John 10:1-10
Gender,
sexual orientation, marital status, race, political affiliation, even unruly
children, poor hygiene or incomplete paperwork are just some of the reasons
that people have been given second-class status in the Church or told to leave
altogether. It’s the work of gatekeepers
- those who decide who’s in and who’s out - that seem to abound in certain
church congregations.
It’s
nothing new, gatekeeping is an age old problem.
In fact, today we hear Jesus declare twice that he is the gate, but it’s
very important to understand the context of this statement. Just before our reading today Jesus
encounters a man who was blind from birth.
And his disciples asked him, who
sinned? (Because if something bad
happens to you the common assumption back then and even for some people now is
that surely there’s someone who’s done something wrong - someone has
sinned.) But Jesus sets them straight
telling them that it has nothing to do with sin and gets to the business of
healing the man. And when this man who
has never seen the light of day receives his sight, what is the response? Not celebration, but investigation. The Pharisees are on the case and waste
little time before this man, along with his parents, is thoroughly
questioned. And after all is said and
done, the man is driven out of the community..
What
was going on in that story is that the disciples at first, and then the
Pharisees even more so, are acting as gatekeepers. They are trying to be the gate that
determines what is right and what is wrong; what is sin and what is holy. They seek to be clear about who is in and who
is out. And in their defense, my guess
is that they thought that’s what God wanted them to do - to act like God had
authorized them to be God’s gate.
But
in response to this uncompromising and uncompassionate slamming of the door on
one of God’s beloved, Jesus swings the door the other way by declaring, “I am
the gate.” Not just once, but
twice. “I am the gate for the
sheep.” Although Jesus was talking about
sheep, everyone knew that he meant more than that. For generations, Jewish prophets had referred
to the Israelites as God’s sheep. By
declaring himself to be the gate for the sheep it meant that it wasn’t the
Pharisees job nor the disciples nor anyone else’s, no matter how well meaning,
to get in the way of God’s beloved.
Jesus is the one who decides who’s in and who’s out. For Jesus is the true gate, a gate not of
exclusion, but a gate of invitation, of love , of healing, of forgiveness
through which the sheep, all the sheep - particularly the lost ones, like the
blind man - receive abundant life.
I
don’t know about you, but I find it very easy to shake my head at the obvious
ways that other people try to operate as God’s gate or at least God’s
gatekeeper. The disciples, the
Pharisees, the church leaders who explicitly turn people away from their
congregations - those are easy targets to condemn. But what about us? Do we ever get in the way of God’s beloved
and become gates ourselves? One time I
witnessed a couple come into church (it wasn’t this church) and sit down in an
empty pew towards the front. Let’s just
say they had a certain aroma about them.
Behind them sat another couple.
They were good, church-going folk, but once they got a whiff of these
newcomers they got up and moved away to another pew. It was painful to watch that gate door
close. But here’s something a little
more subtle. I wonder how many of us
have thought about inviting someone to church and stopped, closed that gate so
to speak, because we figured they probably weren’t interested anyway? Or when you see someone in church, maybe a
newcomer or maybe just someone you haven’t been acquainted with, but no doubt
the Holy Spirit has done her work to get them here, do you go out of your way
to extend a warm welcome and engage them in conversation or do you act like you
didn’t notice them and close the gate in order to visit with a friend you
haven’t seen all week? And I wonder how
many of us play the role of gate or gatekeeper for ourselves? We decide that for one reason or another we
should not have access to God. That we,
ourselves, don’t deserve God’s forgiveness or God’s healing or God’s love,
No! We are not the gate - Jesus is the gate. The
gate through which we are given abundant life, a life not necessarily of things
or comforts or success, but a life that is rich and meaningful, connected in
love to God and others. This abundant
life is the vision Jesus has for us all.
This is why he came. And this is
why he invites us to come to him with no obstacles, no barriers, no gates put
in our way. It’s ultimately what our
souls crave.
I
know this is because you tell me so, and in particular I hear it often when we
use a certain invitation to the Holy Eucharist that comes from the Celtic
tradition. Every time it’s said there’s
at least one person who tells me how much it means to them. I get it because it stirs my soul too. It is Jesus’s invitation to all of us, no
matter who we are, to come and enter more fully into God’s abundant life. It goes like this, “This is the table of the
Lord. It is made ready for those who
love him and those who want to love him more.
So come, you who have much faith and you who have little. You who have been here often and you who have
not been here long. You who have tried
to follow and you who have failed. Come,
for it is the Lord who invites you and it is his will that those who want him
shall meet him here.” Come, for Jesus is
the gate, Jesus is our gate and the gate is wide open.
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