Life: And How to Get One
First Congregational Church – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Fourth Sunday of Easter – April 13, 2008
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[texts: Acts 2: 42-47/John 10: 1-10]

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

“Get a life.” Ever heard that phrase before? I know I have; always used in the imperative and most-often in a less-than-positive sense. It can be a taunt and implies that the person being addressed is spending entirely too much time on trivial matters or even hopeless matters. I went looking and discovered that the first time it is cited in a reference text is in the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED illustrates its definition with a quote from a January 1983 Washington Post article: "Gross me out, I mean, Valley Girls was, like, ohmigod, it was last year, fer sure! I mean, get a life! Say what?" Another source talked about the emergence of video games in the ‘80s and the “getting a life” when your character was done-for. It was used a great deal among computer-geeks.

The most famous use, perhaps, was when William Shatner appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1987. Shatner, Captain Kirk of the original Star Trek, did a sketch where he was the guest of honor at a Trek convention and was hounded by ‘trekkies’ in Star Fleet uniforms and pointy ears asking trivia questions from the show. He gets more and more frustrated until he blurts out: “Move out of your mother’s basement and get a life!” As I thought about what Jesus says in John 10 he is, in a way, telling us to “get a life” because we’re to look to what matters, to look to what is important. What is more, Jesus is telling us that he is the means by which we get this life; the whole reason he came is so that humanity could have life and have it abundantly.

So, what does the Bible mean by “life”? Biblical scholar Ernst Schmitt tells us that the concept of life is at the heart of both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures – the Old and New Testaments. He tells us, “In both the word is used in the first place of the natural life of man. Right from the start, however, it is more than just mere physical existence. Existence is not sufficient for life. The biblical idea of life is more inclusive than the philosophical or biological concept, and fuller than the connotation which the word has in popular usage.” [Bauer, ed. Encyclopedia of Biblical Theology, p. 499] The biblical notion of life, then, encompasses all that we think of when we think of life – health, relationships, an ability to sustain ourselves and those we love, happiness and much more.

When we look at the Bible we see that the essence of life involves a close relationship with God. God is the author of life and its sustainer. All life, then, derives from God and, indeed according to Genesis our life as human beings is fashioned in the image and the likeness of God. It is in John’s Gospel that we see the fullness of development of this concept of life as union with God. The whole point of the coming of the Christ is so that life can be brought to fulfillment and humanity drawn into the fullness of relationship with God. As Schmitt says, “The Father has life in him and gives it to the Son (Jn 5:26; 6: 57) and the Son like the Father, gives life to whom he will (Jn 5:21). Christ is life in person, the life which was sent into the world. He it is who reveals God, for the task which he has been given is to bring eternal life (Jn 12: 50); he has life in himself (Jn 1:4; 1 Jn 1:1; 5:11). [EBT, p. 502]

This is the point, that life is found in close relationship with God. God has given us a glimpse of who God is, what God is about through God’s gracious activity. We look around us in the book of nature and we see a beautiful world imbued with order. In the Old Testament, the book of Scripture, we see God take a people to God’s self who, in their turn, become symbolic of God’s care for ALL of humanity. That's why we often talk about the difference between describing the Trinity as 'immanent' (highly philosophical-theological language) or 'economic' (what we see God doing as Trinity: Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer) when talk about the difference in terms.
Then, God speaks God’s eternal Word, the Logos, into human flesh in Jesus Christ, and we encounter the living God face-to-face and we LIVE. The Word, Jesus the Christ, did not speak in dogmas or creedal statements. Rather, he came telling stories, using parables of everyday, secular life to show forth the presence and the care of God behind it all. I am fearful that we often trivialize or we risk losing the power in Jesus' words by the way we approach language, by the culture in which we live that has forgotten so much of the language, culture and the context of the what the Scripture is trying to say . We're attuned to a certain degree of literalism, but also recognize the stuff of media 'spin,' and tend toward a non-symbolic, non-metaphorical mindset. It makes it difficult to hear the timeless truths Jesus spoke in time-bound language.
Jesus says, "I am the door to the sheepfold,” “I am the gate.” How many here have ever seen a sheepfold? How many here have ever spent much time working with sheep? Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd." Anyone here ever worked as a shepherd? I thought not -- see the problem? We use language like this all the time, but really don’t know the context.
How do these images of a different time and place bear their truth to us? That's the task that is before us each time we open the Scripture, and it is a vital task today because these images of sheep and shepherd are central to our Christian self-identity and understanding. For example, six years ago I was installed as the pastor ( the shepherd) of this church (flock). Yet, none of us have much first-hand knowledge of what the original 'pastoral life' was about.
Jesus is using ordinary, everyday images of his time to teach a timeless truth. A shepherd would literally become the door of the fold, so that to get at the sheep the wolf or robber would have to come through him. Jesus is telling us that this is the way God cares for us, loves us. Raymond Brown, perhaps the best scholar of John’s Gospel, points out that earlier in the text we see Jesus supply the living water and the bread of life; “now he offers the pasture of life, for vs. 10 makes it clear that in speaking of pasture, he is really speaking of the fullness of life.” [Anchor Bible: John v. 29, p. 394] The thief comes to take life, to steal the sheep to slaughter them, but the Good Shepherd comes to preserve and to give life that is full, abundant.

Getting the life, having the life that God calls us to doesn’t mean, however, that there won’t be difficult times or pain. Nowhere in the Scripture, you see, does it tell us that we become exempt from human experience, including pain and suffering, by becoming believers. What it does say is that Christ has identified with us in our suffering -- that's what Peter, in the reading we didn’t read today, was saying when he wrote: "Christ suffered on your behalf and thereby left you an example; it is for you to follow in his footsteps."
The Shepherd and Guardian of our souls knows what we go through -- has gone through it himself and transformed it. Now suffering is no longer senseless or purposeless, like all of life itself it brings one closer to God and more in touch with our true selves. Jesus said, "I have come that they might have life and have it in all its fullness." So we must not look at suffering when and where it comes, look up to God and complain. God already knows and sent us One who identified with us in our suffering. Christ came that "we might have life and have it more abundantly," but we don't have to accept it. There are many sheep who have strayed from the embrace of the Shepherd and in response lashed out in hatred and violence. Why? Because they did not have eyes to see God's love in them, in those that they might do harm to, and in the created things they misuse to carry out their crimes.
You see, I believe the Shepherd is present and active. I believe that if we listen closely we can hear and know his voice as he calls our names. This truth may be cast in metaphorical or symbolic language, but it is also at once present and transcendent. Let me give you an example. Friday evening Julie and I went to the Pops Concert which was a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s silent film, City Lights. His little tramp character becomes enamored of a blind girl who sells flowers. He becomes concerned for her welfare and, through an odd friendship with a quirky millionaire; he helps her to get the money to recover her sight. He is falsely accused of stealing the money, ends up in jail and months go by before he sees her again, now with sight restored. She doesn’t recognize him; at first she laughs at him and sees him as some poor, funny vagrant going down the street, but takes pity on the tramp and reaches out with a flower and some money. It is when she touches him and they speak, that she recognizes him and knows her benefactor. A man she had thought was rich wasn’t. It’s a powerful moment, brought across just by facial expression, gesture and music, but you get the point….now she really sees, she knows.

It struck me that that’s what Jesus says, that the sheep know the shepherd’s voice. When we hear the story, hear the voice, feel the touch of the God who cares for us ALL we’ll know it and we must not use our limited language or our limited ability to wrap ourselves around God who is beyond our capacity to know or to think about as a means to limit the limitless God. Part of getting a life – getting the life that God intends for us – is opening ourselves to hear and thus live the story that Jesus told and that he lived in his life of love and selflessness toward God and all people.

Paul Waddell teaches Ethics at St. Norbert’s College in Green Bay. He’s written a delightful book: Happiness and the Christian Moral Life. In one chapter he examines the role of narrative, story, in human existence and asks a good question, “What makes a story worth living?” He offers a number of responses, I can’t do them all, but they include that such a story shows respect for all humanity regardless of situation, tells the truth of who we really are, moves us away from self-deception and rationalization and leads us to justice. He also says that such a story will demonstrate hospitality and openness to others. Waddell writes:

“This would particularly include the stories of the poor, the stories of the victims of society, the stories of those who are never allowed to count, the stories of those whose voices are seldom heard, and even the stories of those we take to be our enemies. Likewise, even though Christians believe that the fullest account of what it means to be human is revealed in the story of Jesus, we can learn from, and be enriched and challenged by, the narratives of other religious traditions. Something of God is revealed in Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Native American religions, or any other religious tradition. Indeed, something of God can be revealed to us in the stories of those who have nothing to do with religion and deny there is a God at all. A good story teaches us how to honor and respect other stories. Even if we never claim them as the authoritative story of our own lives, all of them can give us a richer and more insightful understanding of what it means to be human.” [p. 143]

To get a life is to become what God created us to be – to be abundantly human -- and then to live appropriately. The early church, the story we read from the Acts of the Apostles, lived a life of hospitality, generosity and thankfulness. They made a difference in the lives of the people who came their way drawing them in, loving them, reconciling and forgiving those who came, just as they had been. That’s a story worth living, a story of getting an abundant life. I can’t see a reason that Christians now can’t live the same as Christians then – it’s about letting the story make a difference in us, becoming more and more one with the Author of Life and then making a difference in the world.

It seems right to leave you with a story, because it's really the best way to talk about God and the abundant life to which we’re called. The story was told by the Indian Christian Sadhu Sundar Singh and goes like this:

”There was once a man who owned several hundred sheep. His servants used to take these sheep out for feeding, and each evening, as they brought them back, they found two or three missing. He asked his servants to go and look for them, but for fear of wild beasts, they did not trouble themselves about them. The owner had a love for them and wanted to save them. ‘If I go myself, searching for these sheep, they will not recognize me, as they have not seen me before. They would recognize my servants, but the servants will not go. So I must become like a sheep.’ He went out and found that some had gone astray and some had been wounded. They readily followed him, thinking he was a sheep like one of themselves. He brought them in and sat with them and fed them. When he had saved all the sheep and brought them home, then he took off his sheep skin. He was not a sheep, but a man. He became a sheep in order to save those lost sheep. So God is not man, He became man in order to save men.”

Jesus calls us to get an abundant life through an abundant metaphor. Listen to the story. Listen for the Good Shepherd’s voice and the Good Shepherd’s touch. Then go and live the story – in other words, get a life: an abundant one. Amen.