SPEAKER_00: Not every voice in your life wants what's good for you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not easy to hear.
SPEAKER_00: Some of those voices are lying to you.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are using you.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are slowly destroying you, and you do not even realize it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ says it plainly today.
SPEAKER_00: A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: This is not dramatic language.
SPEAKER_00: This is reality.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says something even more unsettling.
SPEAKER_00: Those voices do not sound dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: They sound familiar.
SPEAKER_00: Because if they sounded dangerous, you would run.
SPEAKER_00: If they sounded like destruction, you would reject it right out.
SPEAKER_00: But they do not.
SPEAKER_00: They sound like your own thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: They sound like the culture that you engage in.
SPEAKER_00: They sound like the voice you've been listening for so long that you stop questioning it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how it happens.
SPEAKER_00: Not all at once, not in one catastrophic decision, but slowly, quietly, almost unrecognizable.
SPEAKER_00: You begin to follow a voice that is taking you somewhere you never intended to go.
SPEAKER_00: And into that confusion, Jesus speaks with absolute clarity.
SPEAKER_00: I am the gate.
SPEAKER_00: Not one voice among many, not one option among many.
SPEAKER_00: I am the gate.
SPEAKER_00: Which means there's a way that leads to life, and there's a way, and there are ways that do not.
SPEAKER_00: And we resist that.
SPEAKER_00: Because we love options.
SPEAKER_00: We want flexibility.
SPEAKER_00: We want spirituality on our terms.
SPEAKER_00: We like to adapt it to us.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus does not adapt himself to us.
SPEAKER_00: He invites us to trust him.
SPEAKER_00: Because every other voice eventually takes something from you.
SPEAKER_00: Your peace, your clarity, your freedom, your identity.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, a thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: That is not somewhere out there.
SPEAKER_00: It is something within us.
SPEAKER_00: Something personal.
SPEAKER_00: But then he says, this I came so that you might have life and have it more abundantly.
SPEAKER_00: Not barely surviving, not just functioning, not just one day leads into the next day, not always searching and never arriving.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says, I came to give you abundance of life.
SPEAKER_00: A life that is whole, a life that is ordered, a life that is not pulled apart by competing voices.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the truth we do not like.
SPEAKER_00: That life only comes if you actually follow him.
SPEAKER_00: Because right now, every single person here is being led by some voice.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are being led by fear.
SPEAKER_00: Every decision, every transaction, the way we live our lives, everything is dependent on fear.
SPEAKER_00: And it's shrinking your life.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are being led by your past, and it keeps you stuck.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are being led by success, by comfort, and it's draining your soul while everything looks fine on the outside, trying to keep up with the Joneses.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you being led by sin, and you know what that sin is, and it's costing you, but it feels too familiar to let it go.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the line you need to remember.
SPEAKER_00: If you do not intentionally follow Christ, you will unintentionally follow something else.
SPEAKER_00: There's no neutral ground.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The shepherd does not give up his sheep.
SPEAKER_00: He calls them by name.
SPEAKER_00: And that means this is not abstract.
SPEAKER_00: He knows exactly where you are.
SPEAKER_00: He knows exactly what voices you've been listening to, and he knows exactly where it's leading you.
SPEAKER_00: And he's calling you right now.
SPEAKER_00: This very moment.
SPEAKER_00: Are you listening?
SPEAKER_00: Not to shame you, but to lead you.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where everything turns because once you hear his voice, you have to respond.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we do this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first, we need to claim him.
SPEAKER_00: In prayer, in silence, at this altar, at the moment of the Eucharist, not as an idea, but as a reality.
SPEAKER_00: You say it until it becomes true in your life.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is the one that guides me.
SPEAKER_00: I follow the shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: He is the voice that I listen to.
SPEAKER_00: You need to claim it.
SPEAKER_00: You need to let him into the places that you've been controlling.
SPEAKER_00: You let him lead you through the valleys that you've been avoiding.
SPEAKER_00: You let him feed you not with noise, but with himself.
SPEAKER_00: Because until he becomes your shepherd, his voice always will remain one voice among the many.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing is you need to stay with your flock.
SPEAKER_00: Because no sheep survives alone.
SPEAKER_00: And yes, the church is imperfect.
SPEAKER_00: It has its wounds, its sinners, it has had its moments in history that are painful.
SPEAKER_00: But this is still his flock.
SPEAKER_00: And he does not save us as isolated individuals.
SPEAKER_00: He saves us as a people, a people bound together, not by perfection, but by his mercy.
SPEAKER_00: And the temptation is to walk away when it gets hard.
SPEAKER_00: But the shepherd does not call you to run, he calls you to remain.
SPEAKER_00: Because even with all its imperfections, this is still where his voice is heard and his life is giving out and poured out for you.
SPEAKER_00: Right here at this altar.
SPEAKER_00: And third, you learn to lead by following.
SPEAKER_00: Because every single one of you, in some way, is shepherding someone in your home, in your family, in your work, in your parish.
SPEAKER_00: And the only way to lead well is to first be led.
SPEAKER_00: To let your heart be shaped by his.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.