I recently got a pair of Google Glasses.

Yes, I am now wearing a computer on my head.

It reads me my emails and text messages. It lets me answer these emails, texts, and phone calls with increased efficiency via voice recognition software. It gives me my morning paper. And since it’s connected to the Internet, I can ask and get answers to practically any question, anytime by just Googling it with my glasses.

So if you think I had voices in my head before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

It’s just the latest iteration of the ramped up communication and information tsunami we’ve all witnessed in our lifetime - the one that’s eliminated daily newspapers on our doorsteps, printed books, and telephones with cords. And replaced them with much more information that we can access more quickly and in more places.

The voices in all of our heads are growing exponentially. And we need to be careful about the ones we listen to.

This is what Jesus talks about in Sunday’s gospel. It is a simple metaphor about sheep and shepherds, voices and warnings. Yes, each one of us is a sheep of the Good Shepherd. This means we know the shepherd’s voice.  In the midst of a world that’s changing far faster than most of us care to see, that constant, calming, and consistent voice of care and loving concern still takes the day.  We know the voice, we’ve heard it, and we’ve obeyed it.

But as sheep, this also means we are fragile, skittish, dim-witted folk who often give time to charlatans and charades that offer quick fixes and shortcuts because we’ll do anything to assuage the constantly ramped up anxiety that pulses through every vein. How many of us are downright scared of Google glasses?

But Jesus uses this image to remind us that there is nothing to fear.  He calls us to be patient, to have faith, to trust that the shepherd has not forgotten the sheep, but is making his way, and has made a way for us. Our challenge is to rest in this - to connect with that voice. Listen for it. Wait for it. Expect it. Know that it will come to tend to our every need.

My friends we may want to ask: which voices are we listening to? What voice might we make more time to hear? How might we more completely rest in the Good Shepherd’s presence today?