Let’s Make a Deal

Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod , owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

“No one can take them out of my hand,” Jesus says of his followers in today’s Gospel reading from John 10. He makes it all sound so easy: he leads, we follow. He gives eternal life; we accept it.

Except, of course, that it’s not that easy.

He leads us to places we may not want to go, places of beauty and prestige and honor for which we feel woefully unqualified a...