One saying for which Pope Francis will be remembered is wonderfully brief: ‘Shepherds should smell of their sheep’. It is not an especially attractive image, but it speaks powerfully of church leaders living close to the people they serve. Francis embodied this in his own life, choosing modest accommodation in the Vatican rather than a palace. Long before then, as his story makes clear, his instinct was to live embedded among his people.

This afternoon’s first reading from Ezekiel deepens that image.

The prophet does not simply picture God as a shepherd sitting safely in the middle of the flock. God is found among the scattered sheep: among those who are separated, exposed and vulnerable. This isn’t a pleasant place to be. The scattered sheep are found on a day of clouds and thick darkness. God the shepherd-king is with the injured and the weak. By contrast, the fat and strong receive judgement because their comfort has made them complacent. They have failed to care or act for those in need. It is close to Mary’s radical song at Evensong: God scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts. In God’s Kingdom, it is not ultimately the sheep who are scattered, but the powerful.

Within two months of his appointment, Pope Francis appointed an Argentinian theological advisor called Víctor Fernández who took as his motto the words: ‘Your servant is here among the people’. This reflects a particular commitment to a ‘theology of the people’, which takes seriously the spiritual, cultural and political agency of the poor.

For Christians, the shepherd-king among scattered people finds its fullest expression in the Word made flesh:

Christ stands before Pilate,

meets the Syrophoenician woman,

stays among Samaritans

and receives Greeks who seek him.

In Christ, God moves among the scattered peoples of the world.

And this matters profoundly if our faith is to serve a world torn by disaster, mistrust, aggression and greed.

Among those who died in Venezuela will surely have been clergy and church leaders who lived alongside their people and shared the terrible consequences of the recent earthquakes.

Elsa Tamez, another important voice in this tradition, has written about grace and human dignity.

She warns that we can’t speak honestly of grace without noticing what is disgraceful: the economic, social, cultural and spiritual misery endured by millions each day.

In such a world, simply being human is often not enough.

To be treated as “someone”, people are expected to show the right kind of merits:

income,

property,

possessions,

status.

Those who do not meet that standard are too easily treated as insignificant.

But it hasn’t always felt this stark.

After the devastation of the Second World War, many nations and individuals tried to help others recover, welcome refugees and build institutions for the world’s wellbeing.

It was imperfect, but there was at least a larger ambition to raise human dignity rather than exploit it.

From the perspective of the poor and ordinary, Tamez reminds us that grace is never passive.

It is more than warmth or feeling; it is an invitation to radiate what we have received.

If God’s grace is the source of our deepest dignity, then we are called to recognise that same dignity in lives very different from our own.

Such grace sits uneasily in a consumer society shaped by rivalry, competition and the need to step over others in order to survive.

The Church is called to share God’s commitment to those who are scattered in clouds and thick darkness.

We are to live the grace we have received by being gracious to others, and by seeing God as the source of dignity for every person.

This priestly ministry belongs not only to clergy, but to the whole people of God.

As a Church, we must bear the scent of the scattered sheep and ensure that, in this place and every place, people are shown dignity as children of the God who was, and is, among us.

Amen.