Have you ever been in love? Do you remember what it’s like: the giddiness, the joy, the laughter, and excitement? You can’t wait to see their face, hear their voice, or hold their hand. And everything they do is adorable. You love their name, their hair, their smile, and you start to fantasize about what it might be like to have your names carved into the side of a tree with a big heart around it, or printed on embossed wedding invitations. The first time he or she says the “L” word, though, you have to decide how you’re going to respond? Do you say, “Me too,” “Ditto,” or do you step up to the plate and actually say, “I love you!”
In my reflection last week I spent some time with John 21 and felt challenged by the passages in which Jesus asks Peter (21:15), “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” “(21:16) Simon, son of John, do you love me?” And a third time (21:17), “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” As I unpacked these passages with my spiritual director it never really occurred to me that God wanted or needed to hear ME say, “I love you.” I mean if “God is love,” as it says in 1 John 4:16, why does he need me to confirm this for him?
I was still chewing on this question when I chose “The Good Shepherd” discourse (in John, Chapter 10) to reflect on this week. I wasn’t sure at first if “The Good Shepherd” was a good passage to select according to John Shea’s criteria because, while interesting, it doesn’t really contain any plot. It seemed more of a metaphorical discourse about God’s salvic love for us, but I decided to give it a shot anyway.
As I reflected on the passage, a couple of things jumped out at me. In John 10:2 Jesus says, “The one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The keeper opens the gate for him. The sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own by name and leads them out.” Then in John 10:4 Jesus says, “(the gatekeeper) walks ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice.” And finally, in John 10:9, Jesus says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be safe.” Like you, I’ve heard this discourse a hundred times, but for some reason this time the words “name” and “voice” jumped out at me when I heard it, so I decided to explore that.
First, I totally get the metaphor about the shepherd and the sheep, and it was probably a metaphor that was easy for the people of Jesus’ time to understand too because shepherds and sheep were so commonplace back then, but it felt to me like there was something else going on in the narrative so I let my mind wander as I meditated on the story. This meditation led me initially to think about Jesus’ baptism by John at the river Jordan. In fact I looked at the various accounts of the baptism story in all the Gospels and realized that this is the first time Jesus was audibly told by the voice of his Father that he is beloved (Luke 3:21), “You are my beloved Son. On you my favor rests.”
Next, I thought about Moses’ first exchange with the voice of God on Mt. Sinai in the burning bush, and how Moses goes through the trouble of asking God (Exodus 3:13), “When I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?” God replied, “I am who am.” Then he added, “This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you.”
These reflections on the voice of God confirmed for me that in The Good Shepherd discourse, there is something more going on when Jesus calls “his own by name” and “the sheep hear his voice (10:3-4).” So I started to reflect on my own experiences of being loved and thought about what it’s like to hear the voice of someone you love on your voicemail or hear them call you from across the room at a party. What I realized was your name seems to sound different when that person says it because it’s coming from the voice of someone who loves you. You not only hear your name, but you hear the love they have for you when they call.
Going back on John 21 for a minute, I’m struck by the fact that Jesus calls Peter deliberately by his name three times, “Simon, son of John … Simon, son of John … Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Could it be more obvious? This calling of Jesus is not just a metaphor anymore. He IS calling us by name, just like Peter, calling us to intimate love, relationship, and to our commission. He calls us by name into the sheepfold because he loves us, and he demonstrates this great love by laying “down his life for (us) the sheep (10:11).”
Next, I started to think about related scripture passages I was familiar with and it occurred to me, that just like any other mutual relationship of love between Bill and Barbara, Sally and Sam, and Dick and Donna - - God wants us to call HIM by name in this relationship of love too!
• “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy NAME.” (Luke 11:2)
• “I am the Lord, this is my NAME” (Isaiah 42:8)
And the same is true of the Son of God! As The Good Shepherd, Jesus allows God’s grace to flow whenever we pray in his NAME:
• “Whatever you ask in my NAME I will do.” (John 14:13)
• “All you ask the Father in my NAME, he will give to you.” (John 15:16)
(Ironically, this realization came to me while I was attending mass at Holy NAME Cathedral yesterday.)
So in closing, my reflection on The Good Shepherd revealed something to me I hadn’t expected. The scripture wasn’t just a metaphor for how obediently following The Good Shepherd was going to help me gain salvation, it was about a shepherd who wanted me to (1) hear his voice, (2) hear him call me by name, and (3) love him so much in return that I wanted to follow him through the narrow gate and not be distracted by the voice of strangers, thieves or bandits. The Good Shepherd calls me into a relationship of mutual love with him on a first name basis, yes, just like Moses and Peter, (I said yes, just like Moses and Peter) not a relationship of blind obedience in hopes of earning his love. He wants to be the lover I think about when I go to sleep at night and the lover I can’t wait to spend time with when I awake - - the name on my lips and the name in my heart.
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