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April 13, 2008

Beth Foote - April 13, 2008

John 10: 1-10, Psalm 23, Acts 2: 24-47

Last week we gathered here at Trinity and heard from my good friend Katie Evenbeck, Director of St. Dorothy’s Rest retreat center in Sonoma County. Katie wove the story of the 12 Mile Hike to the Ocean, with the Road to Emmaus story as a metaphor for carrying on, and being transformed by the experience of the journey. This morning we “go pastoral” again, returning to the countryside with our readings from the Gospel of John, and the 23rd Psalm.
Over the course of the week, I learned that today, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, is traditionally known as Good Shepherd Sunday. However, today, we do not actually hear Jesus say “I am the Good Shepherd” because the Lectionary, or plan of readings appointed for each Sunday, cuts the Good Shepherd reading into separate pieces. But we do hear the 23rd Psalm, which I am so glad about and hear those beautiful words, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

Today we read the first part of the passage from John, which includes an elaborate metaphor. Jesus talks about shepherds, gatekeepers, thieves and bandits. It’s hard to know who is who. Reading it this time I noticed that John says the disciples did not understand what he was talking about, so Jesus, the consummate teacher, shifts gears and tries to get his point across again with a simpler metaphor, saying “I am the gate.”
It sounds simpler, but is it?

My son Colby and I just returned from a quick trip to Eugene, Oregon to check out the University of Oregon one last time before committing. (He decided to go there and accepted their offer…Go Ducks!) I was thinking about this sermon during our trip and I was amazed by how many gates we passed through: Security gates, boarding gates. Car rental return gates. It got me thinking, what is a gate? A gate is an opening, an official point of controlled access which guards something of value behind it. By passing through the gate we access whatever is within, and often must pay some sort of price to pass through.

Gates were a big deal in the ancient world. Cities were surrounded by walls, and gates in walled cities like Jericho and Jerusalem controlled access to the cities, and earlier in the Gospel John we hear about the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. Maybe Jesus knew this gate? Jesus’ knowledge of gates also might have something to do with his talking about “thieves and bandits.” In those days, only thieves and bandits got into a walled city without going through the gate. By pointing to a commonly understood situation, Jesus is able to get across a point to his listeners, that the Gate in his metaphor is important.

Walls and gates continued to be key throughout the medieval and modern times. Siege warfare, moats. The Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie in West Berlin. And of course, gates are still all around us. Besides the airport, I can think of many everyday examples: gated communities, tollbooths, border crossings. Usernames and passwords on websites. And we can’t forget Bill Gates as well. You will have to make your own connections there.

Gates are often symbolic or decorative as well as functional. Think of the Golden Gate Bridge, the ornate gate at the entrance to Chinatown. Or the Arch de Triomphe. English church traditionally have a Lychgate that marks the entrance to the sacred ground of the churchyard. And until recently, St. Dorothy’s had a Lych Gate, too.
Getting to St. Dorothy’s is part of the fun of the place. You turn off the Bohemian Highway in Camp Meeker up a one lane path that winds up the hill. There are several heartstopping points along the way where you are so close to the edge you can only pray, curse, and look straight ahead, and God help you if someone is coming the opposite way. Finally, you drive up a rise and with a flurry of gravel under the tires, you’ve arrived. That is where you used to see a rustic structure that spanned the entrance to the camp, the St. Dorothy’s Lych Gate. Two summers ago they had to tear it down because it was rotting away. This summer they’re rebuilding it in grand, Arts and Crafts style.

My oldest daughter was very upset when the Lych Gate was demolished. I think she was upset because it was an important landmark in her young life. Andrea first came to St. Dorothy’s as a camper when she was 10. The Lychgate symbolized for her a her passage into a new world of being away from home and having cool adventures away from Mom and Dad.

So, we can think of gates as landmarks for transition points in our lives. As we all know, there are times in our lives when it feels like a gate swings open before us, or shuts behind us. I’m sure you can think of your own gateway experiences when your life is forever changed. Perhaps it was going away to college, getting married, starting a new job, having children, retiring. There are others, too, that we don’t talk about as much: diagnosis of a serious illness, an accident or injury, divorce, estrangement, death of a loved one, losing a job, depression. These are all experiences we pass through that are difficult, and we must carry on through the transition and beyond it.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures/he leadeth me beside the still waters.”

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says many other “I am” statements like today’s “I am the Gate.” “I am the light of the World.” “I am the Way, the Truth and the Light.” There are also many passages where Jesus says “the Father and I are one”, “the Father has sent me,” which is the closest we get to an explanation of the Trinity in the Gospels. In John, Jesus is tightly bound with God the Father so that in looking at Jesus, we are encouraged to see God.
In Trinitarian theology the three persons of the Holy Trinity are all in conversation with each other; it is a dynamic, circular, social, loving relationship that models how we can interact with each other as people of faith in community. Orthodox Christians picture the relationship of the Trinity as a dance.

Perhaps as “the Gate,” Jesus is our access point to this way of living in the Trinity as community. By knowing Jesus, we enter into the Gate, like the sheep, in our passage today, and enter into the life of faith, the ever changing web of life in community, the dance. Our reading from Acts today describes this shared life well.
He restoreth my soul/ he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his Name’s sake.

As we enter this Gate that is Christ, we trust in the Good Shepherd even “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for thou are with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”
Today we’re at the threshold of one of those gateway transitions in the life of our parish, as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death with Father Mike and his family. This is a difficult time for all of us. There is much uncertainty, sadness, helplessness, and uncomfortable feelings of “Why, God?” and “what ifs?” Our souls are tender. We have all had experiences with loss in our own lives that reemerge in times like this. I’ve been reminded once again of the loss my family experienced twelve years ago when my brother died at 35 of alcohol abuse.

Yet out of that tragic experience, something new emerged. It was during that time of walking the path of shock and grief, through the valley of the shadow of death, that I learned to pray and ask for God’s help. How could this be happening to my family? Out of desperation, I learned to offer it all up to God. And God took it and held it for me while I walked through that valley. It was during the trip up to Arcata where Mark died under sad circumstances, that I found the Good Shepherd walking with my parents and me. And it was some time after that experience, maybe five years later, that I began to feel the first stirrings of a call to ordained ministry. Out of great pain, God brought forth something new and life-giving in my life.

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies/thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”

We do not know what seed God has planted in the heart of our parish during this difficult time at Trinity. Father Mike’s ministry has been a seed of change and growth. He is part of our story at Trinity and he is in the dance of the Trinity, the web of relationships that is Trinity parish.

Father Mike is on a journey to the resurrection, and is still traveling in the shadowlands. The Shepherd is with him, as the Shepherd is with us as we live through this experience as a parish. The Shepherd’s rod and staff, the disciplines of prayer and worship comfort us today as He guides us onward.

We are in the shadowlands with Father Mike and his family, yet we see the green pastures, the still waters beyond the Gate. Together, let us break bread and drink from the cup that runneth over and remember:
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” Amen.