Abundant Life in the Good Shepherd

This weekend in worship, we celebrated the end of Sunday School with the kids singing at Saturday service and a community meal.

The texts for this fourth Sunday of Easter (“Good Shepherd Sunday”) in Year A are Acts 2:42-47, Psalm 23, and John 10:1-10. Thanks to Bishop Michael Rinehart of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod for his reflection on Acts 2:42.
Here’s the sermon!

When I ask people for a favorite Bible passage, there are two that often come up. First, there’s John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

The other one that often comes up is the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd” that we just read together. Those are both wonderful, beautiful passages of Scripture, and they’re great to remember.

Today, I want to suggest a third one for you to remember. It’s the punchline to our Gospel reading today, the second half of John 10:10. Read it with me from the back of the bulletin. It’s the very last sentence. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

If you ever wonder why Jesus came, this is the answer. Jesus came to give abundant life.

Now, one part of that abundant life has to do with after you die. Jesus came to give us eternal life in heaven. I think we know that part pretty well. I bet I could ask just about any one of the Sunday School kids why did Jesus come, and they’d be able to tell me “Jesus came to die for our sins.” That’s important. It’s at the heart of our faith. Because God so loved the world enough to come and die for it, the gates of heaven are opened wide.

But that’s not all Jesus is saying. Being saved by Jesus is not only about having your sins forgiven so you can go to heaven. Read that last verse again with me. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

The abundant life Jesus is not just for the next world. It’s also about being forgiven and set free so you can live an abundant life here on earth.

We get confused sometimes about what abundant life means. When you picture a life of abundance, what do you see? When I hear abundance, I picture a really bad skit from when I worked at summer camp involving two dancing hot dog buns. Get it? “A bun dance?” That’s probably just me though.

Often, we think “abundant life” means having more stuff, like a nicer car, a bigger house, a boat, a cabin, a better computer or bigger television, whatever. More stuff. Those aren’t necessarily bad, although they can be, but they’re not what Jesus is talking about. Fortunately, our readings give us better pictures of the abundant life God wants for us.

First, there’s the picture in John, of the good shepherd who knows the sheep by name. The sheep know the shepherd’s voice. Jesus the good shepherd leads the sheep, guiding and protecting them. Abundant life starts with knowing the voice of the good shepherd, recognizing God guiding and protecting us.

Psalm 23 uses the same image. For a sheep, the picture of heaven must be grazing in an abundant, lush, green field, with a clear, still creek there to drink from, and the shepherd keeping watch. With God as our shepherd, we can trust that whatever happens, nothing can separate us from God’s love. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, even in the darkest valleys of life, God is walking on the journey with us, watching, comforting us.

Knowing God is on our side allows us to live a life of freedom, free from worrying about needing to have everything figured out, free from worrying about what could happen in the future.

Moving on from Psalm 23, another image of abundant life is the church. On Thursday, I posted pictures on the St. Peter Lutheran Church Facebook page of some of our youth and adults deep-cleaning in our building. At first, I wrote as a caption, “Thanks to everyone who helped clean the church last night!”

And then I realized that wasn’t quite right, because it wasn’t the church that got deep-cleaned, just the church building. The church is not a building. In fact, any time I say “church” and mean the building, I want you to correct me. The church is a group of people, you and I, gathered together. The church is the flock of sheep, not the pasture.

In the reading from Acts 2, Luke describes the church by listing what it does. He lists four things. Read with me the first sentence from that Acts 2 reading. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

First, there’s the apostle’s teaching. Our life as Christians depends on good teaching, knowing the story of our faith. To figure out how God wants us to live, we need to know what God says. We need to read and study God’s word, because that’s where we find our story.

Second, they devoted themselves to fellowship. Fellowship here is more than just time drinking coffee before or after a worship service. Fellowship means participating in one another’s lives.

It’s showing up for each other, celebrating and grieving together. It means being real with each other. The abundant life God calls us to is not meant to be lived alone; we’re meant to live as a community. Sheep get stressed when they’re separated from their flock.

Third, the breaking of the bread. On one level, this is a continuation of fellowship. It’s eating together, gathering around a table and talking together, interacting with each other. Most of Jesus’ ministry took place around shared meals, like we’ll have after worship tonight.

On another level, it’s the sacred meal we eat together, holy communion. The tiny piece of bread and the little sip of wine we’ll take in a few minutes is just a taste of the feast to come. This is the feast where God gathers all people, all God’s sheep, from throughout time and space to join together in Christ’s body.

Fourth, Luke says the people of God devote themselves to prayer. This isn’t just saying the Lord’s prayer at the end of a meeting, or before a meal. It’s a life of prayer, a life of talking with God and listening for God. It’s bringing every concern that weighs us down, bringing everything we carry to God.

The abundant life Jesus calls us to is not about having more stuff. It’s not even about doing the right things. It’s about living with purpose, following our shepherd.

Maybe abundant life looks like more generosity, providing for one another’s needs as Luke goes on to describe. Maybe it looks like overcoming fears of nursing homes and taking time to visit people, like Jo Ann talked about.

Maybe abundant life looks like believing there is someone who knows your name and cares about your story. Maybe it looks like children singing in worship. Maybe it looks like helping others live abundantly.

May you be blessed to live the abundant life to which the Good Shepherd calls you.
Amen.