Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday April 30, 2023 – 4th Sunday of Easter
Scripture: John 10:1-10
Chapter 10 of the gospel of John includes one of my very favourite statements of Jesus, and this week I looked it up in different translations to see how different translations of the bible word it:
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (NRSV)
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (KJV)
“I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” (Message)
“I have come in order that you might have life – life in all its fullness.” (Good News)
“I came so that they could have life – indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest.” (CEB)
This fullness, this abundance of life is what Jesus is all about. He’s not just about the simple biological life – a heart beating, breath moving in and out of the lungs. Instead, Jesus is about every single person… maybe even all of creation… being able to fully live into who and what God created us to be.
It's interesting to look at where this teaching of Jesus comes in the overall bible story. This passage comes right after the story of Jesus giving sight to a man who was born blind – one of the stories we read just a couple of weeks ago in the season of Lent.
If you remember that story, there was a man born without sight. Jesus saw him; Jesus spit on the ground and mixed his spit with the dust; Jesus smeared the mud he made on the man’s eyes; Jesus told the man to go to the pool of Siloam and wash his eyes there. And when the man came back to Jesus after washing, he could see for the first time in his life.
This is the story as told by someone watching the events unfold. But I wonder what this experience was like for the man who was born blind. We are told that he was a beggar and so I picture him sitting alongside the road, hopeful that someone passing by would be generous enough to drop a couple of coins in his basket. Maybe he was hungry, or maybe yesterday’s generosity meant that he was able to eat today. And all of a sudden, he hears some voices that he has never heard before. And these unfamiliar voices are talking about him. And then he feels mud being smeared on his eyes – I like to think that Jesus told him what he was doing, and asked permission first – but mud is smeared on his eyes, and this unseen voice is telling him to go to a local pool to wash the mud off.
These unfamiliar voices belong to strangers, and yet there must have been something in Jesus’s voice that told this unnamed man that the voice came from someone who was trustworthy. What did he hear in Jesus’s voice that made him do what Jesus told him?
He didn’t know Jesus’s voice, and yet he knew Jesus’s voice.
And at the end of this story, just before Jesus’s teaching about sheep hearing the voice of the one who tends them, this man has moved into a deeper, fuller, more abundant way of living. I picture him standing straighter and moving through the world with increased confidence now that he can see where to place his feet. Maybe now someone will hire him so that he no longer has to sit beside the road with his beggar’s bowl. Maybe he now lives his life with generosity and compassion towards the people he used to beg alongside.
This man has heard Jesus’s voice, he knew Jesus’s voice even though he had never met him before, knew that he could trust Jesus’s voice, and now he has passed through Jesus and into the sheepfold.
Today’s reading from John must drive English teachers crazy with its mixed metaphors. Is Jesus the shepherd who protects the sheep? Or is he the gate in and out of the sheep fold?
I would answer both of these questions with a yes. Yes and yes. The beautiful thing about using metaphors – images that are both like and not-like – is that when we use multiple metaphors to describe God we can draw a more complete picture of God. We are limited by our human language when we try to talk about God, but the poetry of metaphors maybe lets us get a bit closer. Jesus is the one who guards the sheep AND Jesus is the gate. Jesus is the one whose voice, whose call is trustworthy AND Jesus is the entry into abundance or fullness of life.
Which brings me to the biggest question that I’ve had to struggle with this week, related to this reading. If Jesus is both the shepherd and the gate, who is the thief or bandit in this metaphor? If Jesus’s purpose is to bring fullness or abundance of life – life that goes beyond simply existing – who or what is stealing or denying this abundant life? What are some of the ways that the world has denied this abundance of life? Or even closer to home, what are some of the ways that the church has denied the abundance of life?
I think of all of the situations where there is biological life without the fullness of life. Our LGBTQ+ siblings who are living in places where their existence is illegal, and if they lived as God created them to be, they risk being punished even up to the point of death. People who are forced to give birth but who are denied accessible health care or any sort of social support system or network. People who are trapped in generational systems of poverty. People struggling with addictions who are imprisoned rather than supported with treatment programs.
There are so many places in the world where there is life but not the fullness or abundance of life.
And I think that this story should be a very powerful call to the church. Our mission needs to go beyond sustaining life and on to promoting the fullness of life. We contribute to food banks which is important because they sustain life, but what can we do to make sure that people don’t need food banks in the first place. We support the benevolent fund which again helps to sustain life by doing things like paying power bills and giving out grocery gift cards, but what can we do to promote the fullness of life so that people don’t need to ask for help in the first place?
(If you are looking for some ideas to get you going, I encourage you to look on the United Church of Canada’s website for information about the Guaranteed Livable Income campaign. Or look for the ways that the church is pushing back against climate change. Or listen to the Minute for Mission that we share each week for ways that the wider church is working towards not just life but abundant life.)
For Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it in abundance.” And may this vision come soon for all of God’s creation. Amen.
The church advocating for fullness of life for all!
300 paper bags, each containing a tart and closed with a sticker
that has a rainbow flag and the words “God Loves You!”
Given away in front of Westfield United Church on Pie Day (March 14).
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