Sunday Sermon - April 26, 2026

After joining us for some background conversation on the gospel reading, listen to Pastor Katie's sermon as she explores the abundant life to which Jesus invites us, the abundant life characterized by living among God's faithful people. 

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Scripture quotations from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. © Copyright 2011 COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Transcript

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Gospel according to John. Jesus said, Very truly I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold but by the gate, but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all of his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers. Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who come before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep do not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. The Gospel of the Lord. Today's gospel reading comes from. I'm gonna give you half the answer. The Gospel of John, the chapter. What you can look at your cheat sheet, that's fine. That's an open book test. Chapter 10. Right. Does anyone remember what chapter we read from on Good Friday Easter Holy Week? Or chapters, I should say. What? We read that in Lent. So at Easter, we are several chapters later, chapter 20. So this is happening early on. So we are around where we were in Lent, right? We were reading from John throughout all of Lent, including chapters 3, 4, 10, 9, and 11. Huh, how about that? I didn't even practice that. So we read from chapter 9, and then now we're going back and we're picking it up. For those of you who don't have John memorized it chapter by chapter, which I don't, so I don't expect you to. Chapter 9 was when we heard the story of a man who was born blind. The man was born blind, and Jesus and his followers were walking along, and they asked Jesus, Jesus, who sinned to cause this man's blindness, him or his parents? And Jesus said, It's not about sin, you guys are missing the point. And so then Jesus heals him of his blindness, and then he goes to show the Pharisees that he can see now and that he is healed, and to kind of say, Yes, truly you have been healed. We agree. And does anyone remember what the Pharisees did? We're going way back in the memory. What? Yeah, they accused him of breaking the law. They accuse Jesus of breaking the law. They accuse the blind man of lying of who he was. And then ultimately they looked at the man who was born blind, who now can see, and who has been telling the truth all along. They look at him and they say, You are no longer welcome here. And they kick him out of the community, out of the synagogue. And then the Pharisees turn to Jesus and they're looking to figure this out, right? Surely we aren't blind, Jesus, right? And Jesus responds something along the lines of Will, you kinda are. And then right after that is when we pick up today's gospel. And when we start with the very truly I tell you, we are starting off actually with basically Jesus saying, okay, so I said this thing, now I'm going to explain it more because I don't think you got it. And so he uses some imagery, some metaphor to try to help the Pharisees understand what just happened with the man being born blind, with Jesus calling them blind, even though they can count how many fingers you're holding up, all that kind of stuff. And so he goes into this speech. The speech actually lasts for long enough that we do a chunk of it each year on the fourth Sunday of Easter. Today we get the very first chunk. And so Jesus says, I have come so that you might have abundant life. And he counters that, he puts that in the context of a lot of talk about sheep. So what does abundant life look like if we're thinking about sheep? Well, sheep are rather reliant on others for care, right? They don't do so great in the wild on their own for many reasons. They also live in groups, they like to be in herds because safety and numbers. And then also, sheep are used for many different things. They share what they have in excess, aka wool. If you don't shear the sheep, they get a little poofy sometimes, depending on the breed. And so they have to shear the sheep and use the wool. Back in ancient times, they would use the sheep for milk too, and for meat and for all these things. So the sheep, when we look at what life as a sheep looks like and think about abundant life with a sheep, it's relying on God, it's living in community, and it's living with open hands, sharing what we have, especially when we have it in excess compared to our neighbors. Now, here comes the tricky twist a little bit. This sounds like a checklist of things we need to do. We need to go and live abundant life. However, Jesus comes to offer abundant life as a gift. And so, therefore, abundant life is the byproduct. It is what happens after we live in relationship with Jesus. After we live in relationship with the gate, the gatekeeper, the shepherd, add in all your other sheepy metaphors here. And so when we live with Jesus, things that are seemingly ordinary or common, like sharing meals, like living in community and relationships, can become holy, can become set apart for God's purpose. And what is God's purpose? Well, Jesus tells us today. Jesus says, I have come so that you might have life and have it abundantly. Abundant life for all is God's purpose. And so ordinary things, gathering together, learning together, eating together, can become holy and set apart for God's purpose. And all of this happens when we come together with our intentional plan of being a part of a faithful community, of being in relationship with God through these baptismal waters and nourished at this table. Through this, we get the gift of abundant life. We get the gift of being free to rely on God. We get the gift of living in community, and we get the gift of feeling confident and sure in living open-handedly, sharing what we have. So that's the picture, right? That's the ideal. But Jesus gets there at the end. The very beginning. What does Jesus warn us about? Thieves and bandits, or robbers, depending on which translation you're reading. Thieves and robbers, he says, will come in by jumping the fence, and they will try to steal what is not theirs. They do not come in via honest means, they do not come in with permission. Instead, they force their way in and they steal and they take and they destroy. And these thieves and robbers of which Jesus speaks are thieves and robbers, like those Pharisees. The Pharisees that kicked that blind more Pharisees that kicked that man born blind out of community. Not all Pharisees, but those Pharisees that were pretending to be their own gatekeepers, deciding who was in and who was out. We see thieves and robbers when we see the competitive one-upping that lures us into wanting more and having more than our neighbors or better than our neighbors to put a 21st century spin on it, keeping up with the Joneses. Thieves and robbers like the fear of scarcity. Thieves and robbers like the distrust of those who are different simply because they're different. Thieves and robbers like the desire for independence and self-reliance over letting a community care for you or relying on God's goodness. And if we're being honest, sometimes we are the thieves and the robbers. Sometimes we are the ones who are taking abundant life from others, taking abundant life from ourselves. Sometimes we are the ones who are trying to decide who's in and who's out. Sometimes we are the ones who are promoting that sense of keeping up with the Joneses. But that's not the goal. That's not the intention. God did not create us to be thieves and robbers. God created us to be sheep, to be sheep of God's flock, to be sheep who are reliant on God, who live in community and in relationship and who live with open hands, sharing what we have with others, especially what we have in excess. And that's the promise we make in our baptism. We promise to live among God's faithful people. We promise to do our best to make the choices to be a sheep and to not be a thief or a robber. We promise to be intentional members of this flock, which then we get the picture of that in Acts 2, when it says that they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles, which we have preserved in the scriptures. And of course, they devoted themselves to prayer, to relying on God's goodness, to living in that trusting relationship with God. And through that, they are transformed to seek abundant life for others, to help them come in through the gate and find abundant life. And to this life, Jesus is the gate. Life that does not deny the reality of thieves and robbers. Life that does not deny the reality of pain and suffering. But life that always, even in the presence of thieves and robbers, even in the presence of pain and suffering, life that holds out the possibility, the possibility of pasture and nourishment, of hope, of life, of goodness. Life that perseveres and maybe even thrives in the valley of the shadow of death. It is to this life that Jesus is the gate. Jesus is the one who invites us into abundant life, who shows us what God's intention is for us, and who frees us from the fear and threat of thieves and robbers and the power of sin and death. So today, as we hear Jesus declare, I am the gate, hear that as invitation. Hear that as security, hear that as love, hear that as an offering for abundant life, not just for us, but for all people. So that all might have abundant life, all might know this life of relying on God's goodness, of living in community, leaning on community, and living with open hands, so that all might know enough. All might know abundant life. And in that abundant life, ordinary common things become holy, become set apart for God's purpose. God's purpose of life, of love, of resurrection. Amen.