Jesus the Gate: A Sermon for 4 Easter

Yesterday, I was in my office at the church, working on this sermon. Actually, I was in the kitchen - eating a frozen pizza and brewing some coffee – when I heard some noise near the bathrooms. Having remembered that I had left the doors unlocked, I headed that way to see who or what the commotion was all about. It turned out to be a woman named Natalie and her 12 year old daughter, Samantha. Somebody had told Natalie that we have a terrific children’s choir, and she wanted to know more about it. 

I told her that we no longer have the children’s choir – at least for now – because our director moved away. Natalie was terribly disappointed, as she lives near the church, and was hoping that once we are all able to gather again, Samantha might be able to join our children’s choir.

As we visited, I came to learn that Natalie emigrated to the United States from Russia several years ago. She, her husband, and their daughter Samantha lived in Arizona, but tragedy struck when her husband died unexpectedly. So as is the case with so many folks down here, Natalie and Samantha moved here because of our majestic beaches, and for a new beginning. Samantha is home schooled because they moved here mid-year. Natalie desperately wants Samantha to find and make friends. 

Of course, their feeling of isolation has been amplified significantly since the covid-19 pandemic. They are truly alone and isolated as they grieve the death of Samantha’s father and try to begin again here in Santa Rosa Beach.

Our conversation then turned to the future. Natalie asked when I think that we will open things up here at Christ the King, and whenever that is, what there might be here for Samantha. The honest truth is that up until now, there has been very little here at Christ the King for 12-year-olds like Samantha. We don’t have a youth director or a youth program to speak of. There is not a dedicated space or room for youth to gather and be together. There is not a dedicated staff person to serve as their shepherd. In some ways, we might say that our middle and high school students at Christ the King are wandering like lost sheep, waiting to hear and recognize a voice that might be calling to them. 

But that is about to change. Our Director for Family Faith Formation Search Team has been conducting virtual interviews via Zoom all week with candidates from all over the country. I have spoken and written about this process quite a bit, but as a refresher, a couple of years ago, Christ the King received a gift to serve as the seed money for starting a youth ministry program for our 6th-12th graders. We hired Ministry Architects, formed what we called a “Renovation Team,” and have been working for nearly two years to determine who and what is needed most for our young families at here Christ the King. Once we created our vision statement, core competencies, milestones, and job description, we disbanded our Renovation Team and formed a Search Team.

After this past week’s series of interviews by the team and follow-up interviews with just me, we are nearing the home stretch for hiring our Director of Family Faith Formation. I couldn’t be more excited for our entire church community. The building and nurturing of a Family Faith Formation program will not just enhance the lives of our young people – it will enhance all of our lives here at Christ the King. 

But I even hate to call what we are building a “program” – because it is not about programming…it is about relationships. It is about calling a person who has committed their vocational life to shepherding people. It is about calling a person who will know and call the name of the young sheep in our parish family. It is about calling someone who not only calls the name of our younger sheep, but who then leads and guides them to the gate of the sheepfold, so that they are safe and secure. And it is about calling someone who will lead those same sheep out of the safe confines of the sheepfold into to the more open, adventurous, and yes, even dangerous pasture so that they can do the things that sheep were created to do. And more importantly, so they can have life, and have it abundantly.

But of course, we must be careful not to misuse the shepherd metaphor. Yes, I serve as a shepherd of sorts in my role as rector at Christ the King. All of us who are leaders of people in a ministry setting are shepherds. But the one, true, Good Shepherd is Jesus Christ. And to think of the messiah – our Lord and Savior – as a shepherd is a very comforting image. And there is no better expression of the comfort, security, and protection we as sheep feel from our shepherd than what is described in the 23rd psalm. Our Lord and Savior leading and guiding us through the dangers and difficulties of life is truly an image of abundant life.

But the shepherd isn’t the only image that Jesus uses for himself when he was speaking to the Pharisees in today’s lesson. Jesus also refers to himself as the “gate,” and actually, he seems to land more firmly on this image than even that of a shepherd. 

But throughout the history of the Church, Christians have preferred the shepherd metaphor to the gate metaphor. Just as the 2nd Sunday of Easter is unofficially known as “Doubting Thomas Sunday,” the 4th Sunday of Easter is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday.” That has a much better ring to it that “Gate Sunday.” If the 23rd psalm began with. “The Lord is my gate…his hinges are well-oiled and sturdy” do you think that it would be the most beloved of all psalms?

Upon first glance, we might even be offended by the image of Jesus as “the gate.” In this post-modern era, and especially in the liberal mainline Protestant tradition, it seems as if access and inclusion have become our primary values. In our nation and in our denomination, we have spent much of our energy removing barriers of all sorts, and that is a good thing. And rightfully so, we as Americans and we as Episcopalians take great pride in the good, important work of advocating for justice and freedom for all people.

But after having spent quite a few years believing that the most important message of Jesus was inclusivity, I have come to believe that there is more to it than that. Yes, I believe that all may be included in God’s kingdom. But in today’s lesson, Jesus as the shepherd or Jesus as the gate points to a Jesus who recognizes the importance of limits and boundaries. Jesus refers to those who choose not to enter the sheepfold through the gate – those who do not observe limits and boundaries - as thieves and bandits. Of course, in saying this, Jesus was holding up a mirror to the Pharisees as he was speaking to them. And he was boldly, albeit through the use of metaphor, telling them that the only way for them to enter into God’s realm was through him. Indeed, I imagine that they didn’t feel “included” by Jesus’ message. But Jesus held firm to his understanding of how one might come to know and experience God’s abundant life.

We tend to not get offended when Jesus speaks like this to the Pharisees, because we see them as being judgmental, rigid, and generally not very likable. They are the proverbial “bad guys” in the New Testament. But many people do get offended when they are asked to imagine what this story means for people other than the Pharisees. Surely Jesus wouldn’t expect people who are “kind” or “good” to have to use the gate to enter the sheepfold. Surely he wouldn’t think they are thieves and bandits if they simply climbed over the wall or sought some other roundabout way to enter because they were generally “good” people.

The story in today’s gospel lesson foreshadows what will come later in John’s gospel, when Jesus says to Thomas, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”  For those who believe that the primary message of Jesus is inclusivity, then this passage is one that is particularly awkward and troublesome. They wish that Jesus wasn’t so narrow and specific when he spoke about how one might come to know his Father in heaven. Or they say that these must have been John’s words, not the words of  Jesus. 

What this passage has in common with today’s lesson is that in both of them, we presented with a savior who speaks of limits and boundaries. But in both of them, we also hear an invitation that has no limits as to who may receive and respond to it. It is an invitation to everybody and for everybody to enter through the gate – no exceptions. And I don’t see any evidence of the shepherd or the gate turning away anybody from the entrance to the sheepfold. The problem that Jesus had with the bandits and thieves wasn’t their lack of goodness or kindness. It was their unwillingness to accept his invitation to enter the sheepfold through him - the gate.

Another thing that seems to be true in this story is that the gate of the sheepfold isn’t a one-way gate. It opens to the inside so that the sheep may enter into the sheepfold where they can know that they are safe, secure, and loved. But the gate also opens to the outside, so that the sheep may exit out into the pasture – into the world so to speak – being led by their faithful, loving shepherd. I find this image of Jesus, and this image of God’s kingdom, to be profoundly pastoral, in the literal as well as the spiritual sense of the word. The word pastor literally means shepherd, and thus pastoral means “ relating to a shepherd.” 

When we use the word “pastoral” in the church setting, we usually mean something along the lines of caring, nurturing, and leading. For me, I need a shepherd – a pastor- who cares for and nurtures me by leading me to a particular place. Because if I’m left to my the devices and desires of my own heart, I’m an absolute disaster. I need a shepherd who knows what’s best for me, and who cares enough about me to invite me there and to promise to lead me if I choose to follow. I need a shepherd who is aware of the thieves and bandits in the world, and who will lead me away from them, and protect me from them. I need a shepherd who invites me into the safety of the sheepfold and who also leads me into the freedom of the pasture, but who never abandons me when I am in the there. I don’t need a shepherd who tells me that as long as I’m nice and kind everything will be ok.  

And I think the sort of shepherd that I need is the same sort of shepherd that our children and youth need as well. I believe that they need a shepherd who will point them to the Good Shepherd, who will lead them through the Gate to abundant life in Christ.

My hope and prayer is that the next time someone like Natalie and Samantha come through our doors, instead of telling them that right now, there is no program here for people Samantha’s age, that I will instead direct them down the hall not to a program, but to a shepherd who will lead them to the Gate that leads to abundant life. In the meantime, while countless young people are waiting for it to be safe to gather in large groups, may the Good Shepherd watch over them, protect them, and keep them safe. And once they are able to return to church, may the Good Shepherd lead them to a church that nurtures them, and invites them into the abundant life of Jesus the Gate; Jesus the Good Shepherd; Jesus the Christ.