Homily - 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time "The Good Shepherd"

 

Homily

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

June 14, 2026

No one likes to be told what to do. We husbands smile through our “honey-do” lists, but the truth is, it stings. Most of us have bosses, and we must answer to them. I have several bosses, depending on what I’m doing at that moment. I have two in here right now! Even bosses answer to bosses, and even the self-employed answer to markets and customers. My two-year-old grandson embodies our shared rebellion. When my wife tells him to pick up his toys, he squares his shoulders and announces, “You don’t tell me what to do!” My wife says that was actually me saying that, not him; I don’t remember it that way. We laugh because we see ourselves, grown-up versions still clinging to the illusion of defiant independence.

 

Yet today’s readings confront that illusion with tender but unrelenting truth. In the first reading, God speaks to a people freshly delivered from slavery, “You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I … brought you here to myself.” He does not coerce; He reminds them of His saving love. Then comes the summons: “If you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession.”

 

Obedience here is not another type of slavery but the doorway to intimacy and mission. God had already acted first, delivering them, saving them. Now He asks them to align their lives with His. This is the pattern of salvation: God’s initiative, our surrender.

 

 

The Responsorial Psalm sings the joy that flows from such alignment: “We are his people: the sheep of his flock.” Sheep are not independent. They thrive under the shepherd’s care. The psalmist invites us to “serve the LORD with gladness” and to know that “he made us, His we are.” We too often believe that independence is freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth. True freedom is found in belonging, not in wandering alone.

 

 

In the Gospel, Jesus looks at the crowds, and His heart is “moved with pity for them because they were … like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). He feels their lostness deeply. Then He turns to His disciples and says the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. With that, He summons the Twelve, gives them authority over unclean spirits and every disease, and sends them out with clear instructions: “Go… to the lost sheep… The kingdom of heaven is at hand… Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give” (Matthew 10:6-8).

 

They didn’t question His summons. They received authority as a gift and were told to give it away freely. Their obedience flowed from the heart-torn Good Shepherd. This is Christian obedience; not grim duty, but a grateful response to a Shepherd who first lays down His life.

 

 

Saint Paul takes us still deeper into this mystery, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6, 8). God did not wait for our perfect compliance. He entered our rebellion, our stubborn independence, our “you don’t tell me what to do” attitude and loved us to the end. Now we are invited to boast in God and to live as those who are saved.

 

Last Sunday was Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ. In his homily, Bishop John shared with us the reality that earthly food becomes building blocks for our own bodies; the food becomes us. When we consume the Spiritual Food of Jesus in the Eucharist, WE become what we eat; WE become Christ, with our permission. Jesus wants to be one with us; we just have to accept His invitation, so generously and freely given.

 

This love, this assent of the will, has a cost, our independence. Think about it; what has our independence gotten us? What did independence look like for Adam and Eve? How did independence favor King David when he gazed upon the beauty of Bathsheba? What did independence do for Judas when he betrayed Jesus? One of my favorite assertions from scripture is, God “demands of us only one thing, ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’” We are called to be obedient which requires us to align ourselves to the One who is perfect, Who meets us where we are in our imperfection.”

 

Letting go of our independence is painful. Surrendering our will is counterintuitive. We have plans, preferences, and private realms of influence where we rule. We lean on our own insight, as Proverbs warns against, “Trust in the LORD … on your own intelligence do not rely (3:5). Surrender is the path to fruitfulness. The apostles left their nets, their tax booths, their ordinary lives because they encountered the Good Shepherd. They followed His voice. They did not create this mission; it was received as a gift. They were sent exactly as they were, flawed, ordinary men, to proclaim the Kingdom, heal the sick, and cast out demons.

 

Today Jesus still looks upon our tired, chaotic world with the same compassionate heart. He sees families in conflict, parishes and dioceses struggling, workplaces marked by anxiety and corruption, individuals haunted by addiction, loneliness, or despair. The harvest remains abundant. The question is whether we will surrender our autonomy long enough to become willing and obedient laborers. When I do what my wife tells me to do, I don’t do it for her; I do it for God, Who takes my efforts and blesses our marriage.

 

Obedience looks concrete: forgiving when it feels impossible, staying faithful in a difficult marriage, giving generously when finances are tight, or stepping away from a comfortable routine to serve the poor or the sick. Sometimes it means letting go of control over our children’s futures. In every case, it means trusting that the Good Shepherd who bore Israel on eagle’s wings and died for us while we were yet sinners knows the way better than we do. He has a plan; it’s already in place and has been since He spun the universe into existence, and He never tells me what that plan is.

 

The Kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent, surrender and believe the Gospel. Stop clinging to that toddler’s defiant stance. Place your life – your plans, your fears, your future – into the hands of the Good Shepherd. He meets you in your imperfection today, just as you are. In the Eucharist, He gives Himself completely, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, absolute and total submission, so that you may have the strength to do the same.

 

When we surrender, we discover what the Israelites were promised: we become God’s special possession, a holy nation, priests in a world starving for meaning. The cost is real, our cherished independence. The reward is immeasurable, intimacy with the Father, the joy of mission, and the peace that comes from no longer wandering alone. Let go, let God, accept His love. Let us pray for the grace to hear His voice, to lay down our resistance, and to say with Mary, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord,” and with Jesus, “Not my will but yours be done.”

 

And how does this Good Shepherd continue to speak to us today? He speaks through the Sacred Scripture we have just heard, and especially through the Eucharist that is about to be made truly present on this altar. Yes, last week we celebrated The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ; yet we celebrate it again every Sunday in an intimate way right here on this altar. But most importantly, most crucially, He speaks to us one on one, in the depths of our own hearts.

 

Yes, Jesus came to save us all. But He also came to save you, sitting in the front row, and you, Bishop John, and you, in the choir loft, and you sitting in the middle of the pew with your family, and you on the side behind the column, and you under the Great Window, and you standing in the back of church next to the Baptismal font (pause), and me. Right here, right now, in the uniqueness of your life and in the pain of your struggles, the Good Shepherd knows you and calls you by name. Listen. Surrender. Let Him meet you where you are. And let Him guide you on His path.