4th Sunday in Easter

In 2010, the BBC brought out a riveting TV series entitled Sherlock. The series tracks the adventures of Sherlock and Watson and is loosely based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic figure of Sherlock Homes. Unlike the books, Mary, Watson’s wife gets a significant cameo part in the series and becomes quite a beloved figure to both the audience and to Sherlock. Tragically, in the third episode of the second season, Mary is killed in circumstances that will haunt Sherlock for the rest of his life. As one of the criminals Sherlock has been chasing down raises a gun to shoot Sherlock, Mary jumps in between them and takes the bullet and dies in Sherlock’s arms. This event has a profound effect on Sherlock. Thus far, Sherlock has approached his own life with a rather flippant attitude, not concerned in the slightest about the damage his drug addiction is doing to his health and how it threatens his very life. But now that changes, because Mary’s saving of his life has exalted it far above the value of just a random accident of nature. Suddenly he can’t just treat his life as something worthless. He has been burdened with the huge responsibility of being someone who was saved, someone who lived while another died in his place. He has classic survivor guilt. This feeling oppresses him and he speaks to Watson of the guilt that he feels for having killed Mary, to which Watson replies: “You didn’t kill Mary, she died saving your life – it’s her choice – no-one made her do it – no-one could ever make her do it – but the point is you didn’t kill her.” Sherlock replies with a most profound and luminous statement: “In saving my life she conferred a value on it – it is a currency I know not how to spend.”

In today’s gospel Jesus tells us that he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. We all know that these were not just words for Jesus, he did end up laying his life down for us his sheep. In saving our lives Jesus confers a value on it, and it is the task of our whole lives to figure out how to spend this currency. Instead of getting depressed about it, like Sherlock Holmes, the value that Jesus has conferred on our lives should give us hope and inspire us to attain our maximum potential. We do this by bearing as much fruit as possible for the Kingdom of God. This is the only response on our part that will save us from depression. Sherlock is weighed down by the huge burden of the responsibility he feels to become someone worth saving. If we take this same approach as Sherlock, and try to become someone worth saving, we are likely to get stuck down a deep hole of our own unworthiness. What we need to learn to do is to look at ourselves as Jesus looks on us, with a love that knows no bounds, with a love that sees us as worth dying for, not because of anything we’ve done, but simply because of who we are, the children of God.

Jesus contrasts his devotion with the unreliability of the hired man. The hired man works for money and is not dedicated to the sheep to the point of laying down his life for them. There were very strict laws that governed what the hired man was allowed and was not allowed to do. The hired man was bound to defend the sheep against the attacks of wolves, two dogs and a small wild animal. However, the hired man was allowed to flee if he found himself up against a lion, leopard, snake, bear or against thieves or bandits. The shepherd on the other hand would risk his life to save his sheep.

When we think about it, there is something quite foolish about a shepherd who leaves the 99 exposed to danger and goes after the one that is lost. There is a foolishness in the shepherd that risks his life and even loses it fighting off a lion that would have perhaps only eaten one of his sheep. It would have made far more sense for the shepherd to simply let the lion have the one sheep and led the other 99 sheep out of danger. This would be the course of action of cold hard reason, the course of action of anyone focused purely on profit. This is not the path followed by the Good Shepherd, who foolishly lays down his life to save his sheep. This same foolishness is in evidence with Jesus laying his life down for us while we were still sinners.

If we don’t understand the foolishness of love, we will never know how to spend the currency that Jesus’ death has conferred on our lives. It is only by giving pouring out our lives like the Good Shepherd that we will find the satisfaction and fulfilment that eluded Sherlock. Here was a character whose powers of deduction were second to none, his logic flawless, his intelligence enormous. But perhaps this was just the problem – for the logic of love defies the logic of reason. Today let us allow ourselves to be led by our Good Shepherd into the foolishness of love.

Questions for reflection

1. When was the last time you can say you loved someone foolishly (without calculation)?
2. What are the ways in which you put limits on your love, like the hireling?
3. When was the last time you felt loved foolishly by God?