The Good Shepherd is Near

Homily for August 24, 2025
The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost
Luke 13:10-17

One thing I appreciate about Luke’s Gospel is Luke’s “immediacy.”  By “immediacy” I don’t mean, as Mark famously does, that Luke uses the word “immediately,” which drives forward the narrative and lends a sense of urgency.  I mean that for Luke, the Kingdom of God is already, and the Kingdom is in such a way that we can apprehend it.  “When is the Kingdom of God coming?” the Pharisees asked. ”The Kingdom of God is not coming…” said Luke’s Jesus. “The Kingdom of God is among you” (17:21).   In Luke, Jesus reads in the synagogue from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… to bring good news to the poor… to bring release to the captives and… to set free those who are oppressed,” and he says, “Today,this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (4:18-21).  In Luke in the Magnificat, Mary sings, “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and [he] has lifted up the lowly.  He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” (1:52-53).  Or again – in contrast to Matthew, with his parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt 25), in which, in a future judgment, the righteousness finally(!) are vindicated – in Luke’s story of Zacchaeus, after Zacchaeus promised to “give…half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much” (Luke 19:8),[after Zacchaeus’ promise] Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house” (19:9).   In Luke, there is an immediacy in which the Kingdom of God is already, and the Kingdom is in such a way that we can apprehend it.

One of the ways Luke’s immediacy manifests itself is in the word “glory.”  Though “glory” often is associated with St. John’s Gospel – in John, Jesus says things like, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (12:23); and, “Father, glorify me in your… presence”(17:5) – [though “glory” often is associated with John’s Gospel,] “glory” likewise features in Luke.  For example,in Luke at the Nativity the angels sing, “Glory to God in the highest heaven” (2:14).  In Luke, when Simeon takes the infant Jesus in his arms, he says, “My eyes have seen your salvation…the glory of your people Israel” (2:30,32).  And again in Luke (and only in Luke) on Palm Sunday, the crowds say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord…  Glory in the highest heaven” (19:38).

If in John, “glory” is connected to Jesus’ crucifixion and then also the Day of Atonement and then also the Genesis creation story and is therefore theologically quite dense; in Luke, “glory” is straightforward.  For Luke, “glory” is what we humans here and now can apprehend when Jesus’ divinity breaks in on humanity.

For Luke, the experience of “glory” happens not at the crucifixion but through ordinary, every-day actions.  Take, for example, today’s Gospel in which Jesus, in four ordinary, every-day actions, enables people to apprehend his divinity and that leads to the woman’s “glorifying God.”  The four actions are:    

1.    See – “When Jesus saw her…”

2.    Call – “He called her over…”

3.    Speak – “Jesus said, ‘You are set free…’”

4.    Touch – “He laid hands on her…”  

Seeing, calling, speaking, and touching are ordinary things we do every day.  Note how the leader of the syngagogue – the “foil” in today’s Gospel lesson –  [note how the only action the leader of the synagogue] does is “to say:”  “But the leader of the synagogue…  kept saying to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which work out to be done… [but] not on the Sabbath.’”  The leader of the synagogue does not see the woman as Jesus does; he does not “call her over;” he does not touch her.  And even the leader’s “saying” is not to the woman personally but to the crowd:  ‘He… kept saying to the crowd.”  Jesus, however, connects personally with the woman.  He sees her, speaks to her, invites her closer and touches her.  

And the woman’s response?  “Immediately she stood up straight and began glorifying God.”  

In a homily on today’s text, Pope Francis connected these verbs of Jesus to Jesus’ role as our Good Shepherd.   The Pope said:

These “verbs of closeness” depict the attitude of the Good Shepherd, because a good shepherd is always nearby.  The ruler of the synagogue, along with some of the Pharisees and Sadducees, lived separately from the people.   They were not good shepherds; they were not close to the people. But our Good Shepherd is not ashamed of the flesh and always presents himself nearby… He stayed with the rejected people: the poor, the sick, and sinners and lepers.  Jesus walked among those in need… Like he did with this woman, Jesus touched and laid his hands on them…  Our Good Shepherd draws near to us in compassion, with mercy and in the flesh.
–   From a meditation in The Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, October 30, 2017

One of the ways Jesus continues to be our Good Shepherd and makes himself known to us in ordinary and every-day actions is through the Eucharist. Through this sacraments Jesus uses ordinary, every-day things like bread, wine, water, a table, a cup, a plate; and he uses ordinary, every-day verbs like take, bless, break and give, to make God’s self present in a way that we can apprehend.  Each week when we gather for the Eucharist, we practice encountering Jesus and allowing our Good Shepherd near.  Here in the sacrament Jesus does not speak impersonally, but he offers us of his very own self.  He is our Good Shepherd whom (to paraphrase 1 John (1:1)) we can see with our eyes, whom we can look at and touch with our hands, and who speaks to us:  “This is my body,” and, “this is my blood.”  Each Sunday, Jesus bids us draw near and invites us to take him within ourselves such that there is none who possibly could be more close.  

If there is something that might be causing us to be “bent over,” our Good Shepherd wishes to draw near to heal.  I wonder, can we allow the Good Shepherd to come near, to see, call, speak to and touch us?   Through our weekly Eucharist, with its ordinary, every-day things and with its ordinary every-day verbs, our Good Shepherd heals.  May we apprehend even here and now, Jesus’ power to help us stand up straight.  And having experienced his glory, may we discover that there is nothing more satisfying to our human hearts than to live a life that reflect God’s glory back to him.