Come, Find Life to its Fullest

John 10:1-10 - Pew pg. 103

John 10:1–10 NRSV

1 “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7 So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

In this season of resurrection, we move to stories from Jesus’ teaching, parables that tell us of what it is like to have life in Jesus’ resurrection way. What does it mean to find life to the fullest? How would we describe it? What are its contours, the shape and form it takes, both in our communities and our individual lives? If we are to be a people who practice and live out an affirmation of the resurrection, how are we to understand it?

It isn’t always easy to understand and we need parables and illustrations and examples to help us find our way. To help us define what life to the fullest is and how it looks in our particular settings.

I’ll tell you something we’re not going to do today — We’re not going to simply compare ourselves to sheep or say that sheep are less intelligent and therefore need guidance and direction. That typical line of teaching around this text is worn out and ultimately, paints us as people with little agency or ability to discern God’s calling. If you’ve been tuned into the public political discourse of these last few years, you know that to be called sheep is to be equated with being ill-informed, directionless, without a real sense of purpose, people quick to be influenced by the zietgeist of the day. You and I both know that isn’t true or fair, so let’s look at this text for what more it has to say.

Jesus does use metaphors and figures of speech that help us connect to his deeper meaning. So to be like sheep isn’t necessarily a putdown, but we have to unpack it be a bit before we slap that label on ourselves.

In this text, Jesus uses images of sheep, gates, thieves, and safe pasture. For an agrarian, semi-nomadic community, which many of his listeners would have been and, for centuries, continued to be, these images would have connected easily to daily life. I think of an old Scottish Presbyterian, a couple hundred years ago, hearing these words and “getting it” — Ahh, yes, the good Shepherd calls the sheep home. Home to safety and life to its fullest.

But clearly, the words don’t always land and didn’t even for Jesus’ first hearers. The text tells us that Jesus used this figure of speech, the metaphors of sheep and gates and following a stranger, but that the people did not understand what he ways saying.

So, he teaches.

Jesus tells his listeners: Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.

He’s saying I am the one who you are seeking, I’m the one whose voice you have a sense of, whose voice you know. He’s saying come, find safe pasture in this way of life that I’m trying to teach you. You’ve heard what Jesus has said about the Kingdom of Heaven and how he is welcoming broken people to find a home — that’s what this is about. That in Jesus’ way, we can find life to its fullest, the greatest expression of our personhood, a safe pasture to be ourselves and flourish.

He’s also telling his listeners, and us, that there are plenty of other voices, directors, actors who want our attention and will draw us away from that life.

Do you know this to be true?

Do you know that there are sometimes influences and movements in our world that want to pull us away from the good life, the life of grace and mercy and forgiveness and love that Jesus offers? If you are not aware of such influences, I first say “be grateful” and I second say “open your eyes!”

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, calls us to come home and find life to its fullest, life abundant.

Are you longing for that abundant life? I know I am. I know you are. And the good news is that we find it here, in Christ’s family. I’m deeply convinced that there is no other fullness of life that can be found outside of this “coming home” we find in God. There may be many roads to it, many ways God calls us home, but we enter through Christ. We enter this fullness by letting ourselves rest into the the arms of grace we find in Christ.

Back to sheep, for a moment.

There’s this sense that sheep are dumb and only operate as a herd, just following blindly after their leader. But if we stop to contemplate the nature of sheep, or any animal or creation of God for that matter, we see that cannot be the case. There is a significant difference between being a herd animal that has no agency and being a willing participant in a great movement in community with others for the greater wellbeing of all members.

Have you ever seen those videos of sheep being led by a sheep dog? Zoomed way out, you see this mass of white sheep all gathered in a field. And the sheep dog runs before and behind them, around and even through them, trying to direct their path home. It’s an incredibly fluid thing — there is movement to the herd, where they work together to follow, but also as individuals, adjusting and attending to each other, sometimes shifting to go their own direction, but always moving back into belonging and forward progress with each other.

It’s much like how a flock of birds will fly together, like a great cloud of swallows, moving and dancing across the sky. If they were automatons, guided only by the authority of the wind or the dog or their master, wouldn’t they march more like a troop of soldiers in rank and file? That’s not the case with the beautiful creation God has designed all around us — we move, flow, adapt, respond to one another and to the voice that leads us. We shift and grow and move forward and back, all to the tune of God’s directing voice.

That’s what Jesus is inviting us to — to move with him, to be drawn by him, to find our rest in him.

I’ve wrestled with the nature of this calling in my own life. I’ve interrogated my life story in many ways, questioning how I got here, questioning where I belong and how God might be directing my life.

Today, I celebrate the 6th anniversary of standing in this room and taking my vows of ordination to become a Minister of Word and Sacrament. Today, I look back on my 40 years of life and wonder at how the Good Shepherd has directed me to find a home and a place of life to the fullest here in this community, with you all, using my gifts as best I know how, directed by God’s spirit.

As I look back, I can see so many directions and pathways that I could have taken. Open doors that would have been reasonable to step through. Perhaps I decided to go to the University of Washington instead of Western. Perhaps I had decided to stay a vocal performance major in school instead of venturing into the humanities and the exploration of theology.

Or I think back to the wrestling times of seminary, wondering if I even belonged in the Presbyterian Church, with all its order and structure and process. Sometimes, the way of the Good Shepherd has felt rigid, like it doesn’t quite fit. Sometimes, along my journey, I’ve wanted to turn away, to go my own direction, to stop listening to the Shepherd’s voice.

Again, today I find myself at a moment of transition, looking back and looking forward. 6 years here, 6 years marked by so many shifts and growth and changes, ways God has asked us to respond and act to shifting circumstances and new opportunities.

This week, as well, I graduate as a Doctor of the Church, finishing my Doctorate in Ministry from Portland Seminary. This week, I will be “hooded” at the ceremony in Oregon, embracing another facet of God’s calling in my life, an invitation to greater fullness and understanding of who I am as a leader and pastor.

If I look back on this phase of my life, I know there have been thieves and robbers, metaphorically and actually, who would have sought to distract me or take me off the path. Many of those thieves and robbers have even lived in me — they’re my doubts, my insecurities, my inability to embrace God’s calling in its fullness.

Have you known thieves and robbers? Have you felt those influences that might take you away from the path God has for you? Those internal and external voices that pull us away from our true self, our true purpose?

Of course you have. Of course we’ve known what it’s like to be drawn away, distracted. Or maybe we’ve been the ones who want to jump over the fence — Oh, I’ll just go this way, it’ll be fine.

But don’t we also know what it feels like to hear the call of the Shepherd’s voice?

It’s been something like 25 years, but something happened in me back in my teenage years where I truly believe I began to understand the sound of God’s resonant calling voice.

I remember sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Edmonds, WA, out for a meal after church with my pastor. He knew I would be graduating soon and wanted to take me out to encourage me in my next steps of the journey.

I don’t remember all of the content of that conversation, except for that it was a moment when an external source, a person, Pastor Will Ackles, pointed out something in me that I had had a sense for a, but hadn’t really been able to put words to. Like, there had been this stirring in me, this wondering about what following God would look like, and Pastor Ackles named that, asking me about whether I had considered pastoral ministry and serving the church for a career.

I didn’t know I had permission to feel these things, to think about a career path like this. But Will invited me to see something in me, something that was already stirring and working in me.

It wasn’t just him, it was other voices and faces and nudges by the Spirit that led me to where I am today. And there were plenty of other paths, other voices, all valid, but not all the sounds of the Master Shepherd’s voice.

And something in me knew the sound I was supposed to follow.

I want to close with this.

You have, deep in your self, an identity that is marked as loved by God. We talk about this by saying that we bear the image of God, the imago Dei, imprinted upon us from our very birth.

This image, this marker, is what guides us home to God’s voice. It is our deep longing and knowledge of where we belong, where our hearts are truly set upon, the destination and place to dwell where life to its fullest breaks through.

Take a moment. Perhaps you don’t believe me. Take a moment and consider this: where in all your life, have you felt most alive? When have you felt like you’re doing exactly what you’re meant to be doing? It might be in a job or how you cared for a loved one. It might be found in activity, movement, dance, or song. It might be found in how you prepared a meal and it brought delight to people you cared about.

Our hearts are meant to tune into this image we bear and, by tuning in, we tune into the sound of our Good Shepherd’s voice. The Shepherd is not far off. No, the Shepherd dwells within us — the image that we bear, it’s in us and speaks to us.

And it is through this image, this voice, that we find our way home.

Simple takeaway from this text: Do you want to find life to its fullest? Then listen, listen deeply, to the humming, singing, resonating witness of God that is already speaking to you.

For me, that has looked like embracing the radical, ridiculous possibility that a broken person like me can make an impact on and lead God’s church. It looks like resting in the delightful reality that I’m meant for this work, that God has prepared me for it.

I wonder, what does that voice stir in you?

What does it look like for you to come home, to find safety and refuge with the Good Shepherd.

I pray that you find tastes of it here, even today, as we gather in common bonds of friendship to be like a herd of beautiful, unique, connected sheep. I pray that you find it in this safe place, this place of refuge, where we see the goodness of God in our very own lives, reflecting back to one another the Glory of God’s name.

Amen.