Abundant life Sermon preached by the Rev'd Joanne Wetherall – 11/3/07

The pastoral imagery of chapter 10 of John’s gospel is not necessarily one we can fully Identify with

in fact I don’t want to be a sheep they are bland creatures which lack the personality, imagination and creativity which I value in other people and myself .

But to think literally of oneself as a sheep is perhaps to read too much into the word picture Jesus is creating.

What we need to be aware of is what this image is pointing to, to feel the wonderful intimacy of relationship that lies between the shepherd and his flock.

It’s picture which reflects the relationship between Christ and ourselves both as individuals and as a worshipping community

A picture which tells us that the relationship between Jesus and the community which gathers around him is one of invitation, of God in Christ welcoming us, caring for us and nurturing us.

These are comforting images

But where this passage really starts to burst open for me is the second half of verse ten,

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

Abundance what an under used word it is, how often do you find the word abundance occurring in your conversation?

I can’t honestly say it trips off my tongue very frequently.

But Jesus says he came that we might have life in abundance and if that was truly his purpose then surely abundance is a description of Christian life we should use all the time.

So what does it mean?

what images does the word abundance conjure up?

To me it’s a word which contains depth and richness which evokes moments of surprising, generosity or beauty, a feeling of touch, of unexpected warmth, a word which is simply bubbling with possibility.

and when we apply it to God that possibility becomes one of blessing and transformation and resurrection an overflowing of Grace and spirit and truth.

I may not want to be a sheep, but I do I want to wake each morning energised by the understanding that I am loved and known by my creator and that he fills my life with an abundance of his spirit, grace. The truth of which transforms me and how I see the world

Why is abundant life transforming? What does it look like?

In his book Learning to dance Michael Mayne a former Dean of Westminster who died courageously of cancer last autumn expressed it this way;

All I claim is that in my heart of hearts I have believed for most of my life that God is; that he is as he is in Jesus; and that no truth on earth is as important or as liberating.

For if it is True then it changes everything: Not only how I see God and how I see myself, but how I see the human race.

Abundant life looks like the unique life of a man who consistently relied on his relationship to God, as the bench mark for his relationship to all people and to all creation.

A man who trusted his experience of God implicitly and that trust gave him the freedom to be what God intended someone who laughed and cried, fished and cooked, forgave and blessed, restored and fed, and loved profoundly.

Someone who touched people different from himself lepers, a dead child, a bleeding woman a foreigner.

Who taught and befriended fishermen and tax collectors, and delighted in the simple sincerity of children and the ministry of women.

Who enjoyed pic-nics and weddings and a good glass of wine

Someone so sure of God’s truth that he exposed himself to the devious scheming questions of religious leaders,

Abundant life looks like Jesus who embraced his gift of life with passion, and did not want to suffer or die and who cried out to God in his anguish

But who would choose to face rejection, betrayal, suffering,and death, to lay down his life for his sheep, rather than deny the truth about God which was his very being.

Abundant life looks like an empty grave on easter morning.

Like a familiar stranger recognised in the breaking of bread.

like a voice which persistently says to those of us who deny that we know him and let him down “if you love me feed my sheep.”

I began by saying I don’t want to be a sheep.

But if I am to live an abundant life after the model of Christ then I have to recognise my need for a shepherd

who knows me personally by name

whose voice, whose call, I can respond to as an individual and as part of a faith community

I need his constant presence to protect me from myself, from my egocentric habit of wandering off and thinking I can be self sufficient, only to find myself lost and alone in a wilderness.

And I need to be reminded that the community Jesus surrounds himself with is a community of his choosing that he will bring other sheep into the fold.

Sheep who will mess up my carefully constructed ideas of how a community should look and the people I should be relating to...

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has written a book called God has a dream Reflecting on the miracle of transformation in South Africa over the past 25 years it is about the potential that country has for abundant life lived in Christ

he says this

“If you were in heaven now you would notice the tears in God’s eyes.

The tears streaming down God’s face as he looked on us and saw the awful things that we God’s children are doing to each other.

God cries and cries

And then you might see the smile that was breaking out over God’s face like sunshine through the rain, almost like a rainbow.

You would see God smiling because God was looking at you and noting how deeply concerned you are.

And the smile might break out into a laugh as God said,You have vindicated me.

I had been asking myself “whatever got into me to create that lot? And when I see you,yes you” God says you are beginning to wipe the tears from my eyes because you care.

You care because you have come to learn that you are not your brother’s or sister’s keeper. You are your brothers brother and your sisters sister.

And God says I have no one but you”.

I need to be a sheep, infact I want to be a sheep

to trust implicitly in my relationship with God because then, like Christ, I can use that relationship as the bench mark for how I relate to other people and all of creation.

Only then can I be set free,transformed but grace, spirit and truth, to be the person he made me to be, to go in and out of the fold and find nourishment and expression for my God given imagination, creativity and personality.

For it is in our relationships to one another and creation that we find the true abundance of our humanity.

The Lord is my shepherd - I want to be a sheep.