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Jenga with Dad. By a show of hands who has played the game Jenga? It looks like many of you are familiar with this game. For those of you who are not, this is a game of 54 wooden blocks that make up a tower in which players take turns removing one block at a time from the tower until a player loses by removing a block that causes the tower to fall. I think life is like a game of Jenga in that sometimes, we don’t know how important something or someone is until they are not there. As I was reflecting on today’s Gospel reading, I realize that the shepherds Jesus is talking about are a lot like the important Jenga piece in the game of our lives.
This Father’s Day, I am thinking especially of those fathers in our lives who are meant to build us up, provide stability, and support us. Fathers are like that important building block, which when removed from their position, can result in others falling. I am reminded of a family tree painting my parents gave my wife, Julie, and me for our wedding present. It shows my ancestor Deacon James Moor and his wife from the 1700s at the bottom of the Moor family tree and it shows my wife and I at the top of the tree with my Dad and Mom underneath us. I know how important having my Dad as a steady positive presence in my life has played with giving me solid footing to stand up in my own life.
Unfortunately, when we trace our ancestry all the way back in time, we see that all too often father figures have fallen short of the role they are called to have with those entrusted to their care. We see this at the beginning of mankind. We see this in today’s Gospel reading and we see it in our present day.
Let’s start with today’s Gospel reading, which talks about Jesus feeling compassion for the crowd because they have been abandoned like sheep without a shepherd by the chief priests and the Pharisees. Instead of these spiritual fathers taking care of those entrusted to them, they care more about their own desires while neglecting the needs of their people. Today’s Gospel reading starts out by saying, “At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” This wasn’t the first time one of God’s children felt like sheep without a shepherd.
In Genesis Chapter 2, God puts Adam in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and care for it with the instruction he shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam as soon as you eat of it, you shall be doomed to die. Then God entrusts Eve to Adam’s care and what happens? Adam stands idly by while the serpent goes on to deceive Eve as she does the one thing God said not to do. The serpent came to deceive Eve, to harass her, leaving her feeling rather helpless to defend herself against this deceptive attack. Instead of stepping up and doing something about it like driving out the serpent from his home that was entrusted to him, or quoting the words God told him accurately, Adam stands idly by while the serpent removes this block from his important position of providing a stable base for the building up God’s Kingdom. The result is Adam is removed from his important position and we see his wife fall along with him. We still today are feeling the unsettling effects of this from where we sit on the top of this family tree.
What was Adam doing while he was standing idly by right next to his wife the whole time while this deceptive attack was happening? He was present, but he wasn’t engaged in the important position God entrusted to him and the consequences were devastating. The same thing is happening with all too many fathers still today who might be present in the home, but they might not be engaged in doing the work God wants them to be doing of protecting their spouse and their children from the deceptive attacks that are trying to invade their homes. Are there those who are entrusted to our care feeling troubled, abandoned, harassed, and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd? If so, what are we going to do about it? Because if we aren’t going to stand up and do something about it, who will?
The enemy will gladly slither his way into the hearts and minds of those entrusted to our care with his deceptive messages and tactics that have a devastating effect on our marriages and on our families with the instability they cause. We fathers have an important role in safeguarding our spouses and our children against these deceptive attacks so they do not have a devastating effect on our marriages and our families.
Jesus sees all the sheep today and knows that they are ripe for the role of the good father who can be trusted to protect us and to build us up into the disciples he is calling us to be.
Jesus calls himself the Lord of this Harvest gathering us in. But he doesn’t want to do this work all by himself. That is why Jesus choose twelve men to help with this work. These twelve are given a specific authority and command from Jesus to save and heal those entrusted to their care. The apostles are to heal them and restore them to life. For those who have people entrusted to their care, we must be reminded that we can only give to others what we have. To be a shepherd means to continually be receiving and giving, never simply holding. In receiving from God, we must give like God, freely. Jesus is helping us see our roles as both as those to be taught as well as those who are to teach. Our roles are both to be healed by him and to be healers for others. Both in Genesis and in Matthew, God calls man to give him life and power, a life and power that are to be used for God’s purposes. God created us and we are called to participate in God’s ongoing creation.
These shepherds are like fathers who are to take care of those entrusted to them. St. John Paul II talks about the mission of fatherhood being to reveal and relive on earth the very fatherhood of God; to care for those entrusted to us; to be more concerned with the life of his sheep than his own life; to connect the Gospel to their lives. The Christian mission begins in today’s Gospel reading at home in House of Israel and the same is true today with Jesus wanting us to meet people where they are already at. We see this with the primary importance of the domestic church being where the first teachers of the faith, the father and mother, help children come to know and love Jesus.
As we gather here today at our father’s house to grow closer to Jesus by approaching him here at the altar, we also draw closer to each other. Jesus has chosen to make his very person reside within us. We then are to re-present Jesus to others in the sense of making Jesus effectively present through our words and actions. Then with God in us, he sends us out to share him with others and to help bring them closer to Jesus and to us, allowing us a participation in his own fruitfulness.
This Father’s Day weekend, let us pray for our fathers. For the times they have fallen and allowed themselves to be pulled out of the important role in our lives of shepherding us, let us pray that Jesus shows them his compassion, mercy, and his way of shepherding. For the times these father figures have gotten it right with the way they have shepherded us, let us give thanks to God the good Father of us all. After all, our heavenly father wants us to participate in this eternal game of Jenga so that together we may win by building up the Kingdom of God.