My brothers and sisters, human beings are incredibly skilled at drawing lines. We draw borders on maps, we set property lines around our hom...
My brothers and sisters, human beings are incredibly skilled at drawing lines. We draw borders on maps, we set property lines around our homes, and, perhaps most dangerously, we draw invisible boundaries in our hearts. We categorize people into who is "in" and who is "out," who is worthy of our time, and who is not.
In our First Reading today, we see the early Church struggling with these exact same boundaries. Peter is brought in for questioning by his own community. His crime? He entered the house of uncircumcised people and ate with them. To the early Jewish Christians, this was a scandalous crossing of a deeply ingrained cultural and religious line. But Peter recounts his vision—the sheet lowered from the sky, the command to eat, and the ultimate realization that God had granted life-giving repentance to the Gentiles too. God was shattering their boundaries to expand their understanding of belonging.
This perfectly mirrors the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel. Jesus tells us He is the Good Shepherd. But He doesn't stop there. He adds a detail that must have shocked His listeners: "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead." Jesus is declaring that His flock is bigger than the pen we have built for it. The Good Shepherd does not stand at the gate to keep people out; He stands at the gate to welcome them in.
This brings us to our own belief. If our belief in Christ is genuine, it must challenge our personal prejudices. How often do we act like the circumcised believers in Acts, questioning why grace is being extended to someone we deem unworthy? How often do we forget that we, too, were once the "other sheep" that Jesus sought out?
To follow the Good Shepherd means we must walk where He walks, and He is constantly walking toward the margins. He is calling us to dismantle the walls we have built and to widen the circle of our compassion. Today, let us ask for the grace to see others not through the lens of our human categories, but through the eyes of the Good Shepherd, who laid down His life so that all might find their belonging in Him.
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