"Do you love me?... Feed my lambs…Do you love me?...Tend my sheep… Do you love me?... Feed my sheep."
My Bride, sometimes when seeing me in an emotional pause will respond, "You can do this, it's for family!" I relish the "Memories" which pop up each day in Facebook. Little snippets of people and events in our posted life past. Most are happy, fun, or significant moments which regenerate the smiles which originally prompted the post. November seems to offer many each day, as gratitude and thankfulness thoughts spill from the cornucopia leading towards the holidays. There are also sad November recollections offered as well. Although these memories remind us of vacant placemats for the coming holiday, there are still more smiles than tears. Still are many times that I have choked back tears, when writing these posts. I ever attempt to separate myself from a personal role in the words presented, rather to defer to the reader's choice to make their own connections. But it is personal, just as the Gospel is personal.
The memories of those passed from us are shining examples for family in that they lived lives of service. One particular year of repeated losses of loved ones prompt a family member to ask, "How much more can we take?" I doubt that a good explanation of why they are no longer with us could make me feel one bit better. I do know that most of the departed would expect, and yes, demand, that we take however much more we are dealt. Some things are not meant to change, but things do change, as we have been promised. Perhaps next year when Mr. Zuckerberg reminds me of these memories, I will have evolved. As in Abraham Lincoln's words their memory will, "instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before."
The long discourse in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew includes Jesus' comparison of the Divine judgment of all nations to a shepherd separating sheep from goats. To live our faith maturely, our eyes must see the world with a view beyond ourselves. A faith not rooted in works as a bridge to our salvation, but to show the love that Christ has given us, through loving service for others. In early scripture texts, the word used for goat more often referred to a young goat or kid; one lacking maturity or reckless. Sheep while related to goats are stockier, timid, and defenseless. Similarly, the attributes of a mature faith, trustfully realizing that only with Christ living within us, in surrendering our own will, do we inherit the Kingdom of G_d.
In Saint John's Gospel, it is clear that the divine Christ became one of us, sharing in our common humanity. When we separate ourselves from those in need even while helping them, or by looking on those in need from a position of superiority or condescension, or perhaps because what we fear most is becoming like them, we separate ourselves from Christ. Jesus repeats, emphasizes, and affirms that to dwell in the house of the Lord, where goodness and kindness flows from our actions, is rooted in service to the least among us. Jesus, introduced himself among the scattered sheep with compassion, not judgment, and sought to gather us, to refresh our souls.
Even when our emotional burden may weigh us with grief and sadness, it still does overflow with His mercy and love, we share these blessings through our loving, freely given service. It is G_d's desire that we feed and tend. Whether our work is humble or profound, that it is done out of nothing more than our compassion for one another, without conscious thought of Jesus, or of our service to G_d. Life so lived is a prayer, our service is devotion, and even though we feel that we are weak and unable to perform, Jesus' response is, "You can do this; You are family!"
Pax,
jbt
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