Come, Holy Spirit -- The Day of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21

May 28, 2023

             One of the highlights of our trip to Seattle – for those of you who haven’t yet been stopped by me and forced into seeing some of the pictures I took on my phone – was going to the Chihuly Glass Museum.

            Chihuly is the artist, Dale Chihuly. He was born in Washington State, and he is known for making blown glass, an art form which resulted in pretty pieces that you might display in your home and creating instead large works of modern sculpture. To be honest, I have seen pictures of Chihuly glass, and there was an exhibit at the art museum in Oklahoma City for a while, and I wasn’t convinced that Chihuly glass was my style. I love blown glass, and I have been fascinated with glass blowing since I was a kid, but Chihuly glass was so different from any other blown glass I had ever seen. It is so big and ultra-modern, it intimidated me. But folks had urged us to see the museum when we were there, and we thought that we should take a chance on it.

            When we first walked in, neither Brent nor I was sure we had made the right decision. The first pieces that we saw were as big and different and ultra-modern as I remembered. But then we walked through a hallway where the ceiling above us was all glass sculptures of reds and oranges and yellows. I had to admit to myself, it was incredibly cool. But it was the next exhibit that overwhelmed me.

            It was called “Mille Fiore,” a thousand flowers in Italian. And it looked like a long rectangular garden of thousands of the most beautiful, strange, wonderful, surreal, fantastical flowers, in the most vivid colors I had ever seen, and they were all created from blown glass. The colors and shapes stood out like jewels against the room which was black from floor to ceiling. I felt as though we had been transported underwater and stumbled upon a garden in the deepest, darkest part of the sea. It was breathtaking.

            At the last stop of the museum, there was a theatre showing several films of the artist narrating his work, the different exhibits, and speaking to his many inspirations. In one of the films he talked about when he realized that with just human breath and fire, he could take glass and push the boundaries of shape and size. With human breath and fire, he could make it thinner than ever before, and larger and more spectacular than what had previously been done in glass blowing. Sometimes his attempts failed – we saw a large piece being blown and shaped that fell and smashed into thousands of shards of glass. But he didn’t stop trying. From breath and fire something new was created, something beautiful was born. From breath and fire, transformation was embodied. I leaned over to Brent and whispered, “That’s Pentecost!” Which proves that you can take the preacher out of the pulpit, but you can’t take the constant need to find sermon illustrations out of the preacher.

            Now, with blown glass – any blown glass – it is as Chihuly said and Brent reminded me,  human breath and fire. And no matter how beautiful the result, human breath and fire can only go so far. Anything human is limited and finite. But on Pentecost the people gathered witnessed the infinite possibility of God. They witnessed the breath of God, the Holy Spirit, which rushed and blew like a mighty and wild wind, stronger and greater than any storm we have experienced. Along with this awesome rushing wind, the Spirit revealed itself in fire and flame. Tongues of flame appeared in their midst, and these dancing tongues of flame divided one from the other until an individual blaze stopped and flickered above the heads of each apostle. The Spirit coming did more than transform glass into sculpture, it caused these common Galileans to speak in the native language of every person gathered! The people who were there, experiencing this, were astounded. They were confused. They were bowled over and bewildered. Some greeted this with great expectation, but others were skeptical about what their senses were witnessing.

            Debi Thomas, in an essay for Journey with Jesus, pointed out that it was not the message of God itself that astounded the people gathered, it was the fact that they comprehended what was being spoken in their own language. God chose to speak to them in their own language, in their native tongue, in their particular idiom and linguistic style.

            As Thomas and other commentators have pointed out, some interpretations of the Spirit’s coming at Pentecost state that this is God’s reversal of what happened with the Tower of Babel. In that story from Genesis, God took the people’s one language and made it many, scattering them in every direction in what seemed like a punishment. But as Thomas wrote, the story of Pentecost doesn’t reverse the Tower of Babel. Instead, it completes it. It “blesses it.” She wrote.

            “When the Holy Spirit came, he didn't restore humanity to a common language; he declared all languages holy and equally worthy of God's stories. He wove diversity and inclusiveness into the very fabric of the Church. He called the people of God to be at once the One and the Many.”

            Have you ever studied another language? Maybe some of you are bilingual? I would love to speak another language fluently. It’s on my ever growing bucket list. I’ve studied other languages since I was a kid, and I have yet to realize my goal, because learning another language is hard. Nothing translates exactly word for word. The grammar is different and sometimes confusing. And some phrases and idioms don’t translate at all. Currently, I’m trying to learn modern Greek on the Duolingo app on my phone. But no matter how well I do on a lesson, when I try to say something to my sister in Greek, I can’t remember anything I’ve learned. And my sister, who I think is fluent in Greek, still says that after 40 plus years living in Greece, she hasn’t gotten it down yet. Her 10-year-old grandsons like to correct her Greek because she still makes mistakes.

            So, for the Holy Spirit, through breath and fire, to give the apostles the ability to speak fluently in all the languages represented in that place was not just a neat trick. It was, as Thomas wrote, a declaration by God that every language is worthy of the good news. Every language can bear the holy word of God.

            Breath and fire. Human breath and human fire has the potential to take sand and create the most beautiful glass I’ve ever seen. God’s creative and creating breath and divine fire transformed simple fishermen into linguists who could speak the good news of God to every person around them in their own language. Yes, there were some folks there who heard but were skeptical, who could not believe what they were seeing and hearing. But others believed. Others felt the power of the Spirit and were transformed by that breath and fire just as the disciples were. That transformation did not begin and end in this story from Acts. We celebrate Pentecost as the birthday of the church, not just because of the coming of the Holy Spirit in this particular story, but because of what continued to happen from this moment on.

            The good news of the gospel, the good news of Jesus the Christ, spread like wildfire. People believed and began to gather in house churches. Hearts were converted and lives were transformed. The Holy Spirit may not have appeared like tongues of fire dancing above the heads of others, but it continued to blow and move through the world and through the hearts and minds of people everywhere.

            So, Pentecost isn’t just one day on the church calendar, or one season. It is a way of thinking and doing and living. It seems to me that truly being Pentecostal – which is an unnerving word for many of us, including me – is not about one specific expression of faith, but the recognition that we are people who claim in our creeds and our confessions that the Holy Spirit is still alive in the world. It is God’s power that continues to create and transform. We believe that the Holy Spirit has the power to make change, to bring about new life. We believe that our church – this church, every church – began through breath and fire.

So, if we believe this, then let’s live this.

            Let’s live as though we expect and trust that the Holy Spirit is transforming us, creating us into something new, minute by minute and hour by hour. Let’s live as though we believe that God calls us to be both one and many. Let’s live as though we trust that the Holy Spirit can breathe life into what seems lifeless. Let’s live as though we expect that the Holy Spirit is moving through us and in us and among us, now and always, giving us the courage to do what is hard and increasing our faith so that we can follow wherever God calls. Let’s live as though we want and pray each day that the Holy Spirit will come among us, bringing change and transformation and newness even when that requires us to change, transform, and become new as well. Let’s live as though we pray now and always, come, Holy Spirit, come. Come, Holy Spirit, come. Come, Holy Spirit, come. Come, Holy Spirit, come.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”

            Amen.

           

Our Known God -- Sixth Sunday of Easter/Mother's Day

Acts 17:22-31

May 14, 2023

            I went to a very strange wedding many years ago, where the couple wasn’t religious at all, but they wanted religion in their wedding service. Actually, they wanted religions. – plural. Or if not the religions, a symbol or custom from different religious traditions and cultures. They had a protestant minister officiating the ceremony. They were married under a Jewish chuppah. They broke a glass covered in a cloth also done in Jewish weddings. I think they lit candles like couples do in Orthodox wedding services. I don’t think they went so far as to jump the broom, an African American custom, but a variety of customs, cultures, and religious symbols were present in their ceremony.

As I said, this couple was not religious. The groom had grown up in a mainline protestant church but had fallen away. I don’t remember exactly, but I don’t think the bride had grown up in any faith, but she was the one driving the idea of having different religions and cultures represented. Even though she wasn’t religious, she liked these different customs, and I think, although she would never have admitted it, she wanted all their bases covered. I don’t ascribe to one religion in particular, but I am going to include snippets of all sorts of religions – just in case.

It was an interesting ceremony to say the least. Since it is Mother’s Day, I will also add that I was newly pregnant with my first baby at that time. The wedding was on an island off the east coast, which meant we had to ride a ferry across the choppy Atlantic to get there, and I spent much of my time at the wedding observing the different cultural traditions and trying not to get sick.

Although our passage from Acts today has nothing to do with wedding services, there is a sense that this story is about people who want all their bases covered. Paul sees the Athenian people as, willing to believe that deities exist, but stumbling around in a spiritual darkness, groping for a God they did not yet know.

We come into this passage in the middle of the story. Paul is in Athens, but he hadn’t come there specifically on a missionary journey. In the verses before ours, we learn that Paul has been in Thessalonica, where his preaching and teaching had caused an uproar. From Thessalonica, he had traveled to Beroea, where the same thing had happened. His followers and friends managed to get Paul safely to Athens. There he waits for Timothy and Silas to join him. While he waits, he walks around the city and in verse 16 the text says,

“ … he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”

Paul did in Athens what he had been doing all along. He talks to people in the marketplace. In modern Athens, the oldest part of the city is the Plaka. This was the marketplace where people worked and gathered, where they discussed the news of their world and their neighbors. This is where Paul must have walked, talking to the people who were gathered there. He talked to Jews, and he talked to Gentiles. He shared the gospel with anyone and everyone. He told them the good news of the resurrection. Some people believed him. Others called him a babbler. They thought he was pitching foreign gods. Now Athens was a city of philosophy. And while he was there Paul eagerly debated with some of the leading Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.

The people Paul talked and debated with brought him the Aeropagus. This was just below the Parthenon, and it was the place where trials were traditionally held. Was Paul on trial? No. But it was also a place for the presentation of ideas. The people who brought him to the Aeropagus wanted to hear more about this new teaching about this Jesus guy and this gospel about resurrection that sounded so strange to them.

I don’t want to take us down an unnecessary rabbit hole, but it might be a good idea to understand a little more about Epicureans and Stoics, since these are some of the people Paul was preaching to. The Epicureans and Stoics were not atheists. They believed that the gods existed. Epicureans were hedonists. But they were not the drunken, toga wearing gluttons ala Animal House kind of hedonists. Epicureans believed that the only thing that was intrinsically good was pleasure. That which increased pleasure was good, that which decreased it was bad. Pleasure and pain came in both mental and physical form, and to Epicureans there were two types of acute mental pain: fear of the gods and fear of death. Epicureans did not believe that the gods intervened in human life. The gods were set apart from humans on a completely different realm, indifferent to humanity and all its ills. The Epicureans were materialists; they believed that everything down to the smallest atom, including humans, was made up of matter. Matter does not have an eternal soul. So when we die, we are dead. The point was why fear gods who were indifferent to humans, and why fear death when it was a complete end? There would be no punishment in some life after this one. Live for today and live in simple moderation and tranquility.

The Stoics valued reason. They believed that the universe was based on reason and rationality. The Stoics, like the Epicureans, believed that tranquility and peace of mind were the foundation of happiness. They believed that tranquility and peace of mind came from reason governing our desires, self-control. The universe was based on Divine Law, and Divine Law was grounded in reason. Therefore, there was no point in getting bent out of shape over anything because everything was happening as it should. If we try to fight where the universe is leading us, we will be miserable. But if we resign ourselves to following where the universe is taking us, trusting in divine reason, we will have peace. We will not expend our precious energy on useless resistance and struggle. The universe is reasonable and rational, and we just need to accept that it is going where it should.

Paul walked into this philosophical melting pot and did what Paul did so well. He used his significant rhetorical skills and his ability to speak from the place where his audience lived – physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

“Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.”

That’s a way to win friends and influence people. Paul goes on to say,

“For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.”

It is as if Paul was saying, look friends, I know how religious you are. I know you believe. But that unknown god? Let me tell you, that god is the God, capital G. That God is known and here. I know that God. And I know that God and you know that God because all creation, this earth that we live on, this world we inhabit, all that was made by this known God. Paul even goes on to quote what was most likely a Stoic poet,

“In him we live and move and have our being.”

Then Paul tells them that this God who created everything cannot be recreated through human imagination, even the best of human imagination. God cannot be found in gold or silver or stone. God was known, God is known in the One whom God raised from the dead. Up until this moment, Paul had not even mentioned Jesus. Still, he does not mention Jesus by name. But he speaks of the resurrection. He speaks of God Incarnate, God who was born, God who died, God who rose from the dead.

And this is where Paul lost them, maybe not all of them, but many of them. As so often happened (and happens), the resurrection was the wall that folks either ran into headlong and got knocked to the ground or the one some people shied away from completely. In that crowd were Stoics and Epicureans, people who believed that dead was dead, the end, done, finite! These were people who believed that the universe was a rational entity leading us along on a reason-lined trajectory. Resurrection from the dead was too much, too irrational, too unreasonable, too upside down, too illogical, too much. It was the inner spirit that counted, not the finite matter.

Again, we stop reading before the story is finished. Some people scoffed at this idea of what was dead being alive again. Paul, this babbler, was preaching about a God who embraced not only the spirit, but the flesh, the body. This God Paul preached of loved the body enough to resurrect it. How irrational? How strange? But … some listened. Some people gathered there wanted to know more. And some believed. Some, perhaps those who had been groping for God the longest, realized that the unknown god was truly the known God; the God who was known and the God who knew them.

The God who is known and the God who knows us. Our God who is known and knows. This past Wednesday, as part of our Bible study, we watched a brief video by The Bible Project on the loyal love of God. The Bible Project is a series of in-depth word studies and deep dives into scripture that is shared in relatable, down-to-earth ways. In this video, the narrator digs into the Hebrew word khesed. We often see khesed translated as steadfast love, or as the narrator called it, loyal love. God’s khesed, God’s loyal love, is a part of God’s character. God doesn’t put it on for show. God shows khesed because that is who God is. And in the final example of the video, the narrator says that God’s greatest act of khesed was in the person of Jesus Christ. By becoming human, God bound God’s self to us, to all humanity, in Jesus and through Jesus. God bound God’s self to us because God knows us, God loves us, and God acts with loyal love for all creation – even when our loyal love to God is not always so loyal.

Our God knows us, and our God is known to us through Jesus. If we leave here with nothing else, than let us leave with this – our God is known. And our God knows us and loves us with a loyal, steadfast love. We don’t worship blindly to an unknown God. God knows us. God loves us. God’s khesed is for us so that we can be khesed for one another.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

 

 

Trust Me -- Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 14:1-14

May 7, 2023

 

            “I do believe in Opie.”

            It’s no secret around our house that The Andy Griffith Show is my comfort television. I can turn it on and not have to think a whole lot. Not because the show is simple minded, although some episodes are deeper than others, but because I know it so well it’s like hanging out with old friends more than watching television.

            Some of the episodes are formulaic, true. But some of them have a depth that you don’t expect from a sitcom, especially a sitcom from that time period. There is one episode that centers around Opie telling Andy stories about a man he’s met in the woods named Mr. McBeevee. Mr. McBeevee wears a silver hat and walks through the tops of the trees, always jingling. He wears a belt around his waist that is filled with his extra hands, and he can make smoke blow out of his ears.

            Opie, who was probably 7 at this time, has been playing a lot of make believe, so when he begins to tell these stories about Mr. McBeevee, they sound just as made up and pretend like everything else he’s been telling them. But then Opie starts bringing things home, like a hatchet and money, that he claims Mr. McBeevee gave him. The audience sees that Mr. McBeevee is real. He works for the telephone company and is putting in new lines. He wears a silver safety hat. He wears a tool belt that has a multitude of tools that he calls his extra hands. He walks through the trees because he is up on poles working on the lines. The belt jingles, and because this was the 1960’s and no one thought twice about showing smoking on television, when he inhales his cigarette, he can make smoke come out of his ears.

            Everything Opie tells them about Mr. McBeevee is true. But the adults in Opie’s life haven’t seen Mr. McBeevee and the description that Opie gives of him is so strange and fantastical that he sounds made up. They think Opie must be taking these things and using Mr. McBeevee as an excuse. So, the time has come for Andy to force Opie to tell the truth, to admit that Mr. McBeevee is make-believe or face the consequences. Opie tries to do what his father asks, but he can’t. He’s telling the truth. And, with tears in his eyes, he asks Andy,

“Don’t you believe me?”

            The scene switches to Andy coming downstairs to Barney and Aunt Bee. They want to know what’s happened. Andy tells them he hasn’t punished Opie, instead he told Opie that he believed him. But, but, but … everything that Opie has said about Mr. McBeevee is impossible! Andy agrees. Barney wants to know if Andy actually believes in Mr. McBeevee, and Andy says,

            “No, but I believe in Opie.”

            Andy has asked Opie to believe in things that probably seemed just as impossible to Opie as Mr. McBeevee is to all of them. But what matters is that Andy believes Opie because Andy has faith in his son. He has a deep and abiding relationship with his son that is built on love and trust. Of course Andy soon finds out that Mr. McBeevee is real and that his trust in Opie is not misplaced and everything ends with a laugh.

            Opie asked Andy to believe him, to trust him, and that’s what Andy does. The Andy Griffith Show is a far cry from the gospel, but Jesus is asking the disciples, who are shaken up and rattled by what is coming, to believe in God and believe in him. Eugene Peterson, in his translation, The Message, used the word trust for believe. Trust God and trust me. Trust me.

            Why would the disciples be troubled in the first place? The previous verses in chapter 13 hold the answer. It is the Festival of the Passover, and Jesus has eaten what we know as the Last Supper with his disciples. He washed their feet, even the feet of Judas. He told them that he knew that one of them would betray him and sent that one out to do what he was going to do. He gave his disciples a new commandment to love one another as he has loved them. And he predicts that Peter would deny him three times. So, it’s no wonder that their hearts are troubled, that they are shaken up and unnerved by everything that they have experienced, seen, and heard. It’s a good bet to say that my heart would be troubled by all of this too.

            And now, Jesus is telling them that he is going to his Father’s house, a house that’s large enough and roomy enough for all of them, and that there he will prepare a place for them. He’s leaving them! He’s leaving them!!! He might be telling them that they will know the way to him and that he will come back for them, but all that really means that he is leaving them.

            And even though this is John’s gospel, and in John’s gospel the disciples are far less clueless than they are in the other gospels, the disciples at this moment can’t see beyond the fact that Jesus is leaving them. Thomas tells Jesus that they don’t know where he is going, so how can they know the way to that place. And Jesus responds by saying,

            “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

            Knowing Jesus means that they know God. But Philip wants more.

            “Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.”

            And Jesus, perhaps a little frustrated now, responds,

            “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

            In other words, trust me. Trust God. Trust me. You have been with me all this time. You have witnessed my healings; you have heard my teaching and preaching. We have created a relationship that goes beyond teacher and students. We now call each other friends. I have shown you what it is to love one another and to love this world. So, trust me.

            But trust, even when, maybe especially when, it comes to faith, can be challenging. And the disciples are clearly challenged by Jesus’s words and by everything that Jesus has told them lies ahead for him. We believe what we can see, and we trust what we know. And even though the disciples have experienced Jesus up close and personal, they are struggling to trust. If they struggled to trust, than it’s no wonder that we do.

            I think our very human trust issues have led to this passage being traditionally interpreted as exclusionary and narrow. When it comes to Jesus, you are either in or you are out. He said he was the gate after all. That must mean that the gate is about closing off people rather than opening. I don’t really want this sermon to wander off into universalism, but I do wonder if there is more to what Jesus is saying to them than what we have previously considered.

            When Jesus says he is the way, is he speaking only about a road or a path? Or is he also speaking about behavior, how we live and act and be in the world? As I said, in the previous verses he showed the disciples what he meant by loving, and that was to wash their feet. To love was to serve, to love was to do for others. Love was about being and acting with kindness and compassion and being willing to serve rather than expect service. And the truth and the life? They are connected to the way as well. The more we love, the more we see that love is at the heart of God’s creation and God’s relationship with us and the world, then the more fully we understand the truth that Jesus spoke of. And when we can more fully love, aren’t we more fully living?

            And the more we see that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, our relationship with him becomes deeper and stronger. And the more our relationship with him deepens, the more our relationship with others deepens. The deeper the relationship, the deeper the trust. \

            And a commentator made another point about verse one that I never knew before. In our English translation, we read, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” The word hearts is translated in the plural. But in Greek, the your is plural and heart is singular. What does that indicate? Jesus was speaking to all of the disciples about their one heart, their collective heart. Clearly, this is not literal. We all have our own physiological hearts, but in this context, Jesus is speaking about their collective heart in community, in relationship. Do not let your collective heart be troubled. You are in this together, just as we have been in this together. So, trust me.

            What would our life together look like if we lived as though we had one heart? I’m speaking to our congregation, yes, but I am also speaking to the larger church. What would it look like, what would our life together be like, if we lived and acted as though we had one heart? If our hearts are one and we are really in this together, than when one of us is sick, all of us are sick. When one of us is mistreated, then we are all mistreated. When one of us has reason to rejoice, than all of us have reason to rejoice.

            When we take away the individual hearts and realize that Jesus is speaking to the collective heart of his followers, it can no longer be us versus them, insider or outsider. It is us, all together, one life, one heart.

            Jesus reassured his followers that he would be with them even when he wasn’t with them, and that he is the way and the truth and the life. He spoke to their one heart and called them to love as he loved. He calls us to do the same. He calls us to remember that our lives are intertwined, that we need one another, that we share one heart, and that our relationship with him and with each other is built on love. Trust me.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

Abundant Life -- Fourth Sunday of Easter

John 10:1-10

April 30, 2023

 

I have a confession to make. I used to watch the show, Hoarders, on a regular basis. I would fold laundry and watch it at the same time, because then I could believe I was being productive. I generally don’t like reality shows, because I know that they are scripted and don’t reflect actual reality. But if a show involves cleaning, organizing, or remodeling a home, I’m all in.

I don’t share this as a confession because Hoarders was a reality show, nor because when I watched it I felt better about the condition and cleanliness of my own house. I share this as a confession, because watching the show began to make me feel like a voyeur. I understand that’s the real intent behind most reality shows. They feed the public’s need to be a fly on the wall in someone else’s life. But when I watched Hoarders, I wasn’t just seeing real people’s lives on screen. I was witnessing their sickness. I was witnessing their sadness. I was witnessing an illness, which is what hoarding is, that would tear apart families and literally endanger the lives of the hoarder. I felt guilty about it, so much so, that I would often have to turn off the television. The sadness of these situations became too much to bear.

            I will say that Hoarders did a good job of showing the complexity of compulsive hoarding. Compulsive hoarding, also known as hoarding disorder, is now listed as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; better known as the DSM.  It is a real sickness. 

            Compulsive hoarding, whether it is uncontrollable accumulation of stuff or even of animals, is dangerous to say the least. Hoarding turns homes into unsanitary and unlivable disaster zones. A person’s hoarding can be so extreme that most of the rooms in a house become unusable. The hoarder is relegated to one small living space, with only narrow pathways between teetering piles of stuff to other rooms in the house. I learned from the show that a crisis – the loss of a loved one or a string of problems – will often trigger a person into compulsive hoarding. And it is often another crisis that will finally push the hoarder into seeking help. Disaster may be looming. A marriage or another significant relationship is about to collapse because of the hoarding; children may be or have been removed from the home by a child protection agency. The hoarder may be facing eviction. Other family members are prepared to report the hoarder to social service agencies because of the real danger that the hoarding creates.  

What I found incredibly sad when I watched this show is that the people who hoard know that their relationships are falling apart. They know they’re on the verge of losing their home. They understand that their families are going to be separated, and they realize that their lives are literally in danger. But they can’t stop hoarding. They are embarrassed and ashamed, but they can’t stop. Hoarding takes the place of love. It takes the place of intimacy. It takes the place of connection. Their stuff, most of which you and I would consider junk to be thrown away, consumes them. 

           Their abundance of stuff consumes them. I realize that hoarding is an extreme, but it does make me wonder if there is a link between the growing prevalence of hoarding disorder and our modern lives. This is just my speculation; it’s not based on any significant scientific or sociological research, at least none that I have found. But let’s face it: most of us have a lot of stuff. That doesn’t make us hoarders, but we have a lot of stuff.  We have an abundance of things.  

Before they died, my parents did their best to downsize. They got rid of furniture, dishes, clothes, so many things that they accumulated over almost 70 years of marriage. But my brother now has a whole storage room in his house filled with the remainders of my mother’s stuff, stuff that the three of us have to go through. Our family has moved twice over the last four years – to Tennessee, then to our home in Columbia. And with each move, and on a regular basis, I try to sort and downsize and donate, but we still have so much stuff. I also know that as quickly as I get rid of stuff, more stuff will come in to take the place of the old stuff.  It’s just a lot of stuff. 

            Why do we have such a preponderance of stuff? Is it because we live in a consumer driven society? Is it because we are bombarded with messages that stuff will make us happy? Is it because we fear scarcity? One concrete way of dealing with that fear is by having stuff. Perhaps that’s one reason why hoarders hoard – they fear scarcity. With the multitude of stuff that we accumulate in our daily lives, it is easy to become confused with what abundance is and what it isn’t. Especially considering the words we hear from Jesus in the last verse of our passage from John’s gospel.

            “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

            I’m sure that none of us hearing those words thinks that Jesus was talking about material possessions. Although, let’s be honest, the prosperity gospel is alive and well in our culture. There are plenty of preachers, big name preachers, who offer the message of the prosperity gospel week after week. If you just believe hard enough, if you just cling to your Bible tightly enough, you will be blessed with plenty. Though that plenty isn’t always specified out loud, the underlying message of the prosperity gospel is that plenty is an abundance of the material. Nice houses, nice cars, nice stuff equals nice lives. 

            But I don’t think that’s what Jesus is referring to when he speaks of abundance. To really get to the heart of abundance as Jesus preached it, we have to look back to chapter 9 of John’s gospel, to the story that precedes this one; the story of the man born blind. We read this story during Lent. A man is born blind. Jesus heals him then leaves the scene. While Jesus is gone, the man is repeatedly interrogated by the religious authorities. His parents are questioned. And the man is interviewed one last time. You would think that when someone is healed of his life-long blindness, there would be rejoicing and celebration. Yet instead of joy, the people only feel fear. So the result of this miraculous healing, this giving of sight, is that the man is cast out of the synagogue. He is cast out of the community. 

            Jesus tells the religious authorities that just because they can physically see doesn’t meant that they can see the holy in their midst. They may have sight, but they are still blind. He follows those words with the words we read in this passage. In verse 7 Jesus says,

“Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate.” 

            I am the gate. This Sunday in Eastertide is commonly known as Good Shepherd Sunday, but in these verses, Jesus doesn’t talk about being the shepherd. Jesus talks about being the gate. The gate is the way to green pastures. The gate is the way the sheep who hear the voice of the shepherd enter those pastures. The gate is the way to abundant life. Jesus is the gate. So, if we want abundant life, if we want salvation, we must go through the gate. 

            None of this is surprising. I doubt that the idea that salvation comes through Jesus is news to any of us. But I think the question that is begged from this passage is what does this abundant life look like? What does salvation look like? When Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and have it abundantly, to what and when was he referring? 

            Let’s go back to the story of the man born blind. Do we think his salvation came only after he died? Do we think that he finally experienced abundance when he left this life and went to the next? Or did salvation come to him in the form of sight? Think about it. He went from a life of darkness, a life of begging just to survive, to a life of sight! Would there be anything more abundant, more salvific for a person born blind at that time than to receive sight? With sight came the ability to provide for himself, to envision – no pun intended – a new way of living and being. With the giving of sight, that man was given a life he hadn’t had before. He was given an abundance of new life! He was given sight. That was his salvation. 

            It seems to me that this abundant life, and even salvation, isn’t something that is reserved for a future existence. Jesus came to give abundant life right now. This isn’t a promise of prosperity. It’s not about stuff. It’s about abundance. It’s about salvation in the here and the now. If Jesus meets us where we are, then maybe salvation does as well. If we are lost, then salvation comes in being found. If we are hopeless, then salvation comes when we realize that reasons to be hopeful abound. Jesus came so that we might have abundant lives, saved lives right now. 

            But do we live those abundant lives? Do we believe that salvation is ours at this moment? Are we living lives that are filled with an abundance of love, joy, and hope? Or are we living small lives?  Do we live more out of a fear of scarcity, a fear of being without rather than living in trust that we will have enough? Trust is the key. Trust is at the heart of living an abundant life. If we don’t trust that we’ll have enough to live, to survive, then it’s downright hard to be abundantly generous. If we don’t trust that we are loveable, then loving others abundantly is practically impossible. Without trust we cannot hope. Without trust we cannot fully love. Without trust we cannot fully live. Living expansive, hopeful, loving, joyful  abundant lives requires trust.  It requires trust as individuals and families. It requires trust as a congregation. 

Do we trust that we’ll be okay as a church? Do we trust that we will be provided for so that we can provide for others? Do we come together in trust or out of fear? These are tough questions, I know. But I believe they must be asked, even though I don’t really have any answers. Jesus came so that we could have life – abundant, plentiful, large life. Let us trust, with everything we are, heart, mind, and soul, that we are loved abundantly. Let us trust that an abundance of love will be with us always. Let us trust in the abundance of God’s love, so that we may love abundantly in return. May we live the abundant lives that Jesus gives us.

Let all God’s children say, “Alleluia!”  

Amen.