In John’s gospel Jesus speaks about how a shepherd treats his sheep.  And he likens himself to a shepherd.  Jesus also calls himself the gate for the sheep.  I am the gate.  Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.  When you think about it, that is a pretty strange thing to say:  I am the gate for the sheep.  I am the sheeps’gate.  What is being said here?

It helps to know something about sheepfolds or sheep corrals in Jesus’ day.  The sheepfolds were located inside the village or just on its outskirts.  Each evening all the sheep belonging to the shepherds in the village would be corralled into a common sheepfold.  The village shepherds would take turns standing guard at the gate.  When night came and all was quiet and secure, the shepherd on duty became the gatekeeper by lying down to rest across the opening of the sheepfold.  He became, as it were, the gate for the sheep.  Getting to the sheep required getting over the shepherd.

The shepherd of the shepherd describes how Jesus wants us to relate to him and how we are to relate to one another.  We have to climb over Jesus to get to one another.  We have to get over Jesus to get to other people.  That’s the controlling image here and it’s important to actually visualize the image.  Entry into the sheepfold – meaning entry into one another’s lives – requires meeting up with Jesus – the gate, the door.  So Jesus is telling us that in our coming to one another he is to be our door, our gate, our entry way.

But where does all that imagery take us?  What does it mean in real life to meet up with Jesus as the gate to the sheepfold – as our gate to other people?  He tells us.  And he tells us directly and clearly.  I come to the sheep that they might have life and have it more abundantly.  Meeting up with Jesus as the gate to other people means becoming life-giving for those people.  Coming in and out of the corral, finding pasture with other people means bringing them life – abundant life.

Life-giving relationships – this is how we follow the lead of the shepherd who walks ahead of us.  This is how we recognize the voice, the call of Jesus, our shepherd.  It is the call to enter into life-giving, life-touching, life-breathing bonds with one another.

Jesus also speaks of those who don’t come in through the gate.  They don’t come to the sheep by way of Jesus.  They don’t come to give abundant life.  These he calls thieves and robbers.  They call to the sheep in a different voice, in a voice that is strange and alien to the sheep who know Jesus’ voice.  They come to take from life – not give to it.  They come to exhaust, exploit life – not enhance it.

Where do Jesus’ words take us?  What do his images allow us to see?  I think they take us into our lived, everyday world and they allow us to see two fundamental options we have – two opposing ways of being and thinking and acting in this world of ours as we deal with one another.  There’s the shepherd’s way and there’s the robber’s way.  Jesus’ words and images allow us to become honest in our life-decisions.  Are we there basically to give or to take?  And perhaps even more basically, have we thought what we want to do with our lives?

The fact that we are here at this liturgy means we really do want to come to one another bringing abundant life.  At this Eucharistic celebration let us be grateful for deciding or trying or wanting to make Jesus our gate, our entry way to one another.