RCL Easter 4A
11 May 2014
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
Focus text: John 10.1-10
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached on Sunday the 11th at the 10.00 a.m. Eucharist.
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached on Sunday the 11th at the 10.00 a.m. Eucharist.
In
September of 1964 I entered Grade 6 and was assigned to Mr Schiff’s class. All of us who were in his class felt very
special; not so much because we knew anything about Mr Schiff, who was an
unknown to all of us. What was special
was the location of our class: not in
the main building with the little kids, but in a separate, so-called ‘portable’
classroom on the school grounds. It was
like having our own private school.
The
fall of 1964 was momentous to my eleven- and twelve-year-old classmates. It was a presidential election year that
pitted Lyndon Baines Johnson, the Democratic president, and Barry Goldwater,
the Republican challenger. Johnson, who
had assumed the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kenney in
November 1963, was seeking his own mandate on a platform of bold social
programmes, some of which are still part of the American political fabric. Goldwater and the Republicans were trying to
halt what they saw as an expansion of the government in Johnson’s so-called
‘Great Society’.
We
were old enough to understand some of the political discussions taking place
among our parents’ friends and acquaintances.
My father’s family had been dyed-in-the-wool Democrats since the days of
Franklin Roosevelt and my mother’s ‘red’ Labour in England. Within my family circle opposition to
Goldwater was pretty strong.
Because
we were becoming politically aware, Mr Schiff decided to organize a presidential
debate. We studied the issues, the party
platforms and prepared for the in-class debate scheduled for mid-October. I was please when Mr Schiff chose me to lead
the Democratic team. Fifty years later I
only remember that the debate revealed what has continued to be one of my
significant flaws: I cannot remain
dispassionate in a debate.
What
I remember most clearly about my year with Mr Schiff was that he was the first
Jew I had ever met in my twelve years.
Intellectually I knew that there were other non-Christian religions,
but, in the Colorado Springs of the 1960’s, other religions tended to mean
Roman Catholics or Methodists or Baptists or even Jehovah’s Witnesses and
Mormons! I had been exposed to the
anti-Judaism prevalent in American society despite the catastrophe of the
Shoah. Most of my friends would probably
have believed that only Christians would go to heaven.
I
do not know how, but having Mr Schiff as my teacher changed the way I thought
about other religions and other religious believers. Although my memories of Mr Schiff have lost
their precision over the years, whenever I think of him I am overwhelmed by
feelings of respect and deep affection.
If Mr Schiff, a man of deep integrity, was not welcome in heaven, my
twelve-year-old mind began to ask the question, “How could God be just?”
In
today’s gospel we are offered two images of Jesus, one that is familiar and
comforting, the other that is less familiar and challenging. The first image is that of Jesus as the good
shepherd. It is comforting to think of
our Lord, the Son of God, as someone who seeks us out when we are lost, who
risks everything for our well-being and who knows each one of us by name. As an image it is as warm and cozy as the
wool sheep provide. Is it any wonder
that Psalm 23 is used so frequently at funerals?
The
other image is cooler and scratchier:
Jesus as ‘the gate to the sheepfold’.
So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate
for the sheep. All who came before me
are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will
come in and go out and find pasture. The
thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
[1]
No one can enter the sheepfold,
an image for God’s coming reign of justice and peace, unless they enter through
the only gate, Jesus. Any other ‘gate’,
the evangelist John tells us, is the gate of thieves and bandits.
For
some Christians, perhaps even the majority, to call Jesus the ‘gate’ means that
no one will enter the coming reign of God unless they confess Jesus as Lord and
Saviour. No matter how ‘nice’ Mr Schiff
may have been, he was a Jew and, unless he converted, he was destined to be
eternally on the outside looking in.
Throughout the world today there are hundreds if not thousands of
Christian missionary agencies whose primary motivational message is this: ‘If we don’t convert unbelievers, then they
are doomed.’ Some of these agencies
actively practice what I would call ‘sheep-stealing’: they reach out to Christians who do not share
the agency’s particular understanding of Christian faith and practice and imply
that any other way of being Christian is also doomed.
There
is another way to interpret this text that draws inspiration from the beginning
of John’s gospel.
In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and
without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and
the life was the light of all people. The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. [2]
John speaks of the Word as the
principle or pattern by which God uses to create, to redeem and to bring to
perfection the whole universe. Note that
John does not say that the Word is the pattern only for some people; it is the
pattern for ‘all people’ and that nothing has come into being without being made
in this pattern.
This
pattern, the Word, the ‘Logos’ to use the Greek term, is active in all times
and places. Christians believe that this
Word is uniquely made known in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of
Nazareth. This belief is summed up in
the words of my late teacher, Jim Griffiss, when he said, “All Christian
teaching can be summarized by saying, ‘When you meet Jesus of Nazareth, you
meet God.’ Everything else is
commentary.”
To
believe that we meet God uniquely in Jesus of Nazareth does not mean that we
need to condemn the religious faith of other people nor see them as our
competitors. Because the Word, the
pattern of life, the ‘deep magic’ of creation, has been active before time and
in time, before the kosmos and in the kosmos, this life has been implanted in
the very DNA of all human beings, before and after the Word becoming flesh in
Jesus of Nazareth.
We
Christians can rejoice that we are surrounded by other peoples of faith whose
lives manifest the pattern of the Word --- even when they are completely
unaware of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Whoever works for justice reveals the
Word. Whoever offers compassion embodies
the Word. Whoever does what Jesus would
do is a friend of the Word. Entering the
promised reign of God has more to do with living the good news, living a
Jesus-shaped life, than it does with having the right religious credentials.
There
are many others, however, in the world, in our neighbourhoods, with whom we do
need to share the good news we know in Jesus of Nazareth. They are seeking life in its fullness that
Jesus offer to all who will follow in his path and they have not yet found
it. They know in their innermost beings
a longing for the life implanted in them from the moment of their conception
and reinforced every moment of their lives.
What they have not yet done is commit themselves to following a path
that brings them knowledge of eternal life, the fullness of life in the here
and now as well as the hope of that same life in the future.
I
am convinced Mr Schiff knew this life in his Jewish faith and practice. I am convinced that my Sikh neighbours know
this life in their faith and practice. I
am equally convinced that we all live a life shaped by the Word and it is that
Word that gives life to all humanity.
But there are many who live in darkness and who cannot see the
Word. It is to them that you and I are
sent to proclaim the good news of God in Christ so that they may life, abundant
life, eternal life. May it be so. Amen.
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