One of the sadness pieces of news that I ever heard was that some of the hungry people of Haiti had resorted to eating “mud cakes” baked on sidewalks. How sad when people cannot find real food. Equally sad is watching people of our day resort to following “shepherds” who mislead them down the path of destruction.
Jesus felt this sadness (Matthew 9:32-38).
“Jesus went around all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. At the sight of the crowds, his hear was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.”
Troubled and abandoned! Doesn’t that describe many of the young people of our time? Without a shepherd to lead them, they wander around like lost sheep grabbing onto the false teachers and false philosophies of our day. “Better a bad shepherd than none at all,” they reason.
Jesus preached the good news of the Kingdom of God. He let them know that if they chose to enter the Kingdom of God, they would have a Good Shepherd who would never mislead them. The Good Shepherd would lead them to the fresh and green meadows of God’s love and take them to a home where they would dwell in love and security forever.
We wonder how many in the crowd chose to enter through the narrow gate into the Kingdom of God and attach themselves to Jesus. How many, on the other hand, stayed with the false shepherds who were “hired hands” who cared more about their paychecks than they did about the sheep?
More and more are giving up on church as a solution to their “shepherd problem.” They attend services, but do not meet Jesus there. Many church leaders are lost sheep themselves and are so tied down to “church matters” that they do not have time to seek after lost sheep.
Jesus continued,
“Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”
We think that laborers are those confined to the parish payroll. Sadly, such people are usually tied to their desks, looking at their computers, and juggling parish business. That means that the “non payroll” people are the laborers that Jesus is talking about. Let us not fall into the trap of “passing the buck” onto the employees of the Church. Each of us, on a daily basis see people who are “troubled and abandoned,” like sheep without a shepherd. Many have bought into the “money shepherd” who tells them that happiness is found in the things and activities that money can buy. Young people are too smart to buy into this philosophy. They see too many unhappy people whoo have made money their god. Also, turning to the shallow political philosophies of the day, especially the variations of Marxism, leaves them even more troubled and bewildered.
What about us? Have we attached ourselves to Jesus and allowed him to be the one and only Shepherd of our lives? Are we finding in him the security, love, and peace that our hearts long for? Do we catch ourselves when we allow our minds to buy into the “bad news” of false shepherds?
When we consider the crowds of today, let us be the first to volunteer to be God’s laborers. Let us ask him to lead us to lost sheep and pray for them, so that they, too, will find Jesus as the Shepherd whom their hearts long for.
Do we realize that our prayers are effective. When we pray for a lost sheep, do we realize that, at that moment, the Holy Spirit visits them and begins to work with them to lead them to Jesus as their solution to life? How much time do we waste each day in distractions, when we could be helping bring lost sheep come back home?
