Life Abundant
10 May 2014
Fourth Sunday of Easter Year A
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland
(Oregon)
8:00 a.m. Said and 10 a.m. Sung Mass
Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter
2:19-25; John 10:1-10
God, give us hearts to feel and love,
take away our hearts of stone,
and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
Today, the Fourth Sunday after
Easter, is “Good Shepherd Sunday,” given the theme of the Good Shepherd we find
in the Gospels for all three years in the Lectionary, and the use of
Twenty-third Psalm. The reading from Acts in today's lectionary does not talk about shepherds, but rather about the sheep cared for by the Good
Shepherd: it describes in idyllic terms
how the life of the Church was after the resurrection of Jesus, the 40-day
ministry of the Risen Lord, and the coming of the Spirit on the Day of
Pentecost: they devoted themselves to
the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the
prayers. Large numbers of people become
believers, so moved they are to see what a spirit-led life and community are
like: things so unlike what we normally come to expect in life that they are
seen as “wonders and signs.” They no
longer are selfish and driven to acquire and protect property—they hold all
things in common, selling off their own goods in order to help meet the needs
of the less fortunate. As a result, the needs of all are met and there are no
poor among them. They worship humbly and
thankfully both in the traditional public rites of their people and in their
homes. Filled with gratitude, those
about them are struck with awe.
In the Book of Acts, this seems to
be the “Garden of Eden” time for the church, before selfishness and fear driven
lying by Ananias and Sephira bring a hard, even deadly, response by Peter, and
the whole community ends up divided and “fearful” as a result.
Here’s the thing—the people in the Jerusalem
Church in the warm afterglow of the resurrection are convinced that God loves
them. In the death and resurrection of
Jesus, their deepest fears have been met and overcome. God really
is the loving, caring, provident parent that Jesus taught about during his
life. And based in the absolute
assurance of that love, they see abundance about them and lose their fear for
self-preservation, concern for providing for their own security, and begin to
notice the real needs in the midst. And
so they share. They share providently,
with the same profligate abandon they see God has shown toward them. Among them, there are no lies, no secrets,
no manipulation, and no power-play dependencies or rescues. There is just gratitude for abundance, and an
innocent and honest desire to reach out to help. And there is enough for all. I wonder, does their gratitude come from the
abundance they have experienced? Or does
the abundance they share come from their gratitude?
Our baptismal covenant—found in the
Prayer Book on page 304-5—comes in part from this description of the earliest
Church. In baptism, we promise to
follow them by continuing in the
apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. We promise to resist evil and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to our
loving Jesus. We promise to proclaim in word and example the Good
News of God in Christ, that is, to show forth the abundant and profligate
love God has shown us all in the victory of our Jesus over death, illness, and
all that is wrong with the world. And
we promise to seek to serve Christ in all
persons by loving those about us as if they were ourselves. Just as the earliest Christians shared
abundantly so that there were no poor among them, we promise to strive for justice and peace among all
people, and to respect the dignity of every human being.
This is a call that comes from
abundance, not scarcity; from gratitude, not fear. Doing any of these things can make us
vulnerable, possible targets for rejection, ridicule, or unfavorable
judgment. But our gratitude and firm
sense that we are indeed beloved of God drives out fear and the zero sums of
scarcity. One of the great blessings of the image of the
Good Shepherd is that it helps us see God as the One who loves us beyond any
love we have known.
When St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote the
“the Glory of God is a human being alive,” he added that such life comes from
having the image of the glorified Jesus before our eyes. The vision of God’s love, of God’s abundance,
is a key part of being fully alive, and free of fear, calculation, or
lying.
Know you are beloved. Know that in our Christ life has conquered
death; health, illness; abundance, scarcity.
And in gratitude, give of that abundance to help others in need.
Many people say that the Church in
our society is dying. They make
calculations and strategies of mission based on decline, shortage, and
scarcity. But this is the Church of
Ananias, Saphira, and Peter’s reaction.
In the degree that we live out our baptismal covenant, rooted as it is
in a sense of gratitude and profligate abundance, people in our larger society
will stand in awe of what the Spirit does through us.
This week, I invite us to reflect on
how abundantly we have been blessed. Let us look for the signs in our lives
that God indeed loves us, with a crazy and profligate love. And then, let us also reflect on our bad
habits of heart and mind, habits of fear at scarcity that lead us to be stingy
and dishonest. And then, as we promise
in the covenant, let us repent and return to our abundant Lord.
In the name of God,
Amen.
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