Please read the Scripture passage before the homily.
Wolves have a bad name. They readily eat livestock if the owners let them have it. They help keep a balance in the wildlife population. They are making a comeback in many places of the world where people and governments are beginning to understand and appreciate the benefits of having wolves.
On the other hand, they have received a bad name in history and in folklore. Our passage today gives witness to the bad reputation wolves have had. Sheep, however, have a good reputation even though they are known for being smelly.
We tend not to think that pagans will live up to the high standards of Christians. When I was growing up, we suspected that the Protestants were less good morally than we Catholics. Over the years Catholics have become more understanding of pagans, Protestants and other who differ from us in matters religious. We mut also not overlook how much we ourselves can resist the message of Christ.
None of this is said to disparage the Lord’s teaching in this passage. We are still being sent out into a world that does not understand us and that does not agree with us on everything. We are being sent, however, into a world that God wants to be saved and to come to a complete knowledge of the truth. We are being sent into world that ultimately wants to know God, that wants to do right, that seeks to know truth, even though there be opposition to that truth.
Jesus sends us out to be simple yet shrewd, to be optimistic yet careful, to be alive even in the face of death, to be faithful even in the face of treachery. Let us go forward as the Lord sends us.