Readings: Ezekiel 34:11-16; Psalm 22(23); Romans 5:5b-11; Luke 15:3-7
In the early days of his pontificate Pope Francis spoke often, and powerfully, about the need for a 'revolution of tenderness'. The world is so often a cruel and heartless place, and how transformed it would be by such a revolution.
Two images in particular represent this tenderness, that of the Good Shepherd, who carries the lost and straying sheep home on his shoulders, and that of the Sacred Heart, the divine humanity of Jesus, the human heart of flesh which symbolises the tender love and kindness of God towards humanity.
What Francis called for was a 'revolution', however, and there is no revolution without opposition, often violent and bloody. Not necessarily on the part of the revolutionaries, something impossible in this case: you cannot pursue a revolution of tenderness violently! But on the part of those who might feel threatened by such a revolution. Might there be 'vested interests' who will resist the revolution of tenderness? Are there fears and anxieties deep in the human spirit that might be provoked to prevent it or to act against it?
The first reading, from Ezekiel, paints a beautiful picture of the tender shepherd, the God of Israel, who will come in person to shepherd the sheep, seeking out the lost, bringing back the strayed, binding up the injured, healing the sick. It is easy to see in Jesus the fulfilment of this prophecy and we often (perhaps too quickly) assume he is also the shepherd in the parable who leaves his ninety nine sheep to go searching for the one who is lost.
So what of the ninety nine? Is it not reasonable to think that the shepherd is actually foolish to risk losing even more by abandoning the majority of his sheep? And what of that final action of the tender hearted shepherd in the reading from Ezekiel: 'the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly'? What could that mean?
A religion, like a politics, that plays to people's fears finds it easier to succeed in our world. A religion, or a politics, that appeals to our tenderheartedness will find it much harder to make progress. Superficially, for a moment, our hearts are moved by the plight of the strayed and injured, the lost and the sick. But in how many of us, and for how long, does this compassion become a true revolution?
And perhaps this is the point of the shocking ending to the first reading. The sleek and the strong need to have the carapace broken open that prevents them from really beginning to live in tenderness, a tenderness that is not just superficial and temporary, but which becomes central, and foundational, to a way of living. A tenderness that becomes the heart of who we are and what we do. Who or what will save the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son? Or the labourers in the vineyard whose concern for 'justice' closes their hearts to the needs of those who come later?
What we need, we who are sleek and strong, is the love of God to be poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. The revolution of tenderness inaugurated by Jesus, is not superficial or temporary. It is profound and it is permanent. It is established through blood that is shed and violence that is endured: but who did it threaten, and why?
If we are sleek and strong by His grace - 'now justified by his blood' - all the more will we be participants in His revolution, alert and committed to be after His own heart, seeking out what is lost and straying, carrying home what is injured and sick.
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