“They were like sheep without a shepherd.” There are few sadder lines uttered by Jesus than this. People flocked to him because he “spoke with authority.” They recognised that in him, God spoke directly to them. And they followed him because he was giving them the clear, firm leadership that was so lacking in the religious leaders of his time.
There were four main trends in the religion Israel. There were the Sadducees, who served in the Temple. They were concerned with keeping in with the Roman overlords to protect their position of power. They were also avid in the acquisition of wealth. There were the Zealots, who saw religion mainly in political terms, revolutionaries whose aim was to overthrow the Romans. There were the Essenes, who removed themselves from everyday society and lived a life of endless rituals and purifications. There were the Pharisees, who at least were concerned with teaching the religion of Israel to the people. But they turned it into a complicated legal system of 613 commandments which was impossible for the man in the street to learn, let alone keep.
Jesus answered all of these in ways that were radical and direct. He hurled the market, which was a money racket, out of the Temple, his message to the Sadducees loud and clear: “This is my Father’s house, but you have turned it into a den of robbers.” The Essenes he answered simply by working, teaching and healing amongst the people, to the point of utter exhaustion. To the Zealots his answer was, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Rendering to God, in his case, meant suffering a terrible death in order to carry out God’s will for him. He cut through the endless legalism of the Pharisees; for example, of their many Sabbath laws, which turned the Jewish day of rest into a nightmare, he said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
Jesus’ ministry, which is the model for every priest, is one of service; to preach God’s word, to administer his sacraments, to minister to the pastoral needs of his people. Like Jesus, the priest must take time aside to pray. And like Jesus, the Good Shepherd, he must be prepared to lay down his life for his sheep. This is the yardstick by which every priest should judge his ministry.
But not only priests. The world is filled with people who do not know God, who long for Him without knowing it, who want Him even when they insult and scorn him. Every Christian shares in this ministry. Those who do not know him must see in our lives that he is the only hope, the one who answers all our questions, who gives meaning to our existence. Do we leave others around us like sheep without a shepherd? If so, we have a lot of work to do to.
