May 15, 2011 | 9:30 and 11:0o a.m.

Offering Abundance

Victoria G. Curtiss
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 23
Acts 2:42–47
John 10:1–18

Call us by name . . .
so that we know,
Call us to you . . .
so that we live,
Call us into the world . . .
so that we care,
Call us to risk . . .
so that we trust beyond ourselves.
You speak / we listen /
and comes life, abundant,
Beyond all that we ask or think.

Walter Brueggemann

My experience with sheep is limited. But that doesn’t stop me from talking about them! The last time I preached about sheep and shepherds was at Collegiate Presbyterian Church in Ames, Iowa, where my husband and I served as co-pastors. Many in our congregation worked at Iowa State University. A few days after hearing my sermon, one church member presented me with a fat file folder on the nature of sheep; he was a retired professor in animal husbandry.

I don’t remember much from that file folder, but I do recall an excursion I took to the countryside to get sheep’s wool to show children in church school. The sheep were in enclosure, and I guess I approached them a bit too fast, for they quickly darted to the other side in one mass—no doubt some running only because the others were. “Sheep without a shepherd” basically describes creatures that easily become afraid or stray with no direction and get lost. Sheep are very dependent on a shepherd to protect them and guide them to what nurtures their life—food, water, shelter, and safety.

Sheep recognize and distinguish the voice of their shepherd. Jesus uses this analogy to describe his followers: the sheep follow their true shepherd because they know his voice. There is a lot of power in this metaphor. Research shows that infants will recognize and respond to their mother’s voice within seventy-two hours after delivery. Moreover, early on they can distinguish her voice from others. Physician André Thomas had a group of adults gather around an infant within ten days after its birth. One after another, they spoke the child’s newly given name aloud. There was no movement, no reaction from the infant—until the mother pronounced the name, at which point, the child would lean over and fall toward her (Michael Gaynor, The Healing Power of Sound, pp. 27, 93).

Early on we recognize the voice of the one whom we have come to trust to care for us, respond to our needs, nurture and protect us. Jesus describes himself this way, as the Good Shepherd who came to bring us life abundant. He distinguishes himself from thieves and bandits who come to steal the sheep away, or hired hands who abandon the sheep at the first sign of a wolf, watching out only for their own skin.

Those “others”—the thieves and bandits, the hired hands—probably referred to Israel’s false rulers, false messiahs, a figurative attack on the Pharisees. The Pharisees gave people the idea that God was mostly interested in enforcing the rules and in punishing those who did not obey. They were the ones from whom people got the notion that a life of faith is a gloomy, humorless business that fosters only a kind of respectable virtue and not a life of joy, peace, and righteousness. Jesus was so hard on them because they reduced faith from a great adventure to a narrow and confining legalism. Instead of freeing people, theirs was a religion that only made life more burdensome.

Jesus challenged theological perspectives such as illness being a result of someone sinning, either the one who was afflicted or their parents. He challenged the practice of keeping the sabbath in ways that precluded showing compassion toward others. He embodied a God of love whose creation teems with good and abundant blessings. The early church we read about in Acts expressed this abundance: no one was in need because everyone shared what they had in common; those who had more gave freely for those who had less.

Many today hold to a perception that the universe is essentially hostile to human interests and that life is essentially a battleground. Such perception leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy filled with competition and scarcity. Parker Palmer gives the example of a bank in town that may be a perfectly sound bank. But if enough people start and believe a false rumor that it’s an insolvent bank, everyone will line up to withdraw their money and their bank will become insolvent; the prophecy will have fulfilled itself (Parker Palmer, Leading from Within, p. 11).

In George Eliot’s Victorian novel Middlemarch, there is a pastor who represents a scarcity kind of religion. “I am very sorry for him,” writes Eliot. “To be present at this great spectacle of life and never be liberated from a small hungry shivering self—never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be . . . uninspired . . . timid, scrupulous, and dim-sighted” (George Eliot, Middlemarch, pp. 277–278).

There are numerous examples in history in which religion has twisted or reduced the wondrous gift of life as well as misunderstood who God is and how we are called to be God’s faithful people. How do we keep from straying from the truth? In the midst of false teachings, how do we recognize the voice of our true shepherd, the one we are to follow? How do we listen and discern accurately?

The vote that changed ordination standards this past week is being heralded by many as true discernment of the Holy Spirit, while others believe we have gone astray.

Two years ago a similar action to lift the ban against ordination for some of us was defeated by the presbyteries. Similar actions have been defeated numerous times over the past three decades. This year shows that a majority of us have changed our minds.

It’s not the only time the Presbyterian church has changed its mind. The church changed its mind about slavery. For generations, Americans justified slavery by citing passages in the Bible. It took far too long for us to see the injustice of one race oppressing another. The church also changed its mind about ordaining women. For many years, women were not eligible to be ordained as deacons, elders, or pastors. This also was based, in part, on interpretation of scripture.

Similar dynamics have played out in the church in the long struggle for justice and inclusion of persons who are gay, lesbian, or transgender in committed relationships. In the debate over their eligibility for ordination, both sides have cited the scriptures as the source and justification for their beliefs.

Since the 1970s there has been an emphasis on interpreting the Bible in a way that takes seriously the human, social location of the biblical writings and the influence of our own history and culture. New Testament scholar Frances Taylor Gench says that in interpreting the Bible, we need to not only take into account the original historical and cultural context when the scriptures were written, but also pay attention to the context of those doing the interpretation now: “All of us bring our own political, gender, racial and religious biases to a text, a theological task,” she says. “Our experience, our social location, affects what we see and even the questions we think to ask” (Frances Taylor Gench, video script for The Bible and the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church).

As more and more gay, lesbian, and transgender people have come out of the closet in our churches and other circles of acquaintances, many of us have reexamined our previous perceptions. We have been challenged to interpret the Bible through their eyes.

Biblical scholar Paul Achtemeier wrote,

Scripture is not violated when it is treated as an entity capable of further interpretation. . . . Scripture is violated when its nature is assumed to be static and closed. . . . God’s word in the biblical traditions continually comes to specific situations, addressed in the community of faith in the midst of its historical existence. It is this very vitality in the nature of scripture and its inspiration which demands that it be newly interpreted for new historical situations.

There is no doubt that interpreting scripture is hard work! Fortunately we are blessed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, upon whom we rely for guidance and illumination. Part of the beauty of the Reformed tradition is the emphasis we place on discerning the Spirit as a community. No one of us holds all the truth. God often stretches and surprises us through the voices of others. We are called to remain humble as we seek direction, study together rigorously, reflect prayerfully, and converse lovingly on how we interpret and apply God’s Word.

In interpreting scripture, Reformed Christians have upheld several principles. One is the centrality of Jesus Christ: all of scripture should be understood in reference to the central revelation of God in Christ. Another is that scripture should be interpreted in light of other scripture: the entire biblical canon is the context for understanding the fullness of Christian faith and life. We also follow the rule of love, which judges any interpretation by whether it supports the commandments to love God and love our neighbor (Presbyterian Understanding and Use of Scripture, A Position Statement Adopted by the 123rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States).

Of course, it is precisely when our church as a whole has grappled with the interpretation of scripture that we have had our most divisive arguments.

Seminary professor John Burgess has written about reading the Bible in a time of church conflict. He draws upon wisdom of theologian Karl Barth:

Karl Barth has reflected profoundly on the dynamics of diversity and conflict in the church. As Barth would remind us, the Word that we hear is God’s. . . . We must thankfully acknowledge God’s Word to be a Word that rules over us all. It is the source of our unity.

. . . . We may well come into conflict with each other. But . . . this conflict will never become absolute if we remember that God’s Word is finally larger than any of us. . . . Barth argues that we should not spare ourselves “relative conflict.” Only as we grapple with each other’s readings of scripture will we discern what form Christ is taking among us here and now. . . . Relative conflict may be necessary if the community is finally to determine which readings of scripture are faithful. . . .

Yet, the process of discernment is frequently wearisome. . . . Procedures for adjudicating disputes sometimes fail or simply stoke fires of discontent. Under these circumstances, communities of faith may need to develop a capacity to endure the tensions and differences that characterize their reading of scripture—whether at the level of the congregation or in larger church bodies. Efforts to reach consensus may have to yield to forbearance.

This capacity to bear with each other’s differences is what Bonhoeffer called “the ministry of bearing.” On the one hand, we need each other’s different readings of scripture. They broaden our vision; they help us to correct distortions in the lenses that we bring to the text. On the other hand, these differences may also cause us pain.

Burgess continues, “The capacity to live with difficult differences—in gratitude when they enrich our life together, and in love that is patient and kind when they prove painful, even destructive—may be the greatest commentary on scripture that is required of the mainline churches of our day” (John Burgess, Why Scripture Matters: Reading the Bible in a Time of Church Conflict, pp. 129–131).

Jesus Christ claimed his identity as the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd is known by his willingness to lay down his life for his sheep. He does not abandon us when danger threatens. He cares for us steadfastly. There is no scarcity of love or provision. He sacrifices everything so that we may know abundant life.

And not just us. Jesus said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” God’s love, embodied through Jesus Christ, includes those we thought didn’t belong: those “others” who are outside our comfort zone; people who have for too long been excluded by the church and in society; persons whom we don’t understand, or understand all too well and disagree with. Jesus proclaimed that through him we all are part of one flock, with one shepherd. Some are grieving and others are rejoicing over the church’s action this past week. Regardless, we are all comforted and stretched by the generous love of God that embraces every single one of us. Jesus said, “I have come to bring abundant life.” Let us open ourselves both to receive and offer this great gift.