Gateway to Abundant Life

The 23^rd Psalm and our Gospel reading, both involving sheep and shepherds, illustrate how important sheep and shepherding were in ancient times and at the time of Jesus and his disciples.  Today we also depend on sheep even though we don’t really think about it.  Wool sweaters and other clothing come from sheep, and sheep are a source of mutton.  Sheep are also used for research.  Remember a few years ago when a sheep named Dolly was cloned?

In the United States there are some 82,000 sheep producers.  China, Australia, India, and Iran have the largest modern flocks, and they serve both local and exportation needs for wool and mutton.  New Zealand and some other countries have smaller flocks but retain a large international economic impact due to their export of sheep products.  In some developing countries sheep are part of subsistence agriculture or serve as a product for trade.   

The 23^rd Psalm begins with the phrase, “The Lord is my shepherd.”  Many funerals held in churches, synagogues, and funeral homes include a reading of the 23rd Psalm.  In the Psalm God defies death by leading us through its shadow, and God provides all that is necessary for life that we might have it abundantly:  “My cup is running over.  Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”  God, the shepherd of our souls, sees to our deepest longings: fear is eliminated (“I shall fear no evil”), our souls are restored (“God revives my soul and guides me along right pathways”), and home is attained (“I will dwell in the house of the Lord”). 

These are familiar words.  They provide comfort, “a settled rest,” in times of grief and loss, but they also reflect our human condition and offer us an invitation for reflection and action.

Much of our use of the 23^rd psalm is our response because of the comfort it offers surviving family members in their grief and bereavement.  Psalms are hymns of the people of God.  Their use is liturgical, and the singular pronouns in the psalm refer to God’s people and their communal response to God.  It is the whole community who walks through the shadow of death.  When death happens, when a member of our community dies, part of us has died as well.  We need to know that.  We need to know that death diminishes us all.  We also need to know that violence of every kind, and evil deeds of every sort, separate us from the abundant life of an over-flowing cup and the very purpose for which Jesus lived, died, and rose again to new life.

We heard in the Gospel of John that Jesus said, “The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep…. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.... I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” 

As in the 23^rd Psalm, John, in writing his gospel employed images of sheep and shepherd to communicate his message.  The details agree with what we know about shepherding in Mediterranean countries.  An enclosed courtyard of a house constituted the sheepfold.  The appropriate way to approach the sheep was through a gate opened by the shepherd.  Those who entered the courtyard another way threatened the safety of the flock.  John identified Jesus with the gate and the shepherd.  “I am the gate.... The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.” 

Gates, doors, jet-ways and other passageways are symbolic of times of transition in our lives.  They are symbols rooted in our experiences.  Hospital doors are the gates that speak of birth, traumatic injury, sickness and death; jet-ways are entry points to home, vacation, distant opportunity, or conference; chapel or church doors are the gates to our relationships in baptism, marriage, worship and reconciliation.  We speak about the doors of opportunity that open for us because of education, career, profession, or vocation.  At Brown University, the VanWickle gates on Prospect Street open inward as freshmen students enter the university to grow intellectually and emotionally.  Those same gates open outward when graduating seniors, graduate students, and new medical doctors leave to enter those arenas around the world that give promise to visions of abundant life after Brown.  The gates you and I pass through greatly influence the circumstances of our lives.  It is always our hope that the gates through which we enter or exit will lead us to a more complete, full and abundant life.

The gospel invites us to recognize that it is in and through Christ, the “gate,” the “good shepherd,” that we share in abundant life.  When we see what is happening in many places around the world, it is difficult to affirm this gift.  Basic human rights are violated: individuals are physically and psychologically abused.  Crime, addiction, discrimination, sexual abuse, violence and murder are endemic in our culture.  The perpetrators seem reminiscent of the 49^th Psalm that says, “Such is the way of those who foolishly trust in themselves, and the end of those who delight in their own words.  Like a flock of sheep they are destined to die; death is their shepherd; they go down straightway to the grave” (vs. 12-13).

Jesus’ statement, “I am the gate.... I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” is in direct opposition to greed and self-serving attitudes.  It is an invitation to a full, satisfying, and responsible life.  The imperative to live abundantly invites us to live actively and purposefully in self-giving love, compassion, concern, and service to others.  It demands a response to all the violence, war, and mayhem that pervades our culture and tells us vengeance is the only way to right what is wrong and evil in the world. 

An abundant and compassionate life is attentive to the signs of love that enable us to appreciate the gifts of creation for what they are: gateways that awaken within us the recognition that God is at work in and through the events of history and our lives.  Compassion fears no evil; it is the breath and Spirit of God.  When we embrace a life of compassion we share the abundant and authentic life that was the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, the Good Shepherd, the gate and caregiver of the sheep.  It is in his life that we live and minister to others.  Amen.