Catherine Toon—Year A Easter 4
Anthony: We’re into the home stretch. We’ll pivot to our final pericope of the month. It’s John 10:1–10. It is Revised Common Lectionary passage for the fourth Sunday of Easter, April 26. Catherine, do the honors for us please.
Catherine: I would love to.
“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7 So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Anthony: Whew. That’s some good news.
Catherine: Yes.
Anthony: He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And I’m thinking back to our previous passage of Jesus saying, “Mary.” And leading her out of her distress and grief. Hallelujah.
Catherine: Yeah.
Anthony: So, I’m going to invite you to contrast the shepherd and the thief.
Catherine: Yeah.
Anthony: The contrast is distinctive and it’s real. But I’m curious, in what ways might we, I don’t know, unwittingly walk in step with a thief instead of the good shepherd.
Catherine: Yeah. And I think this is part of our malady, right? When we operate from a place of separation — the Word says that we’re alienated in our minds — and there are places in our minds that are truly broken, right? Our minds, our wills, our emotions, and in those places, we can want what is destructive and reject what is life-giving.
And so, God has this ministry that he does in us in healing this, healing our will, so we want what is good. We don’t want the thief. A thief steals, right? A thief kills. A thief destroys. A thief is after what they can get at the expense of the sheep, …
Anthony: Come on.
Catherine: … at the expense of us. And the Good Shepherd is there for our wellbeing. He’s the one who loves us in our denseness. He loves us in our brilliance. He loves us on our good hair days, our bad hair days, our good behavior days, our crappy behavior days. He is wild about us and he’s not leaving us. He’s the gate through which we experience everything that is already ours in him.
So, we have intrinsic ownership to everything restored to us in Christ. And so, we’re not having to convince God to be good, to be gracious, to meet our needs and the desires of our hearts. God is personal and God is universal. He calls us by name and attunes us to his voice. And so, this is the voice from the inside out that our hearts start to resonate with as the fog starts to lift.
As we start to be able to recognize that thing that I thought would bring me life is an idol, is a thief that will sap life from me, and I can start to listen to the voice of the one who loved me and gave him himself up for me and follow that voice personally as he leads me out in wholeness, right?
The religious voices, which were the thieves. This, the context of this is the voices of religion. The people that came, the people that were false, that were posers, that were liars, condemners, and thieves. Christ is the entry point for an objective and subjective relationship with Trinity, where all life, light, truth, and love dwell, right? Where peace dwells.
Religion is like plastic fruit at best, right? It promises something. It may look good, but it destroys. There’s death in it. It steals. It’s deadly at worst. And so, this is why God hates that spirit of religion, because it harms his sheep, right? So, as we partake of Christ in all things, we partake of everything according to life and godliness and the divine nature, which is ours by partaking of him. And we can do that in abundance because we’re following the shepherd that we can trust with everything that we are.
Anthony: And I think that’s one of the reasons John the Apostle in his gospel account repeatedly talks about belief, which is translated trust. Just trust me. I am good. I am for you. I am the good shepherd.
And guess what? I came, to give you life. Matter of fact, I am your life. And in me you have abundance. So, as we close our time together, Catherine, I want to give you an opportunity to simply riff on this gospel declaration. Let’s hear some good news. Preach, preacher.
Catherine: Yay. Jesus said that I have come, I came. This is past tense, that you may have life and have it abundantly. So, God is life. You are one with the Person who is life. He. Is your life. And a little dab doesn’t do. He’s abundant in all his goodness and what he brings to us. And the more we partake of him, the more we partake of his gracious nature, the happier he is.
He wanted us to eat the entire lamb. He wanted, wants us to feed off of him. He is our source. He is the vine. We’re the branches. This is where we get to suck his goodness, partake of his goodness and fullness so that everything comes to life. What looks like it was dead is deceitful. Okay. Because the God of life is there in abundance and he also, he not only promises that, but he empowers what he promises, our ability to connect with that in a subjective thing that we just, if you’re not seeing it, just go deeper. Just go deeper. Just go deeper, because that’s where this God of life is unstoppable.
He is redeeming all things. He’s a God of abundance. He said all that he has is ours. All that he has is ours as Christ in this world. Co-heirs — that means equal heirs. This is mind-blowing stuff, but this is what the God who loved us and gave himself up for us supplies in abundance so that we get to partake and grow in life. And it is an eternal thing that cannot be taken away from us.
Anthony: The thief speaks scarcity. The good shepherd speaks life and life abundantly. Hallelujah. Praise God.
I want to, as we close up our episode, want to refer back to our good friend and uncle Karl Barth, who said this, “Christ accomplishes the reality of our reconciliation with God, not its possibility.”
So, in the reality of that objective truth, let’s live a reconciled life with our neighbors, our family, our friends, the church itself. It’s such a good life that God has given us. Catherine, I am so grateful that you joined us. You are a beloved daughter of the living God, precious in his sight. I know you know this, but may those words wash over you again.
Thank you for being with us, and I want to thank our team that makes this podcast possible. Michelle Hartman, Elizabeth Mullins, Reuel Enerio. What a wonderful team to work with, and this is our tradition here at Gospel Reverb, we like to close with the word of prayer. So, Catherine, would you pray for us and with us?
Catherine: Yes, absolutely. Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I thank you that you are God, that you are Trinity that adores us as your children, and we can receive your adoration in response and respond to that and adore you back, that we can live this life of fullness, this life of abundance, this life that has life multiplied over and over. Enlighten the eyes of our understanding so that we do know the hope of your calling in you, the glories of the riches of the inheritance in us and us as your inheritance and your mighty endless power towards us, that you are the God that doesn’t just promise, but fulfills promise, and allows us to partake of all things in you. And I thank you for blessing the eyes, blessing the ears, blessing the hearts of all of those that are listening to this podcast, that we can receive you in a fresh way. We can receive your goodness and the delight you have over us, and the fullness of what was accomplished and the hope and the peace you bring, and the vibrancy of life, so that our lives are literally being transformed and we are being transfigured from glory to glory in your image. And we thank you for that and we praise you for that. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Anthony: Amen.