5/3/20
(Acts 2:42-47; Ps. 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10)
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
I read something on the internet this past week that was written by a college professor, lamenting one of the many little tragedies that the coronavirus pandemic has created, that was specific to his life as a teacher: that, because of the shutdown, his students (like students in college courses all across the country) would not be taking their final exam. (Of course most students would think yeah, what a tragedy.) But the fact is that this professor, like any good teacher, knows that the purpose of a final exam is not just to make sure people have done their homework. It’s a chance for them to bring together what they’ve learned in the course (whatever it might be), to see how the pieces fit; it’s a chance for them to use their knowledge, to be creative, to see that they can be creative. In the language of faith, it’s to embrace the gifts that God has given each of them uniquely; to grow into who they really are, what they can be. In fact on one level that’s the whole point of the course. Of any course. It’s the point of all education. Of any kind. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
In our Episcopal Church the fourth Sunday of Easter is known as Good Shepherd Sunday, because in each of the three years of the lectionary cycle the gospel reading for this Sunday is a passage from John chapter 10, the discourse of Jesus in which he calls himself the good shepherd. Jesus speaks about his caring and protective relationship with “the sheep”, meaning, of course, us. All of us. A lot of people instinctively have a negative reaction to that characterization of themselves: sheep being understood as brainless creatures who need to be, and can be, led by the nose in order to survive. (Of course this is not what Jesus means.) Our reading today is the first part of that discourse in chapter 10, in which Jesus establishes the world of sheep as the metaphor for his ministry, but refers to himself, not as the shepherd, but with a different image: one which I think deserves a lot more attention than it tends to get.
But first we have to remember something. This whole discourse is actually the conclusion to the story we hear in John chapter 9, Jesus healing of the man born blind. And we cannot really understand the whole Good Shepherd thing outside of that context. So – very briefly to remind you – Jesus comes across a man who’s been blind all his life. The healing happens very quickly, at the beginning: Jesus spits on the ground, makes a little mud, puts it on the man’s eyes, tells him to go wash in a nearby pool, which he does, and comes back able to see, Jesus having gone on his way.
But the bulk of the story is what happens afterwards. Because word spreads that it’s Jesus who’s done this miracle, an uproar starts among the religious authorities, who’ve already identified him as a dangerous renegade and troublemaker. At first they deny that the healing really happened; when it’s proven to be true, they deny that Jesus had anything to do with it, saying to the man, it’s God who did this, we know Jesus is a sinner (so he cannot possibly have done it.) The chapter ends with Jesus and the man he healed talking about what happened, the man coming to faith in Jesus, and Jesus trying to teach the Pharisees something, which they reject.
There’s a lot more to this story, and you could spend a lifetime talking about it. The point for our purposes today is this. The Pharisees and Sadducees – the religious establishment – are insisting that they know how God works in this world: in certain ways which they have long since identified, which they alone can provide knowledge of and access to; and which they therefore control. Jesus is saying, That’s a lie, and you don’t know what you’re talking about. In fact, worse: you are preventing people from seeing the love of God that is alive around them, and inviting them to join in, all the time. And within the metaphor of the sheepfold, he calls them thieves, and bandits.
And here’s where, in chapter 10 verse 9 Jesus uses another image to help us understand who he is, and what he’s doing: he talks about the gate of the sheepfold, and tells them, “I am the gate.” And then he says what that means: “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”
“I am the gate.” It’s one of the great “I am” statements that Jesus makes in this gospel: I am the good shepherd; I am the light of the world; I am the way, the truth, and the life; I am the gate. These metaphors all represent a means to an end: whenever Jesus points to himself, he is pointing through himself to God.
But there’s a unique beauty to this one: in the way that it’s about this life, our lives. “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.” “Saved” does not mean “admitted to heaven when you die.” “Saved” means fulfilled; redeemed; “saved” is the coming-to-be of who we really are. “Whoever enters through me will come in and go out and find pasture.” “Come in”: to the place we know is home: where we know we are loved for who we are; where we are safe; where there’s trust, and communion, and rest. “Whoever enters through me…will go out and find pasture”: this is our life, every day: we go out into the richness of creation. Pasture is what grazing animals eat, it’s what gives them sustenance. “Pasture” isn’t a big empty field: it’s what is in that field. Pasture is the nourishment, not just for our bodies, but our souls, that God gives us: that God is giving us, all the time.
This is Jesus, the gate: through whom we wake up; through whom we open our eyes; through whom we go out and find pasture; through whom we come in, and are home. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Thanks be to God.