all part of
serving God. I am just acknowledging this is the nature of serving God.
It will not be a walk in the park. Having said that, the blessing part
still overwhelms that which we acknowledge as being there.
As your Bishop, I want to be known as a
pastor. I want to be known as a shepherd. Not as a theologian, not
as a good speaker, not as anything else. I would like to be known as somebody
whom you could call a shepherd. This is our calling. It is not just
people in leadership but all of us. Peter says that we are
called for this purpose to follow Christ, our Good Shepherd. He says, “Do
what is right and patiently endure reviling.” Revile means verbal
abuse. You have to endure that. Do what is right; serve; do your ministry
and fulfill it; and endure whatever comes. We are here to serve
like what Jesus came to do. Jesus came to serve and not to be
served. He was reviled. He was sinless. Nobody had reasonable right
to revile Him. He was perfect. He was reviled but He did not curse but
instead, He blessed and forgave. He was sinless and yet He took on the
sins of the world.
This is our Good Shepherd. He knows His sheep,
what we go through. He can empathize with us. We don’t have a high
priest that doesn’t know what we go through, which is why He also became
incarnate and lived our life. He was a baby; He peed in his
diapers. As a baby, He knew how it was to be helpless and totally
dependent on His parents. He knows all of us and what we go through.
Scriptures says, “Aren’t two sparrows sold for a cent, yet, not one of
them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s knowledge?” This is our
Good Shepherd. He knows what we go through and even the number of hairs in our
head. Some are easier to count than others. Can you imagine the details,
the cares? If He knows the number of strands of hair that we have on our
head, wouldn’t He know about your job problems or your boss’ problem or your
school subject’s problems or relationship problems?
Our Shepherd knows His sheep. He calls us by
name. He can empathize with us. Actually, He knows us better than we
do. He knows what we can do that we think we cannot do. He knows
our abilities because He made us. He calls us to lead us to green pastures
and to quiet waters. He leads us to abundant life. This is why He
came – that we may have life and have it more abundantly. He provides for
us.
The challenge is that we must learn to count our
blessings. When we do, we would realize that many of them did not happen by
accident. Many of them are providential. A couple of years ago, Fr.
Adel, on one Daily Office of Morning Prayer, started this collection for the
land. Looking back, that was providential. God is preparing us.
He did not just thought of this on one time that he was going to Church, “This
would be a good idea. After all, some groups do this.” No, it was providential
because God provides for us.
Look at your life, look back and see how God did
some things which you did not even realize. I am sure many times you
thanked Him, but I bet you that you did not realize every time that it was God.
Many of the things in our lives and the possessions we call our own, we got not
because we earned them but because God provided for them. It is God’s
grace. Never stop being thankful because this is our calling.
The Good Shepherd lays His life for the sheep and
protects them in inclement weather and against wolves and bandits. He
lays His life down for them and He puts them in a fold. There is a fold.
Another word for fold is the
Church. John 10 says that it is
God’s will and Jesus desires to put all sheep in the fold. His will is
for sheep to be inside the fold. The sheep knows the shepherd’s voice and
follow Him. May we be true sheep heeding His voice, familiar with His
voice, obeying it and following it because then, we will find green pastures
and quiet waters.
Like sheep, we think that the grass is greener on
the other side of the fence of the fold. So we stray and jump over only to
realize, “I should be back in the fold where God wants me. The Good Shepherd
wants me.” Outside the fold, you are outside the protection.
If God wills for us to be in the fold, I can tell you that He knows best.
Mothers come in second but God knows best. He wants us in the
fold.
Psalm23 says, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall
not want.” We will not want if we stay within
His will, His fold, and we obey His voice and follow Him. He knows
best. He is our Shepherd and we are His sheep. He restores our
souls and guides us in the paths of righteousness. Lest we misunderstand,
His rod and His staff they comfort. It is not to hurt. When fathers use
the rod on their children, they are comforting them not hurting them. The
staff, its hook goes around the neck and it is to get the sheep back into the
fold. If that doesn’t work, the shepherd breaks the leg of the sheep so
as to keep it in the fold. He doesn’t hurt it by doing that, but he
comforts him.
The word “comfort” came from two root words; com which means with; fort which meansstrength and fortitude. To comfort means to provide strength and to keep going. It
is not to make us feel good but to strengthen us so that we can face, not
avoid, what we need to face even though we walk through the valley of the
shadow of death. We do walk in the valley of the shadow of death.
Like sheep, we have this tendency to stray away from the fold.
Unfortunately, we, city dwellers, don’t understand
sheep herding or shepherding. We are not agricultural especially in the
city. It is not common in our world so we don’t see ourselves as meek,
quiet, dumb, submissive animals. We are sophisticated human
beings. We have the internet; we have the gadgets and the others. We are
more like sheep than we care to admit because we stray thinking we know better.
We are oblivious to anything but the grass around us here and now. This
is our only care. We are short-sighted just like sheep. We are not
conscious or aware of ravenous wolves. We need a shepherd to warn us and
to make us see what we don’t see. As we look down, we see grass and we
eat and eat. Sheep are ruminants- eating and eating without getting
full. They don’t see impending danger or threat or things that are not
good for them. It is the shepherd that sees those things.
We must understand that we should follow David's
words in Psalm 23. “The Lord is my Shepherd.”
We must realize that He looks after us. He is not just a shepherd but a
Good Shepherd who would lay down His life for us. This is why David
says, “Surely goodness and mercy and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of
my life.” This is because the Lord is his Shepherd and he is
not in want of anything. He finishes the Psalm by saying, “I will
dwell in the fold, in the house of the Lord forever.” This is where
God commanded the blessing – in Zion, in the fold, in the Church, in the Body
of Christ.
This is the Shepherd that we have. Never ever
think that you know better than He does. Never ever stray away from Him
and never ever disregard His instructions and His leading. God only wants
the best for us.
I repeat the last verse in the gospel today, “Jesus
came not to steal, kill or destroy but He came so that we might have
life.” The life that He mentioned was not a life that we think life
consists – of material things, fame, wealth and all the other things that is
short of the abundant life that He wants for us. These are things that
our money cannot buy – peace, blessings, relationships, happiness, joy and even
the joy that comes from, in the first place, in serving others.
Mothers can tell you this. I am a parent
myself, but they can tell you that despite all of what they say about the
difficulties of being a parent, particularly a Mother, the joy far, far exceeds
the challenges. I have six children and I would not rather have fewer
than six at this point. I have seen the challenges. My house is normally
with constant sound and noise. When it is not there, I miss it. It is
different. Am I complaining? Am I saying that this is something
bad? No, it is part of the joy. It is part of what God wants for
us. It is part of the abundant life. When you give life, you reap
life. When you serve, that is when you become the greatest.
This is the Good Shepherd Sunday. We are to
look at our Shepherd, not only so that we can depend on Him, but so that that we
can follow His steps because this is the way it is in the kingdom of our God.
LET US CONTINUE OUR
REFLECTION
WITH
CARDINAL OF
HOLY MOTHER CHURCH
AND
VENERABLE PRIMATE
OF THE PHILIPPINES
THROUGH
THE WORD EXPOSED
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