Easter 4B, April 26, 2015, St. Stephen’s
Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10: (7-10)11-18
I find myself watching less and less TV these days. For one thing there aren’t that many shows I’m actually interested in. But I also find that the constant bombardment of ads and depictions of people who look far better than I ever did or will and who have far more money than I ever will, tiring. Day in and day out we all face a steady stream of advertisements, TV shows, stories and social pressures telling us that we can and should have ‘more’ - more money, more possessions, more (or at least more expensive) cars, more sex, more ... whatever. The ads that bombard us are especially insidious because they tell you in various, often subtle ways, that you are insufficient as you are, that you are not good enough and don’t have enough. Even more dangerously at some level they try to influence you to think you are not even worthy of love and respect and happiness unless you make yourself worthy. That is, ads work precisely by trying to create in us a sense of lack, a sense of profound insufficiency. And then of course they try to convince us that the only way to satisfy that lack is to buy the product in question. Now at some level, we all know that what they promise is a lie. Buying ‘things’ or even experiences, no matter how nice, won’t ever fill our sense of need or rid us of that sense of ‘lack’. In fact, disappointed once again, you may just end up going shopping again - or overeating, or shooting up, or settling for someone who doesn't value you, or whatever - hoping that this time it'll work and you will have abundant life.
In today’s passage Jesus makes a promise, a life-changing promise – that we are worthy of truly abundant life: "I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly." In some ways that kind of sounds likes the same promise as the ads. But this isn’t just an empty promise; Jesus ‘puts his money where his mouth is’ as we might say. Or, perhaps we could say, he puts his life where his promise is when he’s willing to lay down his life to offer us abundant life.
Which raises the question, why does Jesus the good shepherd lay down his life? And in many ways, the answer we find in John’s gospel is that he does so to tell us that we are, in fact, ‘enough’. As John tells the story, despite what some branches of Christianity assert, Jesus doesn't die in order to make some kind of payment to God or to satisfy God's wrath or to pay the penalty for sin. Instead, Jesus is the Revealer, the One who comes to make the invisible God visible and the unapproachable God accessible. Jesus comes to reveal that God already loves the whole world. Jesus comes, that is, to tell us that we are already beloved, that we are enough, and we don’t need those shoes or books or reputation or high status job or big bank account or list of achievements or anything else to be deserving of that love. We’ve already got God's unconditional and unending love – and Jesus came so that we could see and truly believe it and then live our life in the light of that love.
The idea that we are ‘enough’ as we are, that we are worthy as we are – even with all our failings and our shortcomings, isn’t just a nice comforting message – believing it, truly believing it deep down, is vitally important to our ability to live the abundant life God wants for us. Because to live an abundant life we need to be vitally connected to others. As humans we’re hardwired for connection – that’s why putting someone in solitary confinement is considered cruel. And as it turns out, feeling worthy is vital to the ability to connect well with others and therefore to living that abundant life.
Some of you may be familiar with the work of Dr. Brené Brown. If you aren’t I really encourage you to watch her TED talk. Dr. Brown studies human connection - our ability to empathize, belong, love. When Dr Brown did her research she found that there’s only one thing that’s different between people who have a strong sense of being loved and belonging, and people who don’t. And the one thing that separates those two experiences of life is that the ones who have a sense of being loved and belonging, believe that they’re worthy of being loved. And the people who don’t feel they are loved and belong in the way they would like to be, don’t, in fact, feel they’re worthy of it. She showed in her research that vulnerability and the ability to be authentically who we actually are, and not who we think we should be, is critical to our ability to connect and love and live a wholehearted life. And if you think about it this makes perfect sense. Because in order to feel loved, we have to allow ourselves to be known and if we don’t think we’re loveable we aren’t likely to let people see who we really are. And the only way you can know you really are loved and accepted is if you stop pretending to be someone else; otherwise, you can never know for sure if the other person loves you or the person you’re pretending to be.
But allowing yourself to be known is risky. To let others see us as we are requires courage, compassion for ourselves as well as others, and deep, deep vulnerability. Because the person you reveal your true self to may not like you, they may in fact, reject you, or run away from you. It’s happened to all of us at some point in our life and it hurts so much most us spend a lot of time and energy trying to make sure it won’t ever happen again. So we face the great conundrum of human life – in order to receive what we most deeply want and need, we have to be vulnerable to what we most deeply fear.
Frequently we try to cope with our vulnerability by trying to control our emotions or mask them through things like working hard, trying to achieve higher status, trying to control the world around us, taking drugs of various kinds both legal and illegal, buying stuff, eating etc etc. But the problem is if you numb the hard feelings you also numb joy, gratitude, happiness …and then, of course, then we’re miserable and it becomes a nasty cycle.
To live an abundant life we need to let ourselves be deeply seen even when we know some people may not like what they see, and we need to love with our whole heart even when there’s no guarantee we’ll be loved in return. We need to practice gratitude and joy even when we don’t know what the future will give us. And we have to believe we are ‘enough’. Because when we allow ourselves to actually believe we’re enough, we’re kinder and gentler to the people around us and to ourselves. We ‘let people in’ and so we help to create abundant life not only for ourselves but for others as well.
Our world is full of so many messages trying to tell us that we are not enough. But Jesus assures us he’s the Good Shepherd who leads us to abundant life - simply out of love. Simply because we are worthy of being loved. Make no mistake, that message can be very hard for us to believe at times. It isn’t easy to live a vulnerable, whole-hearted life. But that’s the life Jesus came to show us how to live.
It’s precisely because it is so hard for so many of us to believe that we’re worthy of being loved that we need to hear Jesus' message of love and acceptance again and again. Not just in a sermon, but by all of us on an ongoing basis. We all need to hear and believe this message of grace and acceptance and then to share it with each other. This is part of what it means to belong to the Body of Christ - to remind each other of God's promises and speak Jesus' message of love, acceptance, and grace to each other. That isn’t the job of the ordained – it’s the responsibility of everyone! Each and every one of us is loved by the Good Shepherd, the one who comes to bring us to abundant life - telling us in word and deed that we are enough, we are worthy of love.
You, you are a beloved child of God, and you are enough!