Life Abundant (Easter 4A)

Good Shepherd, Fr. John Giuliani

Life Abundant

3 May 2020

Fourth Sunday of Easter Year A

Homily Preached at Trinity Parish Church, Ashland Oregon

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

10 a.m. Live-streamed Ante-Communion with Benediction 
a recording of this service 

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. 

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday.  We hear Psalm 23, and pray that we all may know him who calls us each by name, and follows where he leads. 

The problem is that we have heard the psalm so often, usually with meditations—for good or ill, informed and misinformed—about shepherds and what good shepherds do for their flocks,  that it has become a cliché and we often miss the real point it is making with this image. 

Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, says the twenty-third Psalm is the answer to the question, 

“How do you live in a dangerous, unpredictable, frightening world?” Right after 9/11, many people asked him “How could God have let such a thing happen?” His answer was “God's promise was never that life would be fair. God's promise was, when it's your turn to confront the unfairness of life, no matter how hard it is, you'll be able to handle it, because He'll be on your side. He will give you the strength you need to find your way through. … “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” [does not mean], “I will fear no evil because evil only happens to people who deserve it.” [Rather,] “This is a scary, out-of-control world, but it doesn't scare me, because I know that God is on my side, not on the side of the . . . the terrible thing that [has] happened. And that's enough to give me the confidence.”

Psalm 23 assumes that we live in a crazy, out of control, horrifying world.  Contagion. Debility. 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.

Elsewhere, the Psalmist summarizes these feelings in a graphic image,  the Grim Shepherd:

“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…

They are like the beasts that perish…

Like a flock of sheep they are destined to die. 

Death is their shepherd;

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

The Grim Shepherd comes for us all.  Like beasts, we will die,

holy and wicked, wise and foolish, kind and mean, old and young, rich and poor.  But then, the Psalmist adds, “But God will ransom my life.  He will snatch me from the grasp of death” (Psalm 49:15) 

So when today’s Psalm declares, The Lord is my Shepherd, it is making the point that it is the Abundant and Loving God, not the Grim Reaper, who is ever present for us.  This is how I translate it:

“It is Yahweh who is my shepherd; nothing else shall I need.

Green are the pastures where he has me lie down. 

Still are the waters where he guides me.

He refreshes my life.

Because of who he is, he leads me in paths that are right. 

Though I must trudge even through the darkest deadliest chasm,

I shall not fear any harm. 

Because you are with me. 

Your crook and your walking-stick give me comfort, not hurt. 

You spread out a great feast for me

Even as I face persecutors. 

You pour calming lotion on my head;

The cup before me overflows with wine.

I am sure that with you,

Kindness and compassion will always be at hand as long as I live,

And 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 God’s Abundant love despite the Grim Shepherd, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, fears, tempests and tumults, plagues and famines, enemies and persecutors.

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

This is why the Gospel of John has Jesus say “I am the good shepherd. I am the gate into safe pasture.”

When he adds “the others are hirelings and thieves,” I think this merely means that in this grim world, we have many ways of reassuring ourselves, of distracting ourselves from the Grim.  But they too are revealed again and again to be part of this corrupt system of things. They too end in death.  Despite the temporary hope they give, they are unreliable.  Respite they may provide, but in the end, they fail us.

But Jesus won’t fail us. After himself 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.

Blessed Ireneaus of Lyons 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.”  For Irenaeus, it is the living person that reflects God’s intention and care, not a dead person, one of the Grim Shepherd’s flock.   Irenaeus believes that the life of the resurrected Lord is powerful and contagious, stronger than the contagion of sickness, sin, and death.  He 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.