LEAD ME LORD

It is said that Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, brilliant and at times absent-minded, was riding on a train, when he saw the conductor approaching. Furiously he started to look for his ticket, which he had apparently misplaced. When the conductor spotted him with a troubled look on his face, he said, Don’t worry about the ticket, Mr. Justice. I know you and trust you. Justice Holmes responded, You don’t understand. I need to find my ticket. Without it, I don’t know where I’m going.

Where are we going? How will we get there? Most of us would say, Heaven is where we want to go...and we'll do so by following Jesus.

And indeed our Good Shepherd says to us today, My sheep hear my voice…I lead them.

Have we heard his voice? What did he say? Well, did you catch the ending of today's gospel? I came so that [you] might have life and have it more abundantly. In other words, I want the very best for you.  I want nothing less than your fulfillment. Could that be another way of saying, Heaven is being fulfilled?

Perhaps that's why Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. Thus, we find fullness of life by following his way...by being truthful.

But there's more, for he also says to us, Love each other…take care of each other.

In essence, our Shepherd guides us to fullness of life by calling us to both personal authenticity and social responsibility.

Let’s take a closer look at personal authenticity.  We'll save social responsibility for another day.

More than what we do, our Good Shepherd is concerned with who we are...to become the person God has created us to be. 

It is said, Our deepest longing is to grow into our authentic self-hood. As Thomas Merton wrote, For me to be a saint is to be myself…to discover that which truly defines me, that which makes me feel most deeply and intensely active and alive. 

The call to authenticity is about knowing ourselves and being ourselves. It is about discovering and living the truth. 

Mahatma Gandhi said, I vow to seek the truth, to live by the truth, and to confront untruth wherever I find it. Truth goes hand in hand with nonviolence. Truthfulness is even more important than peacefulness.  Indeed, lying is the mother of violence.

Being true to ourselves by considering whether something is the loving or authentic thing to do must become the most important criterion in our choices. 

We cannot answer the authenticity question, Who am I? without also answering the passion question, What do I really want? We discover who we are only by becoming conscious of the most authentic desires, loves, and longings of our hearts.

My brothers and sisters, what God wants for us and from us has something central to do with what we most deeply and truly want for ourselves. There is a mysterious connection, it seems, between the will of God and our own heart’s desire. Following the inclinations of our heart is our calling. It is the true path to salvation.  

Unlike a career that pursues success, a calling leads to significance. A career centers on being important, a calling focuses on service. A career drives us to make money, a calling seeks to make a difference...inviting us to remember what is worth living for, striving for, sacrificing for ~ perhaps even dying for.  It is a dedication to a cause greater than ourselves…a surrender to a person other than oneself. 

Just a few days before Martin Luther King’s assassination, he gave a speech where he shared his thoughts about how he wanted to be remembered.  He said,

I’d like for somebody to say that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody…that I did try to feed the hungry…to clothe the naked…that I tried to be right on the war question. And all the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things in life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.

What is our life committed to?  What gives our life meaning? What makes us true to ourselves?  

This is where Christ is calling us...to hear his voice…and to follow him...so that he can lead us to fullness of life.