2020-05-03
– 4th Sunday Easter - Good Shepherd Sunday
● Acts 2:14a,
36-41 ● Psalm 23 ● 1 Peter 2:20b-25 ● +
John 10:1-10 ●
[_01_] Medicine. Did you hear the
one about the nurse, the doctor and the lawyer? It was a Friday night and the 3
of them walked into a bar.
The doctor and nurse go into the bar and people immediately start
asking them medical questions. After a
while, the doctor and nurse go over to the lawyer and say… “Every time we are
out in public, at social events, birthday parties, family parties, or at this
bar … people are always asking us for advice, telling us their aches and pains,
and ailments, and anxieties about this or that disease.”
And, the lawyers says: “People ! You’re telling me. This happens to
me also. People are always asking me for legal advice, about contracts and
court appearances and all their troubles. So, I decided …I would answer their
questions, but also sending them an invoice, a bill for my services.”
The doctor and nurse were stunned and shocked. Who would not be? But, they were also fascinated – could it
work? intrigued by this and they tell all the other doctors and nruses
So, on Monday morning, they go back to work. The doctors and
nurses get their bills ready, they go to the mailbox..but before they can send
anything out… before they really send out a bill, they open the mailbox… and there
is a bill from the lawyer they met in the bar.
[_02_] My apologies to LAWYERS ….but I
just share this as an example of what we both expect and celebrate – during
this COVID 19 pandemic and its aftermath this the generous spirit and willingness
of medical professionals and caregivers at all levels – nurses, doctors,
physicians, technicians, those who disinfect and clean in health care settings,
the reception staff – the willingness of all of them, right now, to give
without counting the cost.
They follow the Golden Rule as articulated in Luke’s
Gospel:
“Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who
takes what is yours, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)
And, that is what we expect of medical professionals.
When I was in high school, I went to an orthodontist – Dr.
Silvestro - who was right around the corner, a dentist and orthodontist who my
parents really liked because he was a disciplinarian.
He expected you to behave in the chair, not to talk back…he
was kind of a tough guy, but I also knew – not just because of his degree – but
also because he was my neighbor that he cared for me and my brothers and all patients.
He was, in many ways, all business – do this, wear this,
your teeth will be straighter. Don’t complain. See me in 2 months.
That was the deal. It worked. We are still friends.
About 10 years after I finished with him, I happened to go
to another dentist because I needed a tooth extracted, pulled, … and for whatever reason, I ended up really
swollen … it was very temporary.
Anyway, I was little worried – but I knew my neighbor – Dr.
Silvestro was home..I called him up. I wondered what he would say about this.
Toughen up?
He agreed – very readily to see me. He insisted that I come
to his office right around the corner. All I remember was that – now 10 years
later – he was all smiles and compassion and sympathy. I did not need an
appointment. He assured me that I would be fine.
The swelling went down. It was not a big deal, but the
encounter, the friendship was everything to me at that moment.
That was the “appointment”
[_03_] I use these as examples to ask
this question – what do we expect of medicine? What do we expect of being the
patient to a doctor….or – in the Gospel - the disciple to the Good Shepherd?
I venture to say – we expect not just to be helped, but to
be changed, by the experience.
Consider the best doctor, the kindest nurse, the most
compassionate x-ray technician – whoever it was… did they not change you not
only by what they put into you …or made you do… they changed you because of
they were, they changed you by their character.
And, even if they sent you a bill, even if there was a
copayment, I bet you were still impressed by all they were to you.
[_04_] Our encounter with Jesus the Good
Shepherd, is an encounter with a person, a person who lays down his life for
his sheep.
Benedict XVI began his
encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is
Love) with God’s love for us, saying: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty
idea, but the encounter with an event, [meeting God as a loving] person, which
gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” Our learning to love comes
from God who loved us first. He adds: “Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 John
4:10), love is now no longer a mere ‘command’; it is the response to the gift
of love with which God draws near to us.”
(Source: https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2015/10/11/looking-for-transcendence-in-all-the-wrong-places/ )
[_05_] St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that we
love because out of “initiative” or to make someone a object or project of your
love? Have you tried to make someone the
object of your love? Even a mother and father love their child not as an object
outside of themselves but as one to whom they are united.
For this very reason, parents mourn deeply and need our
greatest compassion should they suffer the death of a child.
We don’t love simply as a “service project” …. We love out of a sense of unity,
community. That’s why thousands of medical professionals came to New York
during COVID 19.
One writer observed: there is certainly a reward is the
beloved, the reward is the good of the other. The reward is knowing the other
person exists. (Margaret Harper
McCarthy, The Revelation of Love and its Appeal the Heart, The Way of Love, Reflections on [B16] Deus Caritas Est, San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006, p. 111)
The reward is Jesus, who loves us and helps us to sustain
and keep our existence and ability to love.
He also helps us to change. Listen to his voice. [end here?]
And, we are reminded in the 23rd psalm …. that
this is a love that can overflow from God to us and to others. [__fin___]
