Monday, May 12, 2014

The Gate




On Monday, I was going out the back door of my house for a morning’s work in the yard when I stepped wrongly in a hole and sprained my ankle—not the worst sprain I’ve ever suffered, but bad enough that I couldn’t walk on it without excruciating pain.  Since then I’ve hobbling around on crutches, and I’m still not really able to walk unaided.  Now, many of you have had this experience, some recently, and some of you have it every day, so I don’t need to tell you what it’s like not to be able to get around on two legs with your hands free—how it makes the simplest chores difficult, and vigorous physical activities, of the kind that are so important for physical and emotional well-being, nearly impossible.
And having my mobility restricted in this way has forced me to accept help from other people, when they’ve offered it, and even to ask for it when they have not.  My wife, Meg, has been my first and chief helper, coming to my aid when I was writhing and groaning in the back yard, setting me up on the couch with icepacks and pillows, and adding my share of the household chores to her own responsibilities.  But my daughter Risa has pitched in also, carrying my things out to the car when we leave the house in the morning, and cheerfully fetching me this or that.  And normally, I wouldn’t presume to ask the volunteer receptionists here in the church office to make me a cup of tea, but this week I have, and they’ve happily obliged.
As I said, I’ve sprained my ankle before, and when I was younger the emotional trial of depending so much on other people was almost worse than the physical pain.  As someone who thinks of himself as independent and self-reliant, who works hard and doesn’t complain, and does for others, I have not always been good at allowing others to do for me.  But maybe it’s a mark of maturity that this time it is a little easier.  I’ve been working this week at accepting my injury as a blessing in disguise, an opportunity to slow down and rest that I never would have taken otherwise.  And it’s also reminded me, in a way that is quite lovely and reassuring, of a truth that we can miss seeing when we are healthy and able-bodied—that all our lives are a joint venture.  More than a little of their richness and meaning comes from the consideration, help, and care we receive from others, in countless ways, every day.
The book of Acts says that at its beginning the church exemplified this kind of mutual aid, caring, and concern to a startling degree.  “All who believed were together,” it says, “and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”  Now this may be an idealized picture, but as such its intent is as much prescriptive as descriptive.  “This is how we were,” it implies, “when the experience of the Lord’s resurrection was still fresh in our minds, when the unifying gift of the Spirit was palpably present among us, and potent, and new.  The way we shared everything was all the proof we needed that God’s promises were true, and it drew others to join us.  This is how we grew.  We were at our best when we were one—sharing equally, breaking bread together with glad and generous hearts.  And this is how we could be again.”
The Bible has an image for this kind of life-in-community, of the people of God as united and equal and organized for their mutual benefit.  It is the flock of sheep.  We’ve all heard of the lone wolf, but who ever heard of the lone sheep?  A lone sheep is a lost sheep, who must be found and returned to the fold, or it will not survive.    Sheep are meant to live together.
Now, as modern persons, this image makes us uneasy.  We idealize individual freedom, individual responsibility, and individual achievement.  When we say people are like sheep, we imply mediocrity, stupidity, and conformity—it is not a compliment.  And a flock of sheep requires a shepherd.  In the literature of the ancient Near East, shepherd was a standard image for the king.   Well, we have an instinctive distrust of kings.  We know from historical experience that we can’t be too sheep-like, too docile and obedient and trusting, or our shepherds will take advantage and abuse their power.
The Bible recognizes this.  The books of the prophets contain numerous passages that call out the rulers of Israel as false shepherds, who scatter and destroy God’s sheep, who take for themselves what they should be feeding to the flock.  And in the Hebrew Scriptures, scattering the flock is always a catastrophe.  The disintegration of society into isolated and competing individuals is anathema to the biblical mind.  Instead, the prophets give promises like the one God makes to Jeremiah, “I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.”  This kind of leader will tend the people the way God would, and will, as Isaiah says, “gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.” 
This kind of leadership—wise, compassionate and nurturing, not domineering and self-aggrandizing—is what people saw in Jesus.  They recognized his authority, but it was not the authority of aristocratic birth, or official position or state power.  It was the authority of the person who speaks the truth and backs it up with deeds.  It was nothing he sought for its own sake, but flowed naturally from his compassion for his people, from his desire that they should enjoy the fullness of life, and his courage to act for their liberation.  He instructed his disciples to lead others in the same spirit of humility and service, and he exemplified this teaching in his passion and death on the cross. 
These two traditions, the prophetic tradition about the shepherds of Israel, and the gospel tradition about the ministry of Jesus, are in the background of the Good Shepherd in the Gospel of John.  Jesus says, “ I am the Good Shepherd”, and we are meant to think of his compassion and wisdom and self-sacrifice, which make him so unlike the thieves and robbers who so often pass for leaders in this world. 
But Jesus’ relationship with us is about more than political liberation.  And that society envisioned in the book of Acts, of unity, equality, and mutual sharing, requires something more than a new kind of shepherd.  It demands a new kind of flock, one that moves together by the free choice of each sheep, in response to the inner shepherding of God.  The ordering of this new community begins with a new heart in each of its members.  Their unity comes from loving hearts, fundamentally re-oriented toward the well-being of others.  Their deep generosity doesn’t spring from a sense of obligation, but from hearts overflowing with gratitude for the abundance that comes when we share our gifts. There is no trade-off for these sheep between freedom and security, because they choose to have no enemies.     
This is a picture of the renovation of human nature, or, if you like, our resurrection.  I think that these texts about the Good Shepherd are traditionally read during Easter season, because Jesus is more than our righteous ruler.  He is the power of God’s love within to bring us from death to life.  He is, in the words of Julian of Norwich, and many other mystics and theologians of the High Middle Ages in the West, our mother, giving us new birth into a new world.  Or, as John the Evangelist has him say in today’s gospel, “I am the gate of the sheepfold.”
“I am the gate”—the birth passage from the cramped space where we huddle within our walls, where the ground is hard, and the grass is thin, out into a wide open space.  Jesus is the gate, opening out to the fresh, green pastures of a new world; opening in to the depths of the self, to safety and peace that surpass understanding.   Through him we may come and go, in and out, in freedom and joy.  Through him, the narrow straits of this world, even the dread gate of death, are entrances to wider spaces, to more perfect sharing, and more abundant life.  And the wall that divides the flock, that separates the future from the past, the living from the dead, this world from the next, has an opening—a gate—so all may come and go and may again be one.  

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About Me

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Petaluma, California, United States
I am a priest in the Episcopal Church, and have been (among other things) an organic farmer and gardener, and a Zen monk. I have a lifelong interest in social and spiritual renewal on the basis of contemplative discipline, creative nonviolence, and ecological practice. In recent years my work has focused intensely on the responsibility of pastoral ministry in the humanistic, evangelical, and catholic branch of Christianity known as Anglicanism. I'm married with a daughter, and have three brothers and two parents.