Life Abundant (Easter 4A)

 

The Good Shepherd, 5th century mosaic in the New Church of St. Appollinarus, Ravenna

Life Abundant

7 May 2017

Fourth Sunday of Easter Year A

Homily Preached at Trinity Parish Church, Ashland Oregon

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

8 a.m. said and 10 a.m. Sung Eucharist

Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25;  John 10:1-10

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen. 

It’s been a sad week.  Three deaths in the parish: Dale Muir, beloved of Vicki Gardner, Barbara Brand, after years of loving and joyful home visits from Eucharistic ministers and friends in the parish, and Rachel Wagner, beloved of Dan Wagner.    Many parish members continue to struggle against life-threatening or long-term debilitating illness.  In the larger community, we have seen a general loss of hope and turn to fear in our country after the House of Representatives passed a Medical Care Act seen by many as an abandonment of human decency and compassion.  One op-ed writer in the Washington Post said, “If there has been a piece of legislation in our lifetimes that boiled over with as much malice and indifference to human suffering, I can’t recall what it might have been.”  And this abomination was principally drafted by and shepherded through Congress by our own Congressional District’s representative, Greg Walden.    

Debility.  Disease.  Death.  Fear about finding the care we need, and if we find it, how to pay for it.   Despair about the fact that death comes for each and every one of us, regardless of how well we have made choices.  The grim reaper comes to all alike: holy and wicked, wise and foolish, kind and mean, old and young, rich and poor.

We often think these feelings are the plague of the modern and post-modern era.  But the Psalmist summarized these same feelings this way, about three millennia ago: 

“We can never buy back ourselves,

Or deliver to God the price of our life.

For the ransom of our life is so great,

That we should never have enough to pay it.

In order to live for ever and ever,

And never see the grave. 

For we see that the wise die also;

Like the dull and stupid they perish

And leave their wealth to those who come after them.

Their graves shall be their homes forever,

Their dwelling places from generation to generation,

Though they call the lands after their own names. 

Even though honored, they cannot live for ever,

They are like the beasts that perish…

Like a flock of sheep they are destined to die. 

Death is their shepherd;

They go down straightway to the grave.

Their form shall waste away

And the land of the dead shall be their home.”  (Psalm 49:6-14) 

Bengt Ekerof as Death in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957)

Like a flock of sheep we are destined to die.  Death is our shepherd.  The Grim Shepherd comes for us all.  Like beasts, we will die.   No hope, other than an expectation of oblivion and fading away. 

At least, that is how is seems to us in our bad moments.

But then, the Psalmist also expresses hope, despite it all.  Just after saying “the land of the dead shall be their home,” he adds, “But God will ransom my life.  He will snatch me from the grasp of death” (Psalm 49:15) 

And then there is today’s Psalm.  Here is how I translate it:

“It is the Lord who is my shepherd; I shall not be in need. 

It is in green pastures that he has me lie down. 

It is by still waters that he leads me.

He refreshes my life,

And, because of who he is, leads me in right pathways. 

Though it may be through the darkest death-filled chasm that I must trudge,

I shall not fear any harm. 

Because you are with me. 

I get comfort from your crook and your walking-stick. 

You spread out a great feast for me even when I face persecutors. 

You have poured calming lotion on my head,

And the cup before me overflows with wine.

I am sure that with you, kindness and compassion will always be at hand for me as long as I live,

And that it is in your house that I will make my home forever.” (Psalm 23)

Faith is trusting in the goodness and compassion at the heart of things.  Faith is having a heart rooted in hope despite the Grim Shepherd, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, enemies and persecutors, and the certainty of loss of control and life. 

Faith is a giving of our heart to the heart of love in creation.  

This is what the Gospel of John has in mind when it has Jesus say “I am the good shepherd. I am the gate into safe pasture.”  This is not the shepherd death.  This is the shepherd who brings us through danger and death.   

When it says “the other ones are thieves,” I think this merely means that in this grim world, we have many ways of reassuring ourselves, but ultimately they too are revealed again and again to be part of this system of things. They end in death, the Grim Shepherd. Despite the good they do and the temporary hope they give, they are unreliable.  Respite they may provide, but in the end, they fail us.

But Jesus is someone apart.  This is because after enduring the Grim Shepherd, he came into victorious, glorious life.  That is why, in the words of today’s Gospel, he says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Abundant life!  Joy in the face even of the Grim.  Confidence that in the end, all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well.  And if things aren’t well, that means it is not yet the end. 

Irenaeus of Lyons

Blessed Ireneaus of Lyons, the great second century theologian who was one of the first Church fathers to write in Latin as well as Greek, said “Gloria Dei est vivens homo” “God’s glory is a living human being.”  We often hear this expressed “The glory of God is a human being, fully alive.”  This captures, I think, what Irenaeus intends:  it is the living person that reflects God’s intention and creation, not a dead person, or one who is impaired and distorted by the Grim Shepherd.   Irenaeus is talking about the afterlife, but he assumes that the life of the resurrected Lord is powerful and contagious, and already is present in us here and now when we hear his voice and follow him. 

Sisters and brothers, there is so much in this world to rejoice in and be thankful for.  Jesus is our good shepherd, our healer, the one who brings life to us and us to life.  Life, and that abundantly, is what he offers us.  Thanks be to God.