First of all, let me promise you that you’re not going to hear another ‘good shepherd’ story this morning! Most of you know that I was a shepherd for 5 years – in the Ottawa Valley – and so I’ve heard lots of sheep stories. But you know, sheep herding was so widely practiced in Palestine in ancient times that stories such as our gospel this morning made sense to the people. Well, perhaps they didn’t understand it fully – people seemed to rarely understand what Jesus was really trying to tell them – but they could appreciate the concept: they knew about sheep folds, and the lack of a gate, and shepherds singing to their sheep so they would know his voice. It’s not a scene that relates immediately to our lives – we do better with the fishing stories, perhaps…
Rather, I want to look again at the question: How, then, shall I live? It’s a question that keeps coming up for me – all the time – and I hope it’s important to you, too, because if we say we’re Christians, and we live in this very complex world, it’s pretty challenging to know what’s the right thing to do, in so many situations.
[I went to Honduras a few years ago, and we visited the Coke bottling plant there. They had been in the news a lot for their unfair management practices and people in N. Am were being encouraged to boycott Coke. We talked with the leaders of the employees there, and asked if this was a way we could help. And they said no – please don’t do that! If you boycott Coke, they will shut down the plant, and we won’t have any work at all. Wait to see if they will negotiate fairly with us, and then we’ll get the word out if a boycott would help….]
it’s so hard to know what is the right thing to do…
[ When I walk down the street and someone puts out a hand asking for money – do I give freely, because I have enough for my needs today, or do I say to myself that this person will probably use the money for drugs or booze and I don’t want to encourage that? …] These are the kind of difficult decisions most of us have to make every day, if we think at all about what’s going on around us, and how to live the life God calls us to ….
I’ve chosen one line or sentence from each of our readings this morning… to see how they might help us to live more faithfully in our time.
- From Luke’s writings in Acts, we hear:
This was the early community of apostles. It sounds like a good way for a community of people to live – and Luke says that many signs and wonders happened, and more people joined them…
So, how are we doing? Could you say we devote ourselves to Teaching? Fellowship? Breaking of bread? Prayers? Well, I think those are the things we try to do on Sunday morning … but what about the rest of the week? And are we doing them with a sincerity, with a commitment, that leads to great things happening, and others joining us? What might that look like? Bible study / teaching/ discussions during the week? People gathering at any time to pray for each other and the local and larger concerns – and expecting God to hear and answer our prayers? Fellowship: what might that mean for us in this community? I think we do it better in the summer – with our breakfasts that give people a chance to come together and break bread and share their stories – tho’ the fellowship in the kitchen is pretty exclusive! … but what can we do in the winter, when many people are homebound or depressed or discouraged; when the days are short and the nights seem long? How can we practice fellowship on a wider scale than Sunday morning? And the formal breaking of bread – we might do that more often, … and do all of these things in an intentional way, with the intent of becoming more of a vibrant Christian community, more like the early church, trying to learn and live by the teachings of Jesus.
- Peter’s letter to the faithful in Asia Minor says that we have been freed from our sins…we have been healed.
Some of us have experienced healing in the physical sense: cancer survivors tell me that they look at life in whole different way - usually with a sense of radical gratitude. One lady said that every morning when she got up the first thing she did was to open her blinds and look out at the world and thank God for the gift of another day of life! “We know just how precious health and life are!”
So to be freed from our sins – to be ‘healed’ in our innermost selves – is more than precious. And since we know that we can do nothing to earn or demand that– our freedom, our forgiveness, our healing is a free gift from God – then the only thing we can do in return is to be grateful. “Radical gratitude”, as Mary Jo Leddy calls it … a gratitude that fills our whole being and overflows bounteously into every aspect of our lives. If we live each day with gratitude, gratitude for the very breath of life, for the privilege of being part of God’s creation … not judging, not complaining about others, about our lot in life… that’s really living! Jean Shinoda Bolen, in her book called Close to the Bone ( life-threatening illness and the search for meaning) says,
“What we do between being born and dying is what matters”.
“What we do between being born and dying is what matters”.
How we live every one of our days – not how many days, not how much money or possessions or success – but how we live … with gratitude.
- And finally in the words of John’s Gospel,
“have life and have it abundantly”, or
“more and better life than we ever dreamed of” (depending on your translation).
Not a life of fear and scarcity: abundant life!
Think for a minute about who (and what) are the ‘thieves and bandits’ of our day, the ones Jesus referred to as robbing the people of life… how about greed? Self-interest? Fear mongering: those who encourage people to fear for their safety, to distrust those who are different from themselves, to be afraid that there isn’t enough for everyone in God’s world, and so we have to hoard what we have for ourselves, for fear of ‘going without’…. Those worries don’t add anything to our lives – they take away from us. They cause us to close in on ourselves – to narrow our focus…and as soon as we do that we take our eyes off God!
So many times people have told me stories of their childhood, and said “we didn’t have much, but we were rich”; or “we were pretty poor, you know … but we had a loving family”; or “we hardly had enough to eat ourselves, but momma would always take something to the lady next door, cause she had all those little children to feed”… Isn’t that what abundant life is? Love, peace, acceptance, sharing …. “Life in all its fullness”: the opportunity for every person to grow into the image that God has in mind for each of us – that image of Beloved One.
So perhaps as we face our difficult choices and decisions this week, perhaps as we ask ourselves again “How then shall I live?”, we might find some help in these three readings...
They devoted themselves to teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers… those are the things we must do as a community to support us in our life – to keep us accountable to each other and to God, and if we do them well things will happen!
we have been freed from our sins…we have been healed… the appropriate response is radical gratitude – and when we’re radically thankful I believe we see the world around us through different eyes;
“I am come that you might have life – life in all its fullness”… that’s for everyone. If God wants abundant life for every single person, then our choices must not in any way limit life for someone else. But also, what a gift! Another reminder of what God wants for us – what Christ did for us ….
LIFE IN ALL ITS FULLNESS!
Thanks be to God!
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