Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Life

4th Sunday of Easter
May 7, 2017
Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10


             The fourth Sunday after Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday. Jesus is the good shepherd. This is not news to most of us. Many of us could have recited the 23rd psalm off by heart without looking at the hymnal. We didn’t need to hear 1 Peter remind us again of how we are “like sheep that had lost their way, but now you have been brought back to follow the Shepherd and Keeper of your souls.”[1] Being compared to sheep is not a favorable comparison for us.  I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve preached a lot on sheep and shepherds. So, here’s the good news. In those verses from the Gospel of John, we didn’t actually read the part where Jesus says he’s the good shepherd. We read the part where he said he’s the gate. And 1 Peter said we follow not just the shepherd, but the guardian of our souls. Jesus is the gate; Jesus is the keeper of our souls. Knowing that Jesus guards our souls, there are a couple important things to get out of that.
One is that God knows you by name. God doesn’t say, “Hey you. Psst.”; God says, “Hey Heather Jean,” in my case, or “Hey [insert name here].” Through the prophet Isaiah God says, “I created you…, I formed you… Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”[2] God knows your name, whether it’s Conrad Cornelius O’Donald O’Dell, a Dr. Seuss character, or [insert name here]. God knows it no matter how many times you’ve changed it or what nicknames you’ve had. God knows who you are. God doesn’t call you, “Hey stupid!” God knows your name and calls you by name.
“The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” God calls each one of us by name. We may or may not respond. We may find it a little scary or unsettling that God knows us, and respond with more of a “Who? Me?” instead of Samuel’s, “Here I am. You called?” And I think that’s because unless we know who’s calling us, it can be a little unsettling. You know, it’s important to learn names and greet people by name. I try to do that at children’s time and when serving you communion. But when someone you don’t know says your name, it can be startling. How do they know me? Yet God doesn’t just know your name, God knows you. God knows you because God made you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You know in creation when God was making everything, after each thing God said, “It is good.” Except after making people. Then God said, “It is very good.” You are very good. You are beloved. You are God’s.
And it’s a good thing to belong to God because not everyone has your best interests at heart. Thieves will try to come to steal, and kill, and destroy. The gate is the proper entrance to a sheepfold and that’s what the shepherd uses. But others will try to break in, climb over the fence or find another way in besides the gate. These others who sneak in have their own agenda, and it’s not to guard your soul. The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy. There are those who will try to steal your joy. Who will try to steal you away from God. Who will try to destroy your sense of self-worth or your ability to feel love or your ability to believe that you are worthy of love. They do not care about your soul. They have their own plan and it does not involve love or life. If they happen to steal or kill or destroy your soul, they don’t care.
You see, “the purpose of the gate is not to keep out other sheep… The purpose of the gate is to guard against all that threatens the well-being of the sheep.”[3] Jesus as the gate isn’t about exclusion and inclusion and who belongs and who doesn’t belong. Jesus as the gate is about guarding your souls, guarding your well-being. It’s not protecting sheep from other sheep; this isn’t about sheep-on-sheep violence. This is about thieves and bandits and wolves who seek to hurt the sheep. People who serve interests other than the ones from God. People who don’t take care of the least of these. People who don’t care about others’ well-being. People who don’t visit the sick, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked.
My husband and I love to watch “Doctor Who” and there was a speech Dr. Who gave in last week’s episode that when it was over, Lee turned to me and said, are you going to use that in a sermon?[4] And I said yes, not expecting to use it today. However, it fits. In this episode, Dr. Who and his companion travel to 1814 London when the River Thames is frozen, during one of the coldest freezes ever. And they meet there Lord Sutcliffe whose family secret passed on for generations is that there’s a monster who lives in the Thames who eats people and Lord Sutcliffe’s family is responsible for feeding it. The advantage to feeding it is that this monster’s dung is a biofuel that heats better and longer than coal, and so Lord Sutcliffe’s family has gotten rich because they have free and efficient heating for their factories and houses. Well, Lord Sutcliffe plans to set off a bomb on the ice when a lot of people are on it so that the monster gets a lot of people to eat. Dr. Who asks him, “What makes you so sure your life is worth more than those people out there on the ice? Is it the money? The accident of birth, that puts you inside the big, fancy house.” Sutcliffe replies, “I help move this country forward. I move the [British] Empire forward.” Dr. Who, who’s been around for thousands of years and traveled to even more times and places, says, “Human progress isn’t measured by industry. It’s measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege. The boy who died on the river, that boy’s value is your value. That’s what defines an age, that’s… what defines a species.”
The value you place on an unimportant life. The value you place on an average sheep. Whether or not you work to safeguard the soul of that sheep. Jesus says, “The thief enters only to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they could have life – indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest.” Abundant life. Life in all its fullness. Real and eternal life, more and better life than you have ever dreamed of. That’s why Jesus keeps our souls, so that each person can have life. By being the gate to the sheepfold it means Jesus only lets in those things that involve love, unity, mutuality, justice, and abundant life. If there is something in your life tearing you down, a voice that whispers, “hey stupid,” or “hey ugly,” or whatever you think when you’re at your worst, that is not from Jesus. That is something that stole in through the fence. If there is something tearing others down, even if it doesn’t affect you directly, that is also not from Jesus and something that snuck in.
When Jesus says that he came that we might have life, he’s not just talking about eternal life, life after death, and he’s not talking about health, wealth, and success. He’s talking about “life that begins here and now… knowing the one true God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent. It is knowing the voice of the good shepherd who truly cares for us, [for each of us]. It is life in community, finding security and nourishment as part of his flock. It is life that abounds in meaning and value and endures even beyond death.”[5] Living life to the fullest, which does not mean do whatever you want. Nor is abundant life a zero-sum game where it means in order for you to have, others must do without. You can’t have life in all its fullness and ignore your neighbor in need. There’s the story Jesus tells of the rich man and Lazarus, where the rich man throws his scraps out to Lazarus, a beggar.[6] Lazarus goes to heaven when he dies; the rich man goes to hell. That was someone who stole from the sheepfold. No, abundant life is more like the neighbors who go to build their houses, one chooses the easy way and builds on sand; the other chooses to build on solid rock.[7] When the storms came, the house on the rock stood pat and the house on the sand went splat. In the children’s version, that is. And in the children’s version, the family in the house on the rock invited in the family who lost their house.[8] That’s abundant life, and it does not come at the expense of someone else not having life.
Jesus guards all our souls. Jesus calls us each by name and says, “Come, follow me. I will bring you home.” Home, where you live life fully, unafraid, secure that you are loved, secure because you belong to God and God loves you, no matter what.  You are not forgotten.  God wants abundant life for you.  That’s why Jesus is the gate. Yes, thieves can still get in, the fence is permeable; but don’t let them steal your life from you. Don’t let them destroy you with lies about scarcity. Jesus didn’t come that you might live in fear of not having enough. Jesus came that you might live life to the fullest. And he offers it to everyone. You don’t get to decide; I don’t get to decide. God wants life for all of creation. And each member of that creation is to help name the thieves that are hindering others from having life. We all get there together. All of creation will be redeemed; each person. That’s why Jesus came. May we trust him to continue to keep our souls safe so that we might have the life he intended for us. Amen.



[1] 1 Peter 2:25, GNB
[2] Isaiah 43:1
[4] Doctor Who, Season 10, Episode 3, “Thin Ice,” airdate 4/29/17
[5] Ibid.
[6] Luke 16:19-31
[7] Matthew 7:24-27
[8] The House on the Rock: Matthew 7:24-27 for children (Arch Books) by Jane Latourette

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