Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

I grew up on a family farm.

My parents milked cows and raised hogs for a living.

My grandparents lived on a farm across the road.

They made their living selling eggs and raising sheep.

 

One day, my grandmother called and asked that my brother and I

move her flock of sheep from one pasture to another.

So, we rode our bikes across the road,

leaned them against the fence, then opened the gate.

With sticks in our hands,

we proceeded to run after the sheep

and chase them toward the gate.

                                    (This is how we herded cows.

                                    We thought the same method

                                    would work with sheep.)

Well, the sheep didn’t know us.

They got frightened.

They ran off in every direction…except for the gate!

 

My grandmother was working in the garden

and noticed what was happening.

I can still see her stomping across the barnyard

yelling—not at the sheep—but at me and my brother:

           “You’re scaring my sheep!!

           Don’t treat my sheep that way!”

 

            Then she went to the feed shed,

            scooped grain into the fold of her apron,

            then came to the pasture and called her sheep.

                        They knew her voice.

                        They knew she had grain to feed them.

                                    So they all ran to her

                                    and followed her through the gate

                                    from the old pasture to the new.

 

And Jesus said,

 “The measure with which you measure

will be measured back to you.”