Fruit Connection

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

John 15:1-8; Isaiah 5:1-7

March 22, 2015 • Portage First UMC

I’ve never been much of a gardener. My dad is good at it; he always had a big garden when I was growing up, and we spent many hours in late summer on the back patio snapping green beans and helping with other gardening chores. But I did not inherit his green thumb, though at two of the three parsonages we’ve lived in, I’ve tried my hand at it. In both Muncie and here, the parsonage had a garden space, and I feel guilty if I don’t plant something in that space. So I’ve tried a lot of different vegetables in the sandy ground that surrounds our home here. I even tried corn once; that didn’t work well. Peppers wouldn’t grow, at least under my guiding hand. Cucumbers did all right, as did green beans when I could keep the rabbits from eating them. About the only thing I’ve been consistently successful at growing is tomatoes—which, of course, is God’s little joke on me because I don’t eat tomatoes. But Cathy loves them, and most summers she’s had plenty to enjoy.

And then there is our grapevine. Ten years ago, when we arrived in Portage, Pastor Mary had planted a grapevine along the fence and she told me in another couple of years it would be producing grapes. So I watched it grow and, periodically, I’ve given you updates, especially the time when I got so excited at seeing little, tiny round grape-like things starting to grow. I began to have visions of using the grapes to make jellies and jams and maybe even juice for communion here at church. And I watched and I waited, and nothing ever came of it. No grapes grew. So about four years ago, I tore out the vine. Pulled every single vine out of the fence and cut it down to the ground. If it wasn’t going to produce, I wasn’t going to have it taking up space and making a mess. Vines are sneaky. I learned that because when I left for the Holy Land in 2012, the vine began to grow back. We were gone just a little over two weeks, in those two weeks, that vine grew back stronger than it had ever been. It taunts me as it grows along the fence, promising much but never producing. And when I look at it these days, I can’t help but think of Jesus’ claim to be “the vine.”

This morning, we’re continuing our Lenten journey through the “I am” statements of Jesus found throughout the Gospel of John as we seek to encounter “The God We Can Know.” So far, we’ve looked at Jesus’ claim to be the bread of life, the light of the world and the good shepherd. This morning, we’re going to jump ahead just a bit chronologically as we look at the last of the “I am” statements John reports Jesus saying: “I am the vine” (Card, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, pg. 167). In the next couple of weeks, up through Easter, we’ll come back and pick up the other ones; we’re saving those sayings because they take on special significance as we get closer to the cross and the empty tomb. But today, we want to join Jesus on the final walk he took with his disciples, where he shared one last image with them, one final illustration to help them understand what their life with him was going to look like from this moment on. Unlike the other sayings, this one was just for the disciples, so as we explore its meaning today, we’ll ask the questions we’ve been asking all along: what did the disciples hear when Jesus said this? What did he mean? And what does it mean for us today?

So in John 15, we are past the Last Supper and the washing of the disciples’ feet. At the end of chapter 14, Jesus’ last words are, “Come now, let us leave,” and so the next three chapters take place during their walk from the Upper Room, at one end of the Kidron Valley, to Gethsemane, at the other end of the valley. That would have been a twenty to twenty-five minute walk, and even today, it’s not an easy walk. On one of our trips to Jerusalem, we asked our guide if some of us could walk it, and he told us no. It wasn’t safe, and it wasn’t easy—then or now. On that last night Jesus had with his disciples, they would have left the upper room perhaps sometime after 11:00 p.m., which means it would be rather dark save for the full moon that is present at Passover time (cf. Hamilton, Journey to the Cross, pg. 40; 24 Hours That Changed the World, pg. 31). During this walk, Jesus knows he only has a short time to communicate some intimate, personal things to these men he loved so much, the ones who would carry on his mission, and so he uses this walk to do just that. The whole narrative reads rather disjointedly, which you would expect from a walk conversation, especially one in which Jesus is trying to share so much in a short time. But as they left the upper city, where the Passover feast took place, they head east and then north toward a grove of olive trees where they often went for prayer. Shortly after leaving the Upper Room, they would have passed by the south entrance of the Temple, over which was a huge sculpted vine, an ancient symbol of Israel. It’s very likely that, as they stood near or passed by that symbol, Jesus said to his followers, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener…I am the vine; you are the branches” (15:1, 5; Card 167; Hamilton 24 33; Tenney, “The Gospel of John,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, pg. 150).

Viticulture (I learned a new word this week), or the practice of tending vineyards, was a common occupation in Israel during this time. The disciples would certainly have been familiar with the ways vines were tended, cultivated, harvested and how the fruit was turned into wine (Tenney 150). Still today in parts of Israel and Palestine, you can see where the land has been terraced so as to turn a hilly property into a series of flat spaces, like stair steps up the side of a hill. That way, vines can be grown and wine can be made (Wight, Manners and Customs of Bible Land, pg. 188). In fact, grapes and winemaking were a huge part of the first century economy, alongside olives and livestock (NIDOTB, Vol. 1, pgs. 74-79). So maybe out of all of Jesus’ statements, this one brings the most vivid images to the disciples’ minds. They knew what a vine, a grapevine, looked like.

More than that, the vine had been a symbol of Israel for a long time, as indicated by the huge stone vine on the side of the Temple entrance. Some even call the vine a “national symbol” of Israel, sort of like how the eagle is a national symbol of America (cf. Fuquay, The God We Can Know, pg. 73). And there was and is precedent for that all through the Old Testament. In Psalm 80, Asaph the psalmist remembers Israel’s history in terms of being a vine, brought out of Egypt: “You transplanted a vine from Egypt,” he sings, “you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land” (80:8-9). Isaiah is even more clear. He writes this: “My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines” (5:1-2). A few verses down from that, he says this: “The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in” (5:7). But, lest they begin to take pride in being God’s vine, it’s also clear in Isaiah that the nation has not produced what God expected them to produce. Isaiah 5:2 says, “Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.” And then, Isaiah goes on to say, “Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there” (5:5-6). The vine was the symbol of Israel, but the fruit it produced was bad. Isaiah told the people they were not the people God had hoped they would become. That imagery was surely in the minds of those who passed by the giant stone vine on the Temple, not the least of which were those disciples on that dark, moonlit night as they headed toward Gethsemane (cf. Tenney 150).

There are two huge images, then, that Jesus is trying to communicate here as he walks with his friends, two words we would do well to remember. Those words are “cut” and “prune.” Jesus puts it this way: “He [God the Father, the Gardener] cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful” (15:2). Those sound like the same thing in a way, but cutting off and pruning are two different actions; they have different ends. One of the tasks of a gardener is to monitor the vine, to keep a watch on it so that he, the gardener, knows exactly how it’s growing. That probably explains my epic failure as a vine grower, since I would only look at the vine once every two or three or more weeks. A good gardener, a true gardener, one whose livelihood depends on the health of the vine, keeps constant watch over the vine. You see, a vine left untended will put all of its energy into growing more and more and more vine. And the more vine grows, the more tangled the plant becomes. Eventually, the vines on the top will be stealing all the sunlight, and without light, the branches that are at the bottom will wither and die (Wright, John for Everyone, Part Two, pg. 69). Dead branches, of course, no longer take sap or energy from the vine, but it does take strength and energy for the vine to hold up the dead branches (Fuquay 79). Holding onto dead weight takes a lot of effort. Beyond that, the dead branches are of no use to the vine or to anyone.

So, a good gardener comes along and cuts off the dead branches. They are gathered and burned, because dead grape branches were of no use to anyone in the first century. In order for the vine as a whole to be healthy, sometimes the dead parts or the parts that are sucking the life out of the vine need to be cut off and forgotten. Now, think with me about how that applies to followers of Jesus. Jesus is the vine, he says, and we are the branches. He is the main plant; he is the one who is giving life and health and strength out to the branches, sustaining the branches. Without him, we have no life. But there are branches that sometimes need to be cut off. Let me put it as plainly as I can: that can be true of our individual lives and it can be true of our church life. If the church is the Body of Christ, if we are branches on the vine, then there can be, Jesus says, dead branches, life-sucking branches that the Father will cut off. Sometimes in your life or in the life of an organization like the church, those dead branches come in the form of people who take and take and take and demand attention and rarely see beyond their own lives. And it’s easy for us to get sucked into their lives. One of the things we talked about when we did Stephen Ministry training is that we must not give in to feeling guilty when we find we have to walk away from certain situations. Sometimes, it’s simply not healthy to stay connected because it’s easier for them to pull us away from the life-giving vine than it is for us to pull them back to the vine. Every branch that does not bear fruit, that does not give life, is cut away.

Sometimes the dead branches that need to be cut off are things we’re holding onto in our past—things like regrets and resentments, anger and bitterness, envy and just generally living in the past and rehearsing old hurts. Those can become dead branches that weigh us down and take us away from the best God has for us. Have you known someone who is continually focused on their anger or their bitterness or what someone supposedly did to them years ago? It’s hard if not impossible for those folks to enjoy the life and the abundance that Jesus the vine offers if they are insistent on harboring dead branches. The question we have to ask of each branch, of each part of our lives, according to Jesus, is whether or not fruit is evident. Every dead branch must be cut away for us to find the life that really is life.

Then Jesus says there’s this other practice that happens in viticulture (if I learned the word, I’m going to use it!); that practice is pruning. The word he uses here is very close to the word used for “clean” in verse 3, where Jesus tells these disciples, “You are already clean [or pure] because of the word I have spoken to you” (15:3). Jesus is drawing a connection between being pruned and being clean or pure (Wright 70). But what does it mean to “prune” the vine? Pruning takes place not on the dead wood; pruning takes place on the branches that are, in fact, already producing fruit. Good, healthy branches need pruning or else they will spend their energy producing more branches rather than doing what they were meant to do, to create grapes, better fruit. It’s a trimming process, and for the follower of Jesus it means that we submit to having other goals and ambitions cut away. It’s a process of having our focus put on being fruitful for the gardener, for our Master. Such a process led Paul to declare, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10). Paul had all sorts of ambitions and goals when he was a young man, but it took Jesus knocking him off a horse, removing his eyesight for three days and exposing him to the power of the message about the cross for Paul to become focused on one clear goal: to know Christ and, thereby, to preach Christ. That’s some pretty serious pruning! It was pruning that caused philosopher Soren Kierkegaard to declare that purity of heart is to will one thing. One thing! That’s what Jesus is getting at here. When he says the disciples are “clean” or “pure,” he’s focusing them. Lots of things were going to happen in the next few hours, but they needed to stay focused on one thing, on the most important thing. They had been pruned; their old ambitions and goals had been stripped away until they were focused on Jesus. In the next few hours, they would face more pruning yet, and in the end, they would emerge as people focused on one goal: to tell the story of Jesus. Pruning is whatever comes to us that helps us focus on and realize what is most important (cf. Tenney 151).

Rachel was not very old, somewhere around a year, when we discovered that there was a problem with her kidneys. Her pediatrician had blown it off, accused me of worrying too much, so we took her to another doctor who found the problem. Hopefully, we were told, she would grow out of it. Her cousin, my brother’s daughter, who had the exact same issue, did grow out of it, but as each year passed, it became apparent Rachel would not. Every year we would take her down to Riley Hospital in Indianapolis, and every year, as we prepared for the trip down there and as we traveled, I would have this “poor me” feeling creep into my heart, life and attitude. On one of the years where it was getting closer to her needing surgery, I was feeling especially sorry for myself—not for Rachel, for myself—and we found that we had some extra time between appointments, so we wandered over to the McDonald’s that is in the lobby of Riley Hospital. As we walked, we saw so many kids who were going through so many different sorts of struggles, and suddenly the Master Gardener began to work on my branch. God began to whisper to my heart, “Do you see these families? They are going through much worse than you are. Perhaps you should stop focusing on yourself and be a light shining in the midst of so much darkness that is here.” Snip, snip—pruning taking place. As I listened to the Spirit of God speaking to my spirit, I began to realize that, though Rachel’s illness was not something God caused or something we wanted, God could use it and use us in the time we were there. That wasn’t the first time or the last time that God pruned my heart, that God called me beyond myself to see possibilities, even in the difficult places, for me to bear fruit. If we’re listening, we can hear his voice in our hearts probably every day as he prunes us, shapes us, and makes us able to bear even more and better fruit, to focus on what is most important.

But do you know something I have discovered each and every time I’ve gone through pruning? It’s in those times, when I open my life to the pruning shears of the great Gardener, that I grow the most in my faith journey. And that makes sense, because it’s also at that time when the Gardener is closest to us. That’s true in pruning grape vines; the gardener is never closer physically to the vine, nor is he ever more concerned about the health and well-being of the vine, than he is when he is going through the process of pruning (cf. Wright 71). Though pruning in our lives may be difficult and it may hurt, God is with us every step of the way. He is closest to us during our most difficult times.

So, what does all of this mean for us? What does this “I am” statement have to say about our place in the world, our purpose in life? Jesus says the purpose of the branches is to bear “much fruit,” and by such fruit we will show ourselves to be his disciples (15:8). A bit earlier in the evening, Jesus had told these same men that the way the world would know they were his disciples is if they love one another (13:35). “A new command I give you,” he said as they sat at the table. “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (13:34), and then just a bit later, he told them, “If you love me, keep my commands” (14:15). So the fruit we are to bear, the life we are to live is connected to love—and not the mushy, Hallmark kind of love. This is agape—self-sacrificial love. The kind of love God has for us. The kind of love that is willing to lay down its life for the other person. He prunes us so that we can love more, so that we can bear much fruit. If we’re not growing in love, if we don’t love others more now than we did, say, a year ago, we have to question if we’re really allowing God to work in us, to prune us. We have to wonder if we might be in danger of being dead wood that is cut out.

Paul picked up on this same theme in his letter to the Galatians, where he talks about what the evidence is of Christ working in us. He says anyone can see the evidence that God is not working in us—things like rage, selfish ambition, hatred, discord, envy and even worse things show up in our lives (Galatians 5:19-21). Those things, Paul seems to say, are easy. Anyone can do them. They are our “natural” state. But there is another way to live, Paul says, another character we can allow to grow in us. He calls it, in the tradition of Jesus, the “fruit of the spirit.” Maybe you remember the list: “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance [or patience], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (5:22-23). I don’t think Paul just happened to put “love” at the top of the list because it seems that all the rest of the fruit flow out of love. Without love, the rest of the fruit are impossible. Elsewhere, of course, Paul tells us that the greatest of all characteristics is love (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:3) because it is the most Christ-like. As we become more loving we become more like Jesus, the one who forgave even the people who were nailing him to the cross. God the Gardener prunes us so that we will become more like his son, but to be able to do that fully we have to stay connected to Jesus. He says we are the branches, he is the vine, and if a branch isn’t connected to the vine, it’s useless and soon dead.

So how do we stay connected to Jesus? First of all, we have to stay in the word. Jesus says pruning takes place through the word that is spoken to the disciples (15:3). For those of us who live two thousand years after Jesus walked the earth, pruning takes place through the word that has been preserved for us in the Scriptures. It’s absolutely essential to us as followers of Jesus to stay connected to him through studying the Scriptures and listening to the ways he speaks to us through this word. So that includes personal study of the Scriptures, setting aside some time each day to read and allow the words of the Bible to point you toward the Word of God, Jesus. I’m not saying it’s easy to find that time; you have to set it aside or it will never happen. For me, as I’ve shared before, that’s the first thing I do every morning. I have a place in our home where I go each morning after waking Rachel up for school and that’s my reading and prayer place. If I don’t keep that appointment every morning, my whole day is off and I feel disconnected. I need that time to hear from God. Some mornings the Scripture jumps off the page at me and sometimes I may not “hear” anything through my reading. That’s okay, because I know God is using that word to shape and prune me even when I don’t know it or realize it. And I find that, as I read the Scriptures over and over year by year, God speaks to me in new and sometimes surprising ways even though I’ve read that psalm or that parable before.

And while personal study is vital, so is coming together with the body of Christ to read and study. For ten years now, I’ve shared over and over again my desire and goal that each and every person who is connected with Portage First be a part of a small group that connects to the Scriptures and connects to each other. We’ve made some progress, but there is still a long way to go. Are you involved in a small group, whether it’s one we “officially” sponsor or not? Are you connected to a group that helps you connect to the savior? It might be a Sunday School class or a FISH group or some other small group. But being part of a community, a group that helps us grow, is essential to staying connected to the vine—at least in part because it’s only in community that we can really learn to love others, even those who irritate us, whom we don’t like, or who aren’t like us. Love grows, sometimes with difficulty but it grows nonetheless, in community.

There are other practices, disciplines that help us remain in Jesus as well, and we talk about many of them often. Prayer is the ongoing conversation we have with our Gardener, as he often directs our growth and shows us areas where we most need pruning. Baptism and communion are physical acts that demonstrate our desired connection with Jesus. In some respects, they are acts that announce our “branch” status, our connection to the vine and our desire to bear fruit. John Wesley listed several other practices, which he called “means of grace,” that can help us become and stay connected to the vine, things such as fasting (going without something for a time so that we can spend that time connecting with Jesus), attending worship, healthy living, sharing our faith with others, and Christian conferencing (or seeking the input of others in our decisions). All of those are good and helpful and important, but I want to suggest one more that I hadn’t thought of until I had a conversation with another pastor this week. We were talking about the Lenten season and things that help us grow, and he mentioned how he finds it helpful to read biographies of great Christian saints—and not necessarily “saints” in the traditional, canonized sense, but people who have served God faithfully and well. As we talked, I realized that I have often found myself encouraged in my faith and better challenged to live a life of love when I read a story or a book like that. There’s something about hearing someone else’s story and the way Jesus has worked in their lives that spurs us on and calls us to greater faithfulness. Perhaps that’s a practice that would help you this Lenten season, not replacing Scripture reading but in addition to it. Scripture is always primary, and then God gives us other opportunities to grow the fruit that he longs to see in us.

And one more thing: everything we do is done for God’s glory and not our own. We most often give lip service to wanting God to receive the glory. We sing about it here at church, we may even talk about it in small groups, but then we spend most of the week trying to get glory and notice and recognition for ourselves. Jesus reminds us that we are branches, connected to the vine, and any fruit we grow, any results we bear are only due to what we receive from the vine—from him. He gives us life. He gives us strength. He gives us whatever abilities we have. He helps us love those who are difficult to love. And he prunes us to make us better, stronger, more loving. For all of those reasons, we are called to give God the glory, to pray along with the psalmist, “Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness” (Psalm 115:1). We live for the sake of God’s glory.

Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches…apart from me you can do nothing.” But with him and in him, all things are possible…even loving one another. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray.

The Best of the Worst

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

John 10:11-21; Isaiah 43:1-7

March 15, 2015 • Portage First UMC

In our backyard, growing up in the big town of Sedalia, Indiana, were several paths. Our yard was not large, but our dog was. We had a collie, beautiful dog named Princess, and several times a day, she would make the trip from the back patio to the back fence to be able, I guess, to look over at the neighbors’ homes and see what was going on. Princess wore a path from the patio to the fence because she took the exact same route every day, several times a day. And, of course, with two boys in the house, we put that path to good use ourselves, making much of it the line from home plate to first base in our makeshift baseball/kickball field. We wore out paths around our diamond, too, though not as deeply as Princess did. The yard took many years to recover from the dog and the boys and our paths.

In many places where we go, we find well-worn paths, routes that lead us to the familiar. We even do it metaphorically when we choose the same place to sit in church every week. How many of you do that, you sit in the same general place week after week and you’re a bit disconcerted when someone takes your place? It’s always fun for me, when we have combined services, to watch people try to figure out where to sit when someone else is in their spot! In my last appointment, we had a dear elderly couple who, every Sunday, would come into church and argue over which pew was theirs. They couldn’t worship until they were in their well-worn seats.

You see, we like the familiar, the known. When I go to Starbucks in the morning, I have my seat, my place where I hang out and I don’t like it when someone else is sitting there. When we go to restaurants, I always chuckle at Cathy because she will look at the menu, from start to finish, and then order the same thing she always orders. She has one familiar dish at most every place we eat. We even all develop certain places we enjoy eating, or being, or events we love attending, movies we love watching. We have favorite shows we’ll watch over and over again because they’re familiar. You may be able to repeat every single line in the movie, and yet there’s a comfort in the familiarity. Familiarity breeds security. Well-worn paths give us a sense that all is well, that we’re protected and safe in a world that often does not feel all that safe. And that’s partly why the church year exists, why we go through seasons like Advent and Christmas and Lent and Easter each and every year. Those seasons are well-worn paths in our life that are familiar, comfortable and comforting. No matter how many times we’ve heard the stories, there is still something powerful in reliving, rehearing and re-walking this path. For me, that’s especially true of Lent; it is a well-worn path that takes me in my mind and heart to other well-worn paths outside of and around Jerusalem. Lent brings an odd sense of security to my heart and life.

I think it’s in that same sense that we also love this third “I Am” statement of Jesus. As you probably remember by now, we are taking this Lenten season and walking through these curious statements Jesus made in the Gospel of John, statements describing himself. We began by looking at Jesus’ claim to be “The God We Can Know,” and in the last couple of weeks, we’ve talked about his claim to be the bread of life and the light of the world. But this week’s “I Am” statement is one we’ve maybe heard the most. Maybe you remember seeing it in a stained-glass window at a childhood church, or you remember language about Jesus being a shepherd from one of the first funerals you attended. In the midst of continuing controversy with the religious leaders, Jesus makes a statement that uses what was, for the Jews, a well-worn path: “I am the good shepherd” (10:11). This statement is also tied to another “I Am” statement, “I am the gate” (10:7), and though our small groups and study book will consider these two statements together, we’re going to look at them separately, coming back to the “gate” statement on Maundy Thursday. Today, I want us to focus on the image of Jesus as shepherd, as we ask the same questions we’ve asked these last few weeks. (You can probably say them with me by now!) What did the crowd hear when Jesus said this? What did Jesus mean? And what does it mean for us?

So, John says, this takes place in the midst of the ongoing dispute or argument with a group called the Pharisees. You may remember that the Pharisees were only one group within the larger faith of Judaism, but in the first century they were a growing and powerful group whose focus was on the law, following the law to the letter. I’ve said it before—Jesus never argues with their theology. In terms of what they believe about God, the Pharisees and Jesus probably have more in common than they have to argue about. What gets Jesus upset with them is the ways they fail to live out what they believe. In fact, Jesus told the people, in Matthew’s Gospel, to do what the Pharisees told them to do, but to not do what the Pharisees do. “They do not practice what they preach,” he says (Matthew 23:1-3). This teaching, then, he directs to the Pharisees, calling them “thieves and robbers” who are trying to steal God’s sheep. And then he says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (10:11).

That word, “shepherd,” is a loaded one. When we think of shepherds, we usually picture quiet, pastoral scenes—sheep grazing quietly while a shepherd with a wooden crook stands nearby. And there are images like that in the Old Testament. Moses is described as a shepherd, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro during his forty years of exile in the wilderness (Exodus 3:1), and David, the greatest king Israel ever knew, was a shepherd when he was a boy (1 Samuel 16:11). In fact, he was called in from tending the sheep so that the prophet Samuel could tell him he’d been chosen to be king. And David, in turn, called God a shepherd. His famous psalm, Psalm 23, continues to be favorite of so many people and has been read at nearly every funeral I’ve ever done or been to: “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing” (Psalm 23:1). Jeremiah talks about God gathering his people as a flock (23:3) and Ezekiel talks about God tending his people as sheep. Listen to these comforting words: “As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered” (34:12). There’s all this powerful and positive imagery from the Old Testament around shepherds (cf. Tenney, “The Gospel of John,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, pg. 109).

But by the first century, shepherds were not well-thought-of. They were on, if not the lowest, then one of the lowest rungs of society. Some would say they were “the worst” of society. The rabbis had declared that they were not able to testify in court; their witness was unreliable (Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 48). Even more than that, their occupation, working with animals all the time, kept them continually unclean and prohibited them from participating in worship. It would be like us stopping each person on the way in to worship here, asking what they do for a living, and sending away people who had particular professions. Because of their job, a job that was, by the way, prevalent in Judea, they weren’t allowed to worship (Keener, Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, pg. 194). And in general, despite all of those pastoral and beautiful images from the Scriptures, people didn’t like shepherds much. Some of that may have been the fact that shepherds were poor, generally didn’t own land of their own, and so they grazed their sheep on everyone else’s land. They were squatters, of a sort. I suppose they took their sheep one place and when they were run off of that land, they just took them somewhere else. In many people’s minds, shepherds were the worst of society. And Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.” Did they even know what to make of a “good” shepherd? Many of them might think of David, but he had lived a long time ago. The wouldn’t label as “good” the shepherds they knew. Could there even be such a thing as a “best of the worst”? Jesus says there is, and he’s it.

So what did he mean by that statement? Well, to get at that, we need to see how he pictures it. He is contrasting himself here with a hireling, and since he’s talking to the Pharisees, we can pretty much assume he’s equating the Pharisees with the hireling. Here’s what he says: there are two kinds of folks who tend sheep. Hired hands are just that. They look at shepherding as a job, a paycheck. And then a predator, a wolf comes along and attacks the flock. What does the hireling do? He heads for the hills. They’re just stupid sheep, after all; no use risking your life for a paycheck. So says the hireling—because he’s not a true shepherd. He’s not a good shepherd. He doesn’t care for the sheep. But Jesus says a true shepherd is one for whom shepherding is not a job; it’s a life. A true shepherd was born to the job and began tending sheep almost as soon as he could walk. The sheep are his friends and companions, and he doesn’t even think twice of defending the flock when the wolves attack. In fact, as Jesus says, “the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (10:11; cf. Barclay, The Gospel of John, Volume 2, pg. 61). The difference, really, is not so much about action but attitude. The hireling may do the job but he won’t endanger his life for the sheep. The shepherd, the good shepherd, will do absolutely anything to care for the sheep (cf. Tenner 109). Jesus, then, is one who will do absolutely anything for those under his care, for his family, including taking a fate that was meant for them. After all, he says, that is the very definition of love: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Jesus will do that; the Pharisees (the hirelings) will not.

Jesus also speaks of a welcome that comes by him being the good shepherd. We are welcomed into his flock. As I mentioned, the term “shepherd” was used for both God and of God’s servants. In other words, Jesus is, in some sense, telling us he is fully divine and fully human (Rawle, “The Good and Not So Simple Shepherd,” http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/5857/the-good-and-not-so-simple-shepherd). He is God made flesh, something John has been reminding us all along. And then Jesus says, in this passage, “The Father knows me and I know the Father” (10:15). Later on in this chapter, he will go on to tell the religious leaders, “I and the Father are one” (10:30). Only that kind of shepherd could truly welcome all into his flock. Jesus says, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also…there shall be one flock and one shepherd” (10:16). A lot of people argue about who the “other sheep” are, and most of the arguments today seem to ignore the context in which Jesus is speaking. Again, who is he talking to? Jews, the chosen people, the Pharisees in particular who believed they had an “in” with God just because of their ethnic background. But Jesus has a much larger mission in mind, one that includes you and me, the Gentiles. He’s already reached out to several Gentiles in the book of John—most notably the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. The “other sheep” Jesus has in mind are you and me, and he intends to welcome even those of us who are not part of the first flock. He will be our shepherd as well. All that’s required of us is that we listen to his voice and follow him, trusting him and doing as he commands (cf. Tenney 109). 

And that leads us directly to the third thing Jesus is saying when he calls himself the “Good Shepherd.” He knows us by name. Good shepherds not only knew how many sheep they had, how large their flock was, but they knew each sheep by name. When Jesus says, “I know my sheep and my sheep know me” (10:14), it’s not just about recognizing the other person or the animal. The word “know” there has the sense of trust, intimacy (Tenney 109). You’re not just a number to God. A baby born today is not human number seven billion and some. The good shepherd knows the name of all of his sheep; he knows them that well. In the Old Testament, there’s this beautiful picture in the book of Isaiah, where God is speaking to his people in the midst of a difficult time, and he wants to reassure them, to give them hope. He says this: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine” (43:1). To the Good Shepherd, you are not, “Hey, You!” You are [names]. He calls you by name.

And all of that is what makes him good, in contrast to the hireling. The word “good” there might be better translated as “beautiful” or “lovely.” There are other words in the Greek language that can be translated as “good.” The word here specifically refers to attractiveness, kindness, graciousness. We’re not talking about physical attractiveness; rather, the word has the sense of someone whom you want to be around, someone that in some sense draws you to himself, fills in a part you didn’t know was missing. In other words, when this shepherd calls, people want to come. They hear their name being called and they want to respond. The Good Shepherd calls us by name, and we want to respond…and that makes me wonder what it is that’s getting in the way today that causes people to not hear him call and not draw near to him. What is it that blocks the world’s hearing of his call today? Perhaps it’s us (cf. Barclay 63; Wright, John for Everyone, Part One, pg. 154).

So if we’re to live out the message of the good shepherd in a way that draws others to him, how do we do that? What does Jesus’ claim to be the “Good Shepherd” mean for us today? If the shepherd first of all provides protection or salvation for the sheep, then does Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, do that for us? Well, yes, absolutely. That was what he came to do, to give his life to save the world from sin. John famously put it this way earlier in his Gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). I learned that, and maybe you did too, when I was very young. And that’s a vital verse, but so is the next one, and a whole lot fewer people know it. John goes on to say, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17). If you watch the behavior of many Christians today, you’d think that verse wasn’t in the Bible. More people know what Christians are against than what we’re for. In fact, Christian researcher Thom Rainer says that’s one of the top five reasons why the church is more ineffective today in reaching people than perhaps we’ve ever been. We forget that Jesus is a good shepherd who has come to save his people, not condemn them. We’re more likely to condemn. That person isn’t acting in the right way. Oh, did you hear about so-and-so? I saw their car parked outside a bar; obviously they’re inside getting drunk. And on it goes. We too easily condemn while the Good Shepherd comes to save, to rescue, to protect his sheep from evil. There is no one for whom Christ did not die. There is no one whom he wouldn’t seek out. The Good Shepherd comes to save, and we can respond to that shepherd by offering salvation and grace and hope to people rather than condemnation. Do you know whose job it is to judge? It’s God’s, not ours. Our calling is to invite people into the flock, to introduce them to the good shepherd who can save.

And that leads into the second aspect of Jesus as the good shepherd, that he welcomes people. So should we. So must we. You see, we don’t get to decide who is welcome, who belongs in the body of Christ and who doesn’t. The Spirit calls people, the Spirit enables people to respond, and the Good Shepherd welcomes them. But sometimes we get in the way. One of the values we have at this church is radical hospitality; in fact, for many years, I’ve said that if we don’t get that right, if we don’t warmly and adequately welcome people with the love of the Good Shepherd, then everything else we do is useless. When people walk through these doors, they ought to know that this is a place they will be welcomed and wanted.

Philip Yancey once told a story of a friend of his who worked with the down-and-out in Chicago. One day, this friend had a prostitute come to him, seeking food for her two-year-old daughter. She was crying, and confessed that she had even been renting out her daughter to men interested in unspeakable acts. She needed the money, she told him, to support her own drug habit. And that was probably the nicest part of her story; the man didn’t know what to say to this woman, so he just listened. At one point, he asked her if she had ever considered going to a church for help. He said, “I will never forget the look of pure astonishment that crossed her face. ‘Church!’ she cried. ‘Why would I ever go there? They’d just make me feel worse than I already do!’” Yancey commented, “Somehow we have created a community of respectability in the church…The down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome” (Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, chapter 8). We’ve decided that we are the shepherds who can decide who’s welcome and who isn’t. We’ve created a church culture that says you have to get it all together before you come to Jesus, when exactly the opposite is true. Jesus the Good Shepherd welcomes us, welcomes all, even welcomes a thief on a cross beside him. How can we do any less than he does?

So perhaps for us that means doing some radical things to welcome others. Things like making a concerted effort to talk to people we do not know when we’re at church. Sitting by people who seem to be new or are alone in the sanctuary or in the fellowship hall after worship. I once had a man here lament that he didn’t even know the person sitting across the aisle from him; I didn’t realize the aisle was a barrier you couldn’t cross! Radical welcoming, radical hospitality might include those of us who are able parking in the back or, as the snow is melting, over at the new lot at Crossroads so that the closest spots are open in the front. Even recently, I had someone tell me they left because they couldn’t find a spot in the front lot. That’s not a welcoming shepherding spirit. Jesus the Good Shepherd welcomes all. In fact, in Matthew 25, he says the difference between those who inherit eternal life and those who don’t is not found in what they believe in their heads. The difference is seen in the way we live. When we invite the stranger in, we are living in a way that is consistent with the Good Shepherd, the one who welcomed the worst of the lot.

And he welcomes us and all because he knows our name. This is a truth we have to hold onto. In the midst of so many voices that tell us we don’t matter, we’re not loved, we’re insignificant, the Good Shepherd calls us by name. He loves us—you and me—as if we were the only one to love. Max Lucado put it this way: “If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, He'll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and He chose your heart” (http://www.eutychus.com/Webservant/if_god_had_a_refrigerator.htm). It’s the kind of love we have for our children, only more—eternally more. I remember when our kids were born, and that feeling of love that just overwhelms you. You didn’t even know this person before that moment. I mean, you had hopes and dreams and ideas and thoughts, but you hadn’t met them yet. And then suddenly there’s this new person, whom you already love beyond any logical explanation. And you start taking pictures and talking about them all the time and they hold a piece of your heart for the rest of your life. That’s the sort of relationship God wants with you. Jesus called his disciples “children,” not in any sort of condescending way, but to indicate the deep, deep love he had for them. He encouraged them to call God the Father, “Abba,” which basically means “Daddy.” And I love the picture at the beginning of the book of Job, where Satan and other angels are gathering in a sort of heavenly council, and God says to Satan, “Look at my son, Job. I’m so proud of him” (cf. Job 1:8). I think God does that with every one of us, and he whispers to us as only a Good Shepherd can, “I’m so proud of you. You’re mine. I know your name. I love you.” I believe that truth alone could change lives and hearts if we really, fully grabbed onto it and lived as if it were true.

But instead we spend so much of our time trying to prove ourselves to God, trying to do more and be more and study more and whatever more so that God will, we think, somehow approve of us, love us more. Let me put it in context: what could the sheep do that would make the true shepherd care for them more? Is there anything a sheep could do that would impress the shepherd and make him love the sheep more? Could the sheep, perhaps, eat a bigger tuft of grass? Could they drink better water, grow whiter fleece, stand a little taller? Or does the Good Shepherd care for the sheep just because they are? Does he know their name and love them because they belong to him? And doesn’t God, then, care for us in the same way? Is there anything we can do to make God love us more? Of course not. The things we do, the service we give, is not to make God love us more, but to demonstrate our love and our gratitude for all that God has done for us. Those things—feeding the hungry, caring for the stranger, helping the poor—those things are all about showing the world that God loves them, too. When we really believe and know that God loves us, calls us by name, we are then free to change the world.

It is a world that’s looking for security, for well-worn paths, the Good Shepherd comes to provide that, to lead us in familiar places and call us to green pastures where life can truly happen. David spoke more than he knew when he wrote those famous words in the twenty-third psalm, because not only was he describing the Father, he was also describing the Son who would come as the Good Shepherd.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me;

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

In the presence of mine enemies.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me

All the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23:1-6).

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. His sheep know his voice and they follow him. And he knows them by name. Let’s pray.

Never Dark

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

John 8:12; Revelation 22:1-5

January 13, 2015 • Portage First UMC

Spring is just around the corner—or so they say! Sometimes, it’s hard to convince those of us who live in Northwest Indiana that it will ever arrive. But meteorological spring has already come, and in just 12 days, astronomical spring, or the spring equinox, will show up. So spring has come and is coming, and that’s good news for all of us, but especially for those who become very “SAD” during the winter months. SAD is an acronym for “seasonal affective disorder,” and it’s a real thing that shows up during the darker, winter months. Symptoms include difficulty waking up in the morning, nausea, a tendency to oversleep and overeat, a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating on or completing tasks, and feelings of hopelessness. Many researchers today link “SAD” to a variety of factors, but the largest factor seems to be simply the darkness this time of year. A lack of light leads some to depression, general sadness or even feelings somewhere in between, and it reminds us how much we rely on that ball of light in the sky. We need sunlight. We need light. All living things need light to survive and thrive.

This Lenten season, we are looking at the “I am” statements of Jesus in an effort to draw near to “The God We Can Know.” And so, the first week, we considered what it means that Jesus claims God’s name, “I Am” (Yahweh), that he is the God who wants us to come near. And then last week, we looked at his claim to be the bread of life. He is our only source of satisfaction. As we continue on in John’s narrative, we come to this radical statement in the midst of a discussion (argument?) with the religious leaders. In fact, we’re told at the beginning of John 7 (where this story really begins) that the religious leaders are already looking for a way to kill Jesus (7:1). They’ve been meeting in secret, making plans, though Jesus knows what they are up to. At first, Jesus plans not to go to Jerusalem for the big festival (7:8), and when he does go, she shows up “fashionably late,” halfway through the festivities (7:14). Once there, he makes this announcement: “I am the light of the world” (8:12). And so, as we are doing for each of these “I am” statements, we want to ask three questions: what did the crowd gathered there hear? What did Jesus mean? And what does it mean for us today?

So, first, we have to understand the setting. Jesus is, of course, in Jerusalem, but he’s there at one of the high moments of the Jewish year. It is, John tells us, the Feast (or Festival) of Tabernacles, or Sukkoth as it is sometimes called. Tabernacles was one of seven feasts that God, in the Old Testament, had commanded the people to observe, and this one in particular was to help them remember their forty years of wandering in the wilderness after leaving Egyptian slavery behind. To celebrate, each person was to build a “sukkah,” a small hut with leafy branches for the roof, and your meals were to be eaten in the sukkah throughout the eight days of the festival. So the hut had to be big enough to sit in with a small, low table, and you had to be able to see the stars through the branches of the roof. Not everyone had to celebrate this festival in Jerusalem, but to celebrate it there did bring another layer of celebration, and one of those moments, a spectacular event, was called the Illumination of the Temple or the Grand Illumination.

Some say this event took place on the first day of the Festival, others say it was on the last day and another source says it was every evening during the festival. We know Jesus came midway through the festival, so what John describes had to have happened during the latter part of the celebration. So, just about dusk, the Torah scrolls (or the scrolls containing the Scriptures) were removed and in their place was set a huge menorah. We were able to see a modern version of this menorah that has been reconstructed and today stands in a case just outside the Temple compound. But in Jesus’ day, the menorahs (some accounts say as many as four) would be lit and this prayer would be said: “Oh Lord of the universe, you commanded us to light the lamps to you, yet you are the light of the world.” The menorahs would be so bright they would light up the entire courtyard of the Temple grounds, and some claimed that all of Jerusalem would be illuminated by those candles. Certainly, the light was in stark contrast to the sorts of lamps most people used in those days. These small oil lamps were what most houses, certainly in Galilee and probably also in Jerusalem, were lit with. Many remnants of these lamps have been found, and while they provided light, it was barely adequate. Certainly nothing like we are used to, and certainly a dim light in comparison with what would happen at this Grand Illumination. Once the menorahs were lit and the prayers were said, a huge party would begin. The Levites (assistants to the priests) would sing songs of joy and the priests would dance from dusk until dawn (cf. Card, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, pg. 108; Barclay, The Gospel of John, Volume 2, pg. 11; Fuquay, The God We Can Know, pg. 45).

In that context, then, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (8:12). It isn’t hard to imagine what the people would have heard in that setting. I wonder if Jesus interrupted the prayers? Or if he said what he said right after the prayers. When the people hear him claim to be the light of the world, right after or during when the priests are praying to the one who is the light of the world, there had to be some questions about who Jesus is claiming to be. He is, in essence, claiming to be God himself. Or he is at least claiming to take God’s place. In addition to that, associating himself with this festival, with this night of celebration, could cause the people to hear Jesus claiming to be the source of joy, for light is a symbol of joy throughout the Scriptures. At the very least, those who had been listening to his ongoing argument with the religious leaders must have had a sense that he is, in some way, telling them who he is, showing them a piece of his identity. If they didn’t understand his comments about being the bread of life, maybe they can understand him being the light of the world.

So if the crowd heard all of these things, we also have to ask what Jesus intended to say in this “I am” statement. Certainly, he did not say this randomly; he chose the time and place to declare himself as the light. Jesus is always so good at taking what is around him and using it to tell us something more about who he is, and this is no exception. So to get at what he meant, we need to think about the way light works and what light does.

First of all, John has told us in the very beginning of his Gospel, in a passage we love to read on Christmas Eve, one very important thing light does. Do you remember the passage? John 1:5: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Light overcomes darkness, always. Even the smallest candle can punch a hole in the darkness around you, which is why we always keep candles handy for those times when the power goes out. I heard a story years ago from our pastor while we were in seminary that I’ve never forgotten; I’ve probably told it here once or twice. There was a family touring a large cave, perhaps Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and they got down to the lowest part, where the guide typically turns the light off to show you how dark it is underground. When this happened, the little girl began to cry, and very quickly, the voice of her brother was heard saying, “Don’t worry, sis, someone here knows how to turn the lights on.” The same thing is true for our world. Sometimes we get very focused on the darkness, and how bad it is. Watch the news, read Facebook or just look around and it’s pretty easy to become discouraged. There is a lot of darkness in our world, and to many people’s perceptions, it seems to be getting worse. We need to hear that still, small voice whispering to us, “Don’t worry, there is someone who is the light and who will overcome the darkness.” That’s what John has been emphasizing and, in part, what Jesus wants us to know. He is the light. He is the one who can and will overcome whatever darkness we find ourselves in.

Near the end of his life, this same John received a vision while in exile on the island of Patmos, and near the end of the book he wrote, a book we know as the Revelation, he tries to describe what eternity looks like, what heaven looks like. And, as in most situations with that book, words fail him. He tries to describe a tree that grows on both sides of the river. He says the leaves of that tree will heal the nations, and that the “curse” will be gone. No more sin, in other words, and no more brokenness that comes from sin. And then, I think he’s reflecting back on this particular saying, when he heard Jesus proclaim himself as the “light of the world,” because John describes heaven as a place where there is no more night, no more darkness, where the light that comes from Jesus is enough to banish darkness forever. He says, “They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light” (22:5). He will overcome the darkness once and for all. Light banishes darkness.

Light also guides our steps. You know how it is when the street light is out on your block, or when the lights go out in your house. I remember one of the first times I went to camp with the kids, and even though “flashlight” was on the list of the things to bring, I either forgot it or was stubborn enough to think that I didn’t need it. Probably the latter. But anyway, I remember after the first campfire trying to find our way back to our cabin. It gets dark and it gets dark early in the woods. So we stumbled and tripped and tried to find the right pathway. And I made a silent vow never to forget the flashlight again. In the Bible, God who is the light gives direction and guidance, but do you know something I notice about that “light” that God gives? It’s never the whole plan. When he called Abraham to walk with him, God didn’t tell Abraham that he and Sarah would deal with infertility and adoption and a miraculous birth. God didn’t mention that Abraham would end up wandering from place to place all of his life and have to referee a squabble between his wife and her slave, a squabble that is still going on between the descendants of Isaac and the descendants of Ishmael, the Jews and the Arabs. No, God didn’t tell Abraham any of that. He just told him to go, leave his home and head toward—get this—the land God would show him (cf. Genesis 12:1). He didn’t even give Abraham a map or GPS coordinates. Just go, and I’ll show you where to end up. That story recurs over and over again. Why do you think the prophets often took God to task for calling them into such a difficult life? Jeremiah accuses God of tricking him. The prophet’s life was a hard one, and Jeremiah at one point says, “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed” (Jeremiah 20:7). When the angel Gabriel comes to tell Mary she’s found favor with God, and that she will give birth to the Son of God, he doesn’t tell her all the things that will happen, how hard it will be, how she will have to watch as her son is murdered on a cross. She only gets enough light for the next few steps (cf. Luke 1).

And so do we. Several years ago, Stormie Omartian wrote a book called Just Enough Light for the Step I’m On. I’ve not read it, but the title describes the way God acts a lot of the time, at least in my experience. Especially our experience right now. This move is not what we expected, and there have been so many details that have surprised us, that it’s led to some tense and frustrating times in our family and in our home, not to mention here in this church. I don’t know if you know or not, but I sometimes have control issues, and this whole thing has largely been out of my control. I want to know what’s going to happen here, how God will lead you as a church in the years to come. I want to know what lays ahead for us, and what it is God is calling us to. But God has only given all of us enough light for a few steps. We know where we’re going, and we know who God has called to come and serve here. And as for the rest of it, we have to trust in the one who is the light of the world and who can see it all so much better than we can. Light banishes darkness and guides our steps.

Thirdly, light reveals. Biblically speaking, light reveals truth. Light reveals what is really there, again by pushing the shadows away. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but it seems like printers are using smaller and smaller fonts these days to print things. I’m certain it’s their fault and it has nothing to do with my 47-year-old eyes. But because “they” are printing things so small, I keep a small flashlight by my chair in order to be able to make out that tiny printing that “they” put on things. The light from my little flashlight helps my eyes see what is there. The light reveals. Throughout the Bible, light is used as an image for the revelation of God’s truth. Psalm 119 compares the Scriptures to a lamp, a light for the path, and a source of truth that the psalmist wants to obey and follow. Standing in the light, the psalmist says, “My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end” (119:112). John, earlier in the Gospel, reminds us that Jesus came to bring truth (1:14) and to bring us eternal life (3:16). But he also says that Jesus came not “to condemn the world, but to save the world” (3:17). He is the light that came so we could see the truth rather than wander in the darkness all of our lives.

So when Jesus says he is the light of the world, he’s reminding those who listen and those of us who read it centuries later that he has come to overcome the darkness, he has come to give guidance for our lives and he has come to reveal the truth. He is the light of the world. But do you realize this is the only “I am” statement Jesus not only applies to himself but also to us? In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus does not say he is the light of the world. Rather, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16). Jesus calls us specifically to do what he does and to live as he would. He calls us to be the light.

So if the light overcomes darkness, how do we live that out? We engage in specific actions that fight against or push against the darkness in our world. We have been, for the last several years, a church focused on the darkness in our community that comes from hunger, and so we’ve engaged that particular darkness in a number of ways. We make monthly donations to both the food pantry and the Trustee’s office pantry. We started and continue to support the “Feed My Lambs” or backpack program, which provides a weekend box of food for kids in the Portage Township Schools who live in “food insufficient households.” We’ve done annual food drives for the last several years to help stock the food pantry for a month—or at least that’s the goal each time. So we’ve taken some very specific and concrete steps to push back the darkness of hunger in our community because Jesus calls us to. I don’t know how we can claim to love the savior who cared for the least, the last and the lost, who told us that when we do things to the least of these, we do it to him (cf. Matthew 25:40), and not seek to overcome the darkness with the light we have been given.

There are other areas of darkness in our world. Our United Methodist Women and our youth groups have, at various times, supported the ministry of Destiny Rescue, a group that works against the sex trafficking industry by rescuing girls who have been trapped in that horrible lifestyle. Sometimes the issues in our life and in our world seem so big it’s hard to know what to do, which is why we need to partner with other churches or with organizations who are in a position to do something. I mean, think about the places of darkness we see every night on the news or read about online. ISIS kidnapping and murdering our brothers and sisters in Christ. Racism that hides in plain sight. Sexism, ageism. Lack of clean water. Political corruption—is the answer really to not vote? Or is the way we can shine the light to exercise our freedom and make the very best choice we can? Injustices here and around the world. Bullying. Drug abuse. Marital abuse. The list could go on and on. There is darkness around us. The question we have to ask as individual believers, and as a community of faith, is this: where, God, are you calling me? Where are you calling us to shine our light? What passion have you put within me, and within this church, and what gifts have you given us to be able to overcome the darkness in your strength and power? You are the light, Jesus. Shine through us.

Light provides guidance along the path, and there are many ways we can live that out in our own neighborhoods—practices like mentoring or tutoring. Right now, we have a Confirmation class meeting and each student has their own mentor. Many of you have mentored confirmands in the past years. You give of your time and your energy to provide guidance and direction along the way. But what about being there for a family you know? Statistics indicate that single-parent households are one of the fastest growing demographic groups in our community today. That means there are many families where kids are without a dad or a mom present. Not only do those single parents need relief from time to time, but the kids also need mentors who can show them how a Christian man or woman lives out their faith, who can encourage them along the way. Mentors are needed in so many areas of life these days.

As a congregation, we have also sought to shine the light of guidance though our Congregational Care Ministry. This ministry is just a little over a year old now, having sprung out of our Stephen Ministry one-on-one caregiving. Congregational Care Ministers, or CCMs, are trained and able to be there for folks who are in the hospital, or going through a time of mourning a death, or needing prayer and encouragement, or who are cut off from friends and family by being a shut-in. And in many other ways CCMs come alongside people and help them know and sense the love of God. They guide people toward the light, to help them see the path ahead of them. Just as an aside, if this might be a way you sense God calling you to shine the light, we will be having a training event in mid-May, and you are invited to participate in that. Even if you’re just wondering whether or not this might be your place or your calling, plan on coming to the training and getting some answers. Use the time there to discern if this is where God is calling you to shine. I still believe CCM is one way this church can shine Christ’s light ever more into our community, one more way we can say—You are the light, Jesus. Shine through us.

The third thing light does is reveal truth, and Scriptures are clear that the truth to be revealed is found in Jesus. In a few weeks, we’re going to look at that more closely when we consider his saying, “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:1-7). Jesus himself claims to be the truth, others ask if he is the truth, and even the Roman governor Pilate contemplates truth when Jesus stands before him, on trial. Jesus tells Pilate, “The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” And then Pilate asks, “What is truth?” (John 18:37-38). There are a lot of people today who are asking Pilate’s question. Truth has been redefined to mean “whatever you think.” People talk on news shows and post online as if their opinion is the only truth, and they will often become ridiculously angry if you disagree with them. Truth has become relative. But, church, our job is not to persuade people of the truth. That’s the job of the Holy Spirit. Our job as the light of the world is to point to the truth, to reveal truth, and we can do that simply by doing what many of the disciples did: bring people to Jesus. Bring them to a place where they can encounter Jesus. If only there were such a place that we knew of, a place where they would experience the love, grace and mercy of Christ!

That begs the question, then, that I’ve asked in several settings over the last few years. Anytime someone tells me we “need to get more people in church,” my standard response is this: when was the last time you invited someone to come to church with you? The research over many years continues to bear out this reality: the best way to get someone to come to church is to invite them. It doesn’t generally happen through a mass mailing or a Facebook page or an email invitation. It happens and people respond when someone they know and trust invites them to come with them to worship. So when was the last time you invited someone? When was the last time you allowed your light to point toward the truth of Jesus? For that matter, when was the last time you talked to someone about Jesus? Light reveals truth. You are the light, Jesus. Shine through us.

And so, Jesus says, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (5:16). It’s not so that our church will grow or so that others will honor you. The whole point in letting our light shine is so that they can see Jesus, the one who is ultimately the light of the world. But, I can hear some of you saying, I don’t know if I can shine my light. I don’t know that I feel worthy enough or good enough or whatever enough to shine my light. Well, let me show you something. (Reveal the lamp) What words come to mind to describe this lamp? [Get a few responses] This lamp was a gift to me. It’s sat in my office for several years now, after being rescued from the rummage sale, and I’m told it’s not to stay here, that it is going to make the move to Terre Haute with us. Even Bishop Coyner, when he was here, noticed the lamp and asked about it. And there are a lot of words you could use to describe this lamp. Weathered. Been around the block. Some might say it’s beautiful, others might not. Some notice the hangy-things, others notice the lampshade that has seen better days, but no matter how you might choose to describe this lamp, it still has one purpose: to shine light. And you know what? [Turn the lamp on] It still does! No matter what you might think of it, it’s still doing what it was created to do. And this lamp reminds me that, even on days when I feel unworthy or beat up or weathered or like I just can’t shine my light—Jesus still says to me, “You are the light of the world. Shine my light, the light that I have given you.” And he calls you to do the same.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world—and so are you.” We do not have to walk in darkness, nor does our world. Darkness is a choice (cf. Fuquay 41) because Jesus has already come to share and shine the light. In fact, Jesus says that whoever follows him will never walk in darkness, they will walk in the light. And because he is the light of the world, we must let our light shine so that those around us no longer have to walk in darkness.

This little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine

This little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine

This little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!

Hide it under a bushel, no!

I’m gonna let it shine

Hide it under a bushel, no!

I’m gonna let it shine Hide it under a bushel, no!

I’m gonna let it shine

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Let’s pray.