Let There Be!

Holy Trinity Sunday, June 19, 2011 (Genesis 1:1-2:4a with Mt. 28:16-20 in b.g.)

Sitz im leben is – riots in Vancouver following Canucks loss in Game 7 of Stanley Cup final.

Other sitz im leben  is Father's Day in North America, school almost done (for elementary and high school students). Unrest continues in the Middle East – fires burn in parts of Canada and the US; flooding threatens other areas.

 The act of speaking can be incredibly powerful, particularly when that word is birthed from one in whom we are in relationship. (Examples – my children learning to say daddy, then dad and renditions of colloquialisms poppy). I can remember the first time I truly realize this – in a mall and another child cried out in pain daddy – and my head shot around. This can be wonderful.

 

Whom among us has not heard our name spoken by one who loves us? Then that name, so beautiful on their lips, spoken from a dynamic relationship in which we "find" ourselves – literally.

 

The act of speaking can also have powerfully negative ramifications. As a high school student I vividly remember our vice-principal yelling my surname down the hallway at me after I had tripped a classmate in response to something he had done to me. That name, Le Drew punctured my heart, not nearly met by the swift kick in the backside that was administered only seconds later – with a trailing exhortation, "Don't ever do that again!"  

 

The spoken word, addressed personally can encourage us, when that one speaking is someone we deeply respect and they tell us that we can actually do or achieve something that we just couldn't have imagined on our own.  Wow. Such a spoken word can make all the difference in our world. Such speech matters!

 

DO YOU REALIZE THAT GOD SPEAKS? Yes, you heard me correctly - God speaks. Our scriptures which originally mostly were spoken words, long before they were written words, convey this reality over and over and over again. We need to be careful to hear: – not only in wooden or literalistic ways. Interpretation is important, dangerous and exciting!

 

We are privileged to listen to Genesis' first creation account to day. I say first because in Genesis there are 2 different creation accounts in the first 2 chapters.  For now I am most interested in this first account. Scholars believe this account has its origins in the time of the Babylonian exile, the 6^th century BCE. At that time the majority of the people of Israel (Judah) had been deported from Jerusalem and environs to Babylon. The temple had been destroyed. Their religion and identity were seemingly in shambles. But God does not forget them! Nor does God leave them alone to exile. The Spirit of God lives among them, working to remind them of God's promises, covenants. As that is happening  creation accounts circulating in the Middle East for over a thousand yeas then are given new birth and entirely new life in their midst. They tell it and retell it in such a way that even we can remember it. Such a technique is called liturgy or "order". Did you catch those elements as you were listening? They are repeated, "And God said, let there be"... and "There was"... and "God saw that it was good!"

 

Those exiled people tell the creation account in the language and understanding of their time and place. How could it be any different? We aren't any different! If we were to tell a creation account today we would use terms and language that we are familiar with. But in 2500 years others might shake their heads at our lack of "scientific" understanding. But this isn't intended to be either a scientific account, the way we define science or even a historical account, the way we determine history. This is meant to be a statement of who God is – and in the light, yes light of that, whom we are in terms of our relationship to God and creation, spoken into the middle of these exile's situation.

 

In this account God speaks again and again. God creates by speaking out of love. So God is neither absent nor completely  predetermining. God says, let there be – and there is. And what is, is good.  I emphasize GOOD.

 

Then when God gets to creating humankind there is both singularity, that is particularity coupled with community. God creates humankind in God's image – male and female (in a community) God makes them. In this we (humankind) are made uniquely in God's image. Not in terms of a static appearance,  but rather in terms of relationship, with degrees of choice and freedom. God dwells in relationship with human beings. God loves them. God longs to be in relationship with them. God also grants the freedoms. They are not robotic. In creating God says, "let", not, " must". God grants the human beings both privilege and responsibility even as God says "let there be".

 

It's a wonderful story – but is that all it is? A Story? Nice to tell our kids, our grandkids, to speak about some Sunday mornings while we are far from the matting crowds? But what grounding does this have in our reality? What's all this stuff about God seeing that what God has created is good? How can God say at the climax of the creation that IT IS ALL VERY GOOD?

 

On our better days we might feel that way. But what about in the midst of the Vancouver riot on Wednesday night? What about in the midst of life under dictators like Omar Ghadaffi or Saddam Hussein? What about in the darkness and hatred spread by people who seek to shower terror upon others, such as Osama bin Laden? Then many innocents  suffer and die.  And on this Father's Day what about fathers who abandon their children, their partners or worse yet, do horrendous things to them? Is God's creation good? Can the making of human beings with some degrees of freedom, be good?

 

The most miraculous reality in the midst of all realities is that God may still speak! God may speak to us in any number of ways. For God is not limited to precedent nor to our limited understanding. Thanks be to God for this! But God promises to continue to speak through God's Spirit, through revelations that have come down to us through others who have gone before us – and in the Sacraments, given us by Jesus. We do well to listen!

 

 At times God may be calling us to turn completely around and refocus our energies, our hopes and dreams in order that they may be revisioned to emanate from God, from God's love for all creation, from God's hope that all might live in harmony, at peace, aware of each other.  Then sometimes we are called to say we are sorry, to attempt whenever possible to make amends for the wrongs, consciously and unconsciously that we have committed. At times when amends could never match the wrong we have effected, we need to hope for, to depend upon forgiveness. Forgiveness has its source in God.

Once again God speaks – becoming human in the One we know as Jesus. In and through Jesus  such reconciliation, such new beginnings can happen – not by our strength, but by God's. Wow. New beginnings, new life, begins to sprout from the ashes of death and the heartbreak of brokenness. Thanks be to God. Such reconciliation in the midst of hurt, pain and neglect is never easy nor cheap. But with God this is possible.

 

At other times God may speak an encouraging word calling us to go forth because we are made in God's image. Go forth to love and create employing those gifts that God has given us – fully, humbly, joyfully.  I believe that's what Jesus was doing in a very specific way with those early disciples on that "mount" in Galilee  following his crucifixion and resurrection.  When they saw him, they worshiped and doubted. Can we identify? I mean doubt seems so natural for us: that God the Creator of the universe could love me/us? That God through a seemingly human being born in a backwaters place can conquer the powers of evil and death? That God has a dream that will ultimately be brought to fruition not by destruction and violence but by sacrificial love and encouragement?  That we are intended to part of all this? It seems so unlikely – so impossible. Sometimes I don't even love myself!

 

But we are not all there is. First and most importantly there is God, the Creator  who even makes us. God continues to speak both of what is and what will be. God who somehow says let there be light and there is light. God who says  love one another as I have loved you.  By God's grace sometimes we can and do! And God says "you are my beloved child" while washing us in the waters of baptism and giving us a new birth that ushers us into all kinds of new possibilities. God speaks – and new beings, new life irrupts.

 

Dear people of God are we listening for God? God's speech continues to be both personal and communal. God continues  longing  to be in an active ongoing relationship with us! Amazing!

 That old familiar grace many of us  learned as  children is profoundly true.  Pray it with me, "Come Lord Jesus, be our guest and let these gifts to us (as in the world) be blessed"

And God said, "Let there be... and there was!" Amen.

The Spirit's Whoosh

Pentecost, June 12, 2011 (Acts 2:1-21 with Numbers 11:24-30 and John 7:37-39 in the bg

 

Do you ever wonder? Do you ever wonder if  you can do it? "It" being whatever God is calling you to do and be? Can you fulfill your job – I mean really the way it is supposed to be done? Can you be the friend that another so desperately needs? Can you be the son or daughter that your parent may need or saw the potential of? Can you be the spouse/partner that you would like to be? Can you be the mother or father that loves your child unconditionally and yet also gives them the guiding hand they need? Can we actually follow Jesus – loving our enemies, abiding in him as He abides in the Father, being honest with ourselves and others about reality including ourselves, underlined and infused with hope? Can we grow older learning from the past, anticipating the future with joy, trusting that God is leading?

 

Those early apostles, those ones sent out by Jesus were wondering. I mean they had seen Jesus. They had heard Jesus. Jesus had actually touched them. And then - he died. Just when they felt all had been lost, He appeared to them. In reappearing, He commissions them in many ways. But then He had left them again. They continued to gather together regularly. They fervently are praying together. But I suspect that they were also wondering. What next? How can  we follow Jesus? They may have had all kinds of doubts. They weren't the most educated, the most sophisticated, or even the wisest. Many of them were common, seemingly ordinary folk. And yet God/Jesus had entrusted them with His touch, His love, the life-changing news of His suffering, death and resurrection. I mean holy mackerel, holy smokes, jumping jehosaphat – it was so amazing. They were to do this?

 

They continued to come together. They continue to pray. One day the sound of wind whooshes upon them. Then they all begin to speak – but in different languages.

 

Have you ever noticed how certain spectacles tend to draw people? Fires can do that – whether it's a house fire, a forest fire or even a car on fire. Rushing water can also draw people – like Niagara Falls or any water rushing, gurgling, plunging down a mountain side. We as people, want to see, want to touch, want to put at least our toes in that water... Other people's misfortune can also draw us. In the aftermath of a car accident everyone just "has to" look.

 

Well all these "sent out" people, the apostles, are speaking in languages in the middle of this incredible wind. And the amazing thing is that even though the apostles didn't probably know any other of these other languages that they are now speaking, the people who are drawn by the spectacle of the wind now hear what the apostles are saying. For those apostles were speaking in the native languages of those who had been drawn to this spectacle. Even more amazing is what those listeners hear those early apostles proclaiming in many different languages. The proclamation is all about the mighty deeds of God.

 

Now the apostles may have been wondering how they were ever  going to follow Jesus' mandate: to go and tell, to serve, yes to enflesh the very love of Jesus. The apostles were not necessarily wonderful speakers/orators or even wise, or educated. But now the Spirit of God moves. As a result of the Spirits action the apostles proclaim the mighty deeds of God.

 

We live in times that are anything but easy. There are incessant demands upon our time, our resources, our faith. There are ongoing challenges. People rob others. People shoot others. People claiming to be people of  faith, harm and even seek to exploit or even kill others. Still  others, many others in our society, claim that God is irrelevant. These say or imply that any who gather in the name of the triune God are deluded by fairy tales, out of touch with reality. These say that there are more important things to do, to be about: real things, things of consequence and substance like making a living, turning a profit, holidaying, recreating, even winning.

 

But I have to wonder about that. Can there be anything more important than being created, loved and forgiven by God – both yourself and all those you care for, even those you struggle with? Can there be anything more important than being embraced by the risen Christ who encourages us, "not to be afraid" – for He is with us, calling us to follow Him, to love and serve as He has loved and served.

 

If that's all true, how will we share, enflesh such reality. Sometimes, thankfully we have and we do. But other times, we react, we shut down, we seek to shut out. We are overcome by fear or anger or even selfishness. I look at myself realizing that this is true.

 

So, we also do well to wonder and pray. Lord, help us to proclaim your deeds of power. These – are often so different than how we envision power. Love when many hate. Service when many want to dominate. Patience and hope when the temptation is to race and despair.

 

Maybe those early apostles weren't so lost after all. They were still coming together to pray. During one of those seemingly ordinary gatherings, the Spirit of God whooshes in and touches them in ways that defy explanation, understanding or description. Did you hear the author of Acts try to describe – "tongues AS OF FIRE!" Then under the breath, the fire, the nurturing impetus of God's very Spirit the apostles are moved beyond their prayers to speak out – proclaiming not themselves, but the very power of God to love and care, to transform anyone into following Jesus.

 

This isn't just a story. This is the ongoing reality of the work of the triune God to reach out and embrace, to reconcile humanity to God's very self and then to each other and all of creation. We are being called to be active, willing, intentional participants of that story. We too may wonder how this can be because of our own limitations, doubts, fears, and apprehension.

 

But let me tell you, the very Spirit of God is not dead but alive, seeking to continually move in and through our world. And that Spirit bestowed on us in our baptism, moves both to have us hear but also to bear God's creative and redeeming word to the world.

 

By God's grace may the Holy Spirit whoosh upon us and among us, that we may begin and continue to proclaim God's mighty deeds. That you are even reading this today is a testimony to that Spirit's work. We all need this Spirit – the Spirit's breath, warming fire and living water. Our world does too.

 

Come holy Spirit, come! Without you we may be stuck only in wondering, too timid to actually seek to love the world with the love that Jesus so richly gives. Amen.

Makin It With Yeasty Hearts and Minds

Easter 6a, May 29, 2011 - John 14:15-21 with Acts 17:22-31 and I Peter 3:13-22 in b.g.

Have you ever wondered just how you were going to make it without someone or something? There have been times in my life when I have wondered about that for others and myself. Nine years ago this Sunday I baptized a little girl. She was the third child in a family of 3 girls. Her mom and dad and sisters loved her very much. Financially they were well off. Emotionally, they greatly supported each other. This little girl's mom had the kind of faith that is strong and abiding. That mother lived with a faith that was grounded in the reality of life. She hadn't grown up in a Christian family. But somehow through friends and circumstances, the Spirit of God was moving. And this mom had grown in trusting God through Jesus Christ.

 

Not long after that little girl's baptism the family jetted off to Disneyland for a grand holiday. But near the end of that holiday the mom wasn't feeling well. As a nurse she realized that something wasn't right. As soon as she arrived home she headed off to the Emergency Room of the local hospital. Within a few hours she was air evacuated to the larger center of Vancouver. She had cancer markings that were sky high. Subsequently she was diagnosed with leukemia. Thus began the journey of wonderful  ups and severe lows, of searching for, finding and eventually procuring a bone marrow donor. She was separated from her family and her baby daughter sometimes for months as she underwent treatment. But eventually she could return home and resume her active love for her family. But then suddenly  after a number of more wonderful years with her husband and children, this mother became critically ill and died.

 

Many times during those years of the mother's illness – and even now in the wake of her death, I wonder how they will make it, without their mom and wife being there. She won't physically be with her girls, for their graduations, for the ups and downs of their ongoing relationships, for those critical  decisions -will this be the one, what shall I do with my life. And she won't physically be there to pray with and for them and as they wrestle with their own understanding and faith questions:  where is God in the midst of all these realities? I often wonder, how will they make it without her?

 

Jesus had just told his disciples that he would be leaving them. Understandably they are anxious. They don't understand why he should die now. They demand to see God. Then Jesus in his abiding love for them makes them a promise. "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete (Advocate), to be with you forever."

 

Now the word translated Advocate is actually Paraclete. This word can mean many different things. It can be a person who comes and stands beside you during times of trial. In that process it can be one who speaks on your behalf or encourages you in the midst of whatever trials you are undergoing. But in this case in John's Gospel I am convinced that Jesus is really speaking about this Advocate speaking on his behalf to us, to any who might "hear" or "see". Let me say that again. Here (in this text), the role of the advocate is to speak to people of Jesus. This Advocate (whom the Church has often referred to as the Holy Spirit) comes to speak the truth to us. Firstly the truth (as in the reality) of whatever situation we find ourselves in. We need help. We need to be loved. We can't do it on our own. Even though we may give our best effort, when we hurt others. Sometimes we also hurt ourselves intentionally or unconsciously. We say things that are hurtful. We do things that are hurtful. We refuse to see or acknowledge that we aren't God. Often we do not trust God. The Advocate speaks to us, showing us all that.

 

But thanks be to God, this isn't all that the Advocate does. This Advocate also speaks to us of Jesus. Jesus tells his early disciples and through them the Advocate also speaks to us of Jesus:  I will not leave you orphaned. That is even though you will no longer be able to see me physically, I have not abandoned you. I am sending you a part of myself. I will live with you and in you, and among you. And since I am in God – God is also there among you and with you.

 

I suspect that's why Jesus keeps telling those early disciples to keep his commandments. For John this isn't a long laundry list of do's and don'ts. Rather keeping Jesus' commandments has to do with loving in the way that he loves. That's what he told them the evening he washes their feet. Even as I have loved you, so you also ought to love one another.

 

Jesus actually loves us! I am not talking about like here. Sometimes love, this love that is "all in", that is committed to the other's well being, has nothing to do with liking what the other person does or says. In fact love often acts, is given and empties itself despite the other's actions or words. Jesus' love takes this reality to the max. When we begin to grasp or more accurately as we begin to realize that we are being embraced or even grasped by the love of God in Jesus, it's like a leaven that begins to flow through our hearts and minds. We begin to see others, the creation and even ourselves more honestly. I am loved. I am forgiven by God in Jesus Christ! Wow. How could I ever hate or even not care about others?

 

The Spirit of truth, this Advocate Jesus promises, is here among us. Listen - as we sing and pray, as we work and play as you see others and interact with others wherever you go. We are not alone.

 

Truly, we can no longer physically see Jesus with our eyes. He has died. But Jesus has also risen. Because he lives we too can live and love.

 

This is my hope when I am wondering just how on earth I am going to make it or how you are going to make it when the trials of life and death overtake us. Listen! Revel in life with that advocate. And, by the grace of God  obey Christ's commands. Although we may be literally orphans, together we are being embraced by the love of God in ways that bring new life out of death. For Christ is risen – HE IS RISEN INDEED. Amen.  

 

 

Beyond Troubled Hearts and GPS

John 14:1-14 (Easter 5a)

I am indebted for the opening of what I am about to say today to Dr. David Lose, a Lutheran Theological Professor in Minnesota.

If you could only ask God one question, what would it be?  

                     

Questions, of course, are an essential ingredient of everyday conversation. They serve as invitations to dialogue and opportunities for further learning. Little wonder, then, that questions sit at the center of John's Gospel. At the outset of the story, Andrew asks Jesus where he's staying. Shortly thereafter, Nicodemus inquires how a grown man can climb back into his mother's womb, and the Samaritan women wants to know where she can get this living water Jesus is talking about. And on it goes, as Peter, Pilate and all kinds of others all ask Jesus questions that give him, in turn, a chance to teach more deeply the truth he has come to reveal.

Of all the questions in John's Gospel, however, the ones asked in this Sunday's gospel reading may just be the hardest to answer. Certainly they are among the most embarrassing.

 

Maybe I should explain.

At this point in the story, it's Thursday evening, the night before Jesus' crucifixion. In John's account, Jesus not only knows that he will soon leave this world but also tries to prepare his disciples for the events about to transpire. In fact, after the last supper he shares with his friends, Jesus spends the next four chapters of John's Gospel talking about his imminent departure, and these verses come right at the beginning of that long and dramatic scene. A few moments earlier Jesus told them that one of them would soon betray him, and now he's just told Peter that he will deny him three times. It's in this context that Jesus says, as we just heard, "Do not let your hearts be troubled."

"What?" The disciples must have asked. "Do not let our hearts be troubled? Are you kidding us? You've just told us you're going to die." No doubt most of us can intuitively understand what they're going through, because each of us has had those moments, too, when our hearts were not only deeply troubled, but downright disturbed, even anguished. Yet Jesus asks his disciples not just to believe in him but to trust him, to commit their futures to him.

Then, before you know it, he moves on, talking about going away, preparing places, and coming back. As if to add insult to injury, he implies that they should know what's he talking about; he actually says that they know the way to follow. To which Thomas – brave, realistic Thomas – asks another of those questions, "But, Jesus, actually, we don't even know where you're going, how then can we know the way." And when Jesus says he is the way, and asks again that they trust him, Philip can stand it no longer and asks the one question no faithful Jew should ever ask. Actually, it's a statement, a request, a plea, maybe even a demand, but underneath it all is a question: "Show us the Father," Philip says, "and we will be satisfied." Or, to put it more directly, "What does God look like?"

John doesn't record this, but I suspect there's a bit of a collective gasp on the part of the other disciples when Philip asks this hard question. In ancient Israel, you see, it was simply understood that no one can see God and live. Moses, the model of heroic faith in the Old Testament, once made a similar request, and God put him face-forward in the cleft of a mountain and passed by and all Moses could see was the glory of the Lord shimmering around him. He was finally allowed to turn around and look only after God has passed by, so that Moses ultimately saw only the trail of the Lord's glory or, more literally in the Hebrew, Moses could only see God's backside.
     

God is too much, you see, for us to bear – too holy, too powerful, too infinite, too full of potential and life and the future for any mere mortal to behold and live. And yet Philip asks to see God anyway. "If you want us to trust you, Jesus, just show us the Father." That is, "What does God look like?"
      

It's an audacious, even inappropriate question, but again I suspect we can understand where it came from. Because each of has been there, too: at our wits end, desperate for some hope that things will get better, for some reason to believe that this tragedy is not all there is. Maybe it was when you walked into the children's hospital and were confronted with the unbelievable mortality of infants. And you wonder, where is God in any of that? Show us something God, something of yourself, so that we know all this stuff about your love, about death and resurrection isn't just some fairy tale that vanishes like a mirage in the face of suffering and death.

      

Or maybe we ask, we demand to see God when we are confronted with the tragedy of others. Floods in Manitoba where farmers are being wiped out. Fires at the same time around Slave Lake when people's homes and livelihoods vanish into mere ashes. Show yourself then God. And we will believe, we will be satisfied.
   

How might Jesus respond to such pleas? He speaks to Philip. "Have I been with you all this time Philip and you still do not know me?" Has Jesus been with us all this time – and we still do not know him/ trust him, see his work around and even within us?

Keep in mind that in the story John tells we are on the eve of the crucifixion. Jesus is about to be betrayed, abandoned, handed over, tried, insulted, beaten, and then crucified, nailed to a cross and hung there to die. Why? To appease the righteous anger of a just God? To set for us some kind of example of what real faith looks like? To take the just punishment we deserve? No! Jesus goes to the cross for one reason and one reason only: to show us God, to show us God's grace and mercy, to show just how much God loves us and how far God will go to communicate that love to us that we might believe and, "believing, have life in his name".

 

Like those early disciples we too will have times when our hearts are greatly troubled, broken, ripped apart. To belittle that is to have no heart, no acknowledgment of the reality of our mortality, of the depths of human brokenness. We must never be ashamed of our questions, of our heartache. They are real. And God knows them. Jesus' own heart was broken.

 

So let's not be afraid to ask our questions, sometimes even to make demands. But let us also by God's grace be open to Jesus' response. He shows us the Father in His life, suffering, death and resurrection. He loves us. He cares for all. And – He calls us to follow Him in caring for others, in serving others, in listening to others.

 

I remember being in Children's Hospital for a week when our youngest daughter was only a year old. We marvelled at the care our nurses gave. One morning I asked the young nurse. How do you do this? How do you come here day after day to care for kids like our little girl – when they are so much pain, when too often they don't survive. She looked at me and smiled and said, "Mr. Le Drew at this point in my life I don't have any children at home of my own. Maybe later I will. But right now – these kids are my kids – and I give them everything I have while I am here."

 

Have you been watching the pictures from Slave Lake or the pictures of the flood waters in Manitoba and Saskatchewan? People – locals and from far away have come to help – with actions, with donations.

 

We may say, we might even feel a desperate need to see the Father. Jesus has shown us the way – and calls others, who consciously or unconsciously follow. May we in the midst of our questions, our troubled hearts see that "the Father", although invisible and so totally beyond our simple grasp is revealed in this Jesus. Sometimes the "Father" is glimpsed even in those who follow Jesus' way of love and service.  By God's grace may we be numbered among them: questions, struggles and all. Amen. 

 

More Than Enough!

4^th Sunday of Easter, May 15, 2011 (John 10:1-10; key verse is verse 10)

 For  you what would the "ideal" life be? (take some time to talk about that)

 

Share some responses. (Listen) Interesting...

 

I have said to my wife on occasion that an "ideal" life for me would be one where the sun was shining (if not always most of the time), where now after nearly 31 years of being a Pastor, I had little or no responsibility, and where we would be free from appointments. I have even put a face on this "ideal" life. We could live in the Mayan Riviera in the winter and the Okanagan Valley in the summer. Her response has been, "Good luck with that!"

 

Perhaps my definition of the ideal life is really about easy street. Wouldn't it be wonderful if? And yet as I seriously think about that now, is it real? By "real", I don't mean is it necessarily attainable? Instead I mean, is this dream of the "ideal" life being honest with myself and others, including the ones I so desperately want and need to be in relationship with, beginning with our children, our extended families, and others in the world who are in need of the so many blessings we have been granted:  people who are financially poor and hungry, and or people who are financially wealthy and lonely, even despairing. Is my idea of the "ideal" life, the abundant life that God wills through Jesus for people, for all people?  

 

In today's Gospel Jesus is attempting to communicate with people by employing various figures of speech. He uses metaphors such as gate, or door for sheep, even the romantic image (to we urban dwellers) of a shepherd. But the people Jesus is then addressing don't get it. I suspect that often we don't either. Then Jesus concludes this little section of the Gospel with verse 10. He puts it bluntly in a study of contrasts. "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I (Jesus)came that THEY MAY HAVE LIFE AND HAVE IT ABUNDANTLY." The "they", I suspect are the sheep. For Jesus in John 10 the sheep are any who would hear his voice. Earlier on in John 3 we begin to realize that Jesus wills everyone to hear his voice.

 

If I am correct in such observations then Jesus wills abundant life for each and every person. But such "abundant" life does not necessarily mean having "more and more and more".  If a sheep eats too much that sheep becomes overweight perhaps sickly, maybe even dies prematurely. In addition to providing sheep with what their nutritional needs this abundant life that Jesus refers to also consists of having a certain relationship with the shepherd who protects the sheep. For the Gospel of John that shepherd is unmistakably Jesus.

 

As I reflect on this I realize something. Much of my striving for my "ideal" life – being convinced that I don't have "it" quite yet, has to do with my concerns regarding security and identity. Do you have enough? Will you have enough? What about your kids, your grandkids, the rest of your family, your friends?  Remember, that "enough" could be anything: food, clothing, shelter, transportation, education, friends, loving relationships, access to money. How much is enough? A few years ago the Evangelical Lutheran Women developed a study specifically titled "What's Enough?" Think about that. Don't we have insatiable appetites both for things and anxiety?

 

Yet my appetite for stuff and anxiety often arise out of a struggle with my own identity. Who am I? Yes I am the son of Ken and Vera. But my parents are changing every day. Now in their 80's what does that mean for me? Who am I? I also continue to serve as a pastor. Well that too is changing. One day I will no longer be standing in front of people every Sunday, attempting to communicate something of the incredible love of God to them and for them. Someday in the not too distant future I will no longer have the privilege of handing others such seemingly ordinary things as bread and wine but then offering this promise attached to them, the very promise of Jesus himself: "The body of Christ given for you. The blood of Christ shed for you." Who will I be then? Granted I am also a father and a husband. But those realities are continually changing.

 

Who am I? Who are you?                                                           

 

The imagery that Jesus holds up for his followers from long ago and for us involves intimacy. As the door for the sheep Jesus is the way in and out to pasture, for their very life and sustenance. Under the care of a good shepherd those sheep do not need to fret about every noise, every snippet of wind or broken twig. As our "shepherd" Jesus is the One who seeks to protect us throughout life and in death. His protection does not spare us from struggle but rather can free us from despair. Nothing and no one can separate us from Him, from His love. We are not alone!

Jesus is the One who gives us our identity as gift. We are marked by His cross and sealed with His Spirit, no matter what! Joined to Him we are God's children.

 

What an audacious claim. I am a child of God. So are you. And yet - that's exactly who I am – who you are, regardless of the ongoing changing circumstances of life and death. Nor is this something we "decide". This isn't something we could ever earn or somehow deserve, this love and commitment of God in Jesus to care for us.

 

I am a child of God, you are too, because God in Jesus Christ loves us, dies for us and is resurrected for us. By God's grace we are joined to Christ. To be sure God in Jesus Christ allows death and the evil one to do their worst to him. To be sure death and evil seek to seek to claim you and me and this world. But out of the jaws of hatred, of death and destruction, of violence, fear and exclusion, Jesus the Good Shepherd dies to rescue us.

 

In doing so He shows us a radically different way – His way. Our decisions then are daily ones, whether we will live with and from our true identity or seek some other, illusory "ideal"?

 

Could it be then that the abundant life has absolutely nothing to do with "more or less", with an ongoing striving for more? Might it rather be that the abundant life has to do with resting, trusting God in Jesus for our identity, our security and then seeking  direction for our daily decisions? Such trusting, such following may indeed lead us to places we had never thought of before. It might be the Mayan Riviera or the Downtown Eastside, a hospital, a nursing home, a bank. It might be to saying, "I am sorry", or "I love you!" for the first time or for the first time in a long time. In such "places" it may be very dry or very wet, very hot or very cold. There may be a lot of money around or very little money available.  

 

But know this: wherever we are led as God's children – there will always be love, the love of God in Jesus Christ. And wherever that risen suffering Christ is, that is where we belong, our home. With him as we listening and then speak, trust as we seek to forgive as we are being forgiven, love and life are born anew. There is the abundant life whether or not anyone else "sees" it.

 

May we so live and share this abundant life - for Christ's sake. Amen.