My difficulty with our scripture from John this morning began with this notion of Jesus being like a gate. I understand about the gate as metaphor.
Yet, as I was reading this week the many possible ways to compare Jesus to a gate, I became confused. I just could not keep up with the examples, or perhaps I didn’t really try. And I missed their point. I know there is so much more about Jesus than his being reduced to a gate. So, I set it aside to give the scripture a chance to find its voice.
In the meantime, I thought about gates. Gates, I must confess, are really interesting. Especially in Austin where, true enough, not everything is weird, but we do find different kinds of gates and some are really pretty strange, adorned like an art car with dolls and rocks and spiked things. I particularly love the solid wood gate that would hang between two massive rock walls. The yard they hide from our view just may be a hint of what paradise would look like. Or, like one of my neighbors, where to hide the old rusty cars and piles of junk.
Clearly, gates speak their own unique language, they tell us different things. An open gate means, come in. A closed gate means, stay out. A closed gate also means, if you ignore the warning and open it anyway, at least close it behind you. Or, open it anyway and be ready to run when you see the porch dogs coming after you!
Some gates are plain and functional, they open and close easily. Other gates are decorative and just for looks so please, don’t open them, they may fall apart and you may never get them closed again!
My personal favorite is the ‘gap’ gate. You know, it’s the one that is made of strands of barbed wire like the rest of the barbed wire fence that you can let down and it always gets tangled into itself and you can never get it closed again as you pull at the top to try and get that loop of wire over it. Now, to compare these examples of gates to Jesus, even as a metaphor, seems wrong on so many levels.
First, Jesus is not plain or simple and he is not decorative. But then Jesus does refer to himself in our gospel story as a functional and necessary gate. He does describe the reason for the gate and himself clearly. He says he is our way to safety from ‘this world’ living. He is like the gate or way that speaks in its openness; “You can come in to my safe place,” he says, “in here, in my pasture, with strong fences all around. Anywhere I am it is safe in the long run.” With this truth before us, Jesus becomes the gate way who separates life from death.
Now I’ve caught myself speaking of Jesus as a gate, finding the voice of the scripture with Jesus as this metaphor. But I don’t think this reduces Jesus in any way. On the contrary Jesus’ explanation of himself in this way may broaden and enrich our understanding of him.
We should feel better now, it is clearly obvious when we look closer at this John passage, Jesus is indeed more than a gate, he may be seen as a threshold, a passageway, marking and calling us to a new life.
But, when he calls, we must listen and then act. When we listen we have the safe pasture, the safe place we need. Our task in life is to faithfully listen to the Christ who guards our going out and our coming in and follow him where he calls.
This truth about our going out and our coming in from the world of terror to the world of safety is clearly about how we are being saved. Saved from our world of sin and desperation by first accepting Jesus’ openness and his invitation to be with him in this life. Being with Jesus, where he is, is how we are saved. Now I’m beginning to love this gate metaphor.
Yet life, life, can be so unyielding. We certainly do venture out on our own, away from the safety of Jesus’ presence outside his gate, his place of rest. We do venture out into the world, moving on to new jobs, new towns and to a different rhythm for our life, a life without boundaries, and it is so natural to be drawn away from Jesus. Often we are so busy or distracted we don’t even notice it. We are so hanging out in a harsh world without any protection; we don’t realize it until it’s too late.
But Jesus is not distracted; he sees us and marks the boundary for us between a place
to venture out, to graze unprotected, and a place of protected rest.
Our faith filled life is like this. We gather with Jesus there inside his gate, we gather there at the end of the day, we rest in the peace and safety of his place free from the wild outside world, we rise in the morning having rested well, free from our fears, because the good shepherd, Jesus our messiah, watches over us. And in the morning we praise him, “good day good and faithful shepherd”, we pray, as we move on to green pastures and still waters.
This way of life is necessary and good, because the places to graze and grow are actually outside Jesus’ protective gate, out here in our world. This movement into the world of our time and place is also necessary as a part of our faithful life of service as Jesus marks for us what we are to do, who we are to become, his apostles.
That movement, that going out into the world and then coming in, coming home, to Jesus is where the saving life is. Here’s the thing though, it is a matter of life and death that we know when it is time to go out and when it is time to come back in. it is a matter of life and death to know when we have ventured too deeply into ourselves and closed our gate to Jesus.
Being honest with ourselves about ourselves will tell us when we are ready and safely equipped to venture out and when we are not. Knowing we have Jesus as our guardian, trusting in him, staying faithful to him, obeying him, we can venture out. But, without the truth of Jesus Christ as our Savior, we dare not tread outside. Behind the gate we create for ourselves we are desperately alone. Alone, we will suffer and die.
It becomes clear to us that we are ready to follow Jesus’ call when we have successfully learned the way of the good shepherd, when we learn Jesus’ truth and when we hear him call, when we open our hearts and minds to his voice alone and cannot live without him.
Only then may we venture out, for then we will be obeying him. It is clear; we are becoming his disciple when we allow his love for us to become who we are, no longer able to follow just ourselves and we desire more than anything else to obey him. Step into my life, come and follow me, he says.
This call to follow Jesus is our personal call to salvation and safety and everlasting life. It is our call to hear and to follow his command to “Go out into the world,” Jesus will tell us. “You are ready. The temptations of life to false safety and security and short lived joy and satisfaction will not consume your life. For now you are ready.”
To live otherwise is to live a life that may never hear Jesus again, one in which we may never hear him when he calls us home. To not hear Jesus’ call is to live a deadly life. Equally dangerous is to hear his call but ignore it or turn against it, to miss being inside, where sheep gather to be with their shepherd. It is to turn our backs on that place where disciples gather to be with their Christ, our Messiah, Jesus. Living in any other place is folly.
Truthfully, seeing Jesus and his relationship with us as this threshold where he calls us in or out may not be so comforting when we are honest with ourselves.
We have at different times in our lives been taught that for those of us who believe, Jesus is like a turnstile. And a turnstile only requires a token or a pass or some ‘thing’ we have or some ‘thing’ we have done that says we can come in, we can go through, we can pass from outside to inside, we have the right thing now or we can pass the right test. And if we pass the right test we can go from mindlessly wandering around to the place of sure destination. We can go home, where it is to be safe, forever.
But if Jesus is different than a place to be tested then everything changes.
The way home is no longer some test we pass, or some material possession, or some place of importance. The way home is no longer open to us when we say the right passwords.
No, the way through the threshold of Jesus Christ sets the will of God at a defining place for our lives. It is the will of God that teaches us we are to live our lives as faith filled disciples of Jesus Christ and it is the will of God that Jesus Christ be our threshold, our way to that new life. Not for our gain, but for God’s.
Our passing through this place that Jesus has marked out for us is critical to our future with God. The right place is like a line drawn in the sand, it is the place where the will of God tells us what we are to do next in our lives!
It is not our job to decide when we are to be on one side of the line or the other. It is Jesus’. And in case we miss his point, it is not our job to say who else can cross over to be saved with Christ, that too is Jesus’. It is our job to listen for his call, to listen for his voice, telling us when it is time to move. It is then our job to faithfully follow.
A well known preacher named David Buttrick has a wonderful phrase he uses about the church and I believe it applies to each of us. He thinks of the church as the being–saved community. Not saved yet, but we are working on it!
If we are being-saved (rather than simply “saved”) then perhaps, as the author Anna Florence says, we are more active in our faith life than static. We move in and out, back and forth with our ministries. We move according to the rhythms of our call. When it is time to worship, we gather at the sheepfold. When it is time to graze and seek and do the work of being a sheep, we spread out over the hills.
But we must always listen for the voice that calls us to the next task. We must live with the possibility that being-lost is a risk each of us takes. Anna Florence reminds us, Jesus cannot protect us from wandering away, but he can call us back before it is too late.
And when he does, we may well be reminded of his call from verse 10 in this morning’s gospel, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
This is no metaphor. Jesus Christ is the way, the way to the truth and the light, the way to eternal salvation. And that way is through his freely given love, and through our freely given love right back to him and then on and on to one another.
He came, dear ones, that we may have life, and have it abundantly.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen 051511.gpc
Additional sources:
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XVIII, Number 3, 2008, pgs. 15-17.
“Pulpit Resource,” Volume 37, No. 2, 2008, pgs. 9-12.
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