John 10:1-10
Easter 4 - Year A
Living with integrity is prelude to living fully.
Consider again what it means to be faithful in small matters as an indicator of being faithful in larger matters. To be about the business of shortcuts to life is to short circuit an appreciation for the wrestling with joy of life. Shortcuts are more about our own immediate pleasures than honoring the past or building for the future. Shortcuts probably have their place, but as a bridge connecting our ancestors to our descendants, it is pretty flimsy.
Day by day, opening one gate at a time, we bring our ancestors along to greet our descendants. There is no fast way to do this. To jump into the sheepfold brings wrongful energy. To see the goal of abundance, rather than scarcity, is to set out on a path of building community infrastructure rather personal wealth. This orientation does eventually lead to both communal and personal benefit (and, no, working the other way around doesn't even bring a trickle of security or peace).
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/april2005.html
If, as some say, this passage begins a verse earlier (9:41 -- "Jesus said to them, 'If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, "we see," your sin remains.'") it makes sense that this story was not understood.
To anyone who has a sense of being a gatekeeper, this story of a different gate and gatekeeper claiming that they are the 'real' gate doesn't make sense. It can't make sense and still have folks believe what they have believed, act on what they have known works often enough.
Can we hear the debates within the present church as everyone claiming the right of gatekeeping?
If so, how do you understand the role of gatekeeper to the shepherd who claims to be a gate? Does the gatekeeper open all manner of gates to various shepherds who aren't yet able to recognize each other?
The sheepfold becomes no less than another image for the Garden of Eden with all the temptations to know I'm right and another is wrong.
At this point it may be important to affirm what we know to be true without doing battle with those who are affirming a different truth. This process doesn't guarantee one affirmation eventually taking precedence over another (even if mine is larger and more beautiful than yours). This doesn't even suggest that one's affirmation may not be the occasion for being put to death. Yet, affirming the gate that is known is important.
Hopefully we will eventually get to the point of affirming that our shepherd's voice does change. This is a natural growth process as our next Shepherd, Friend, or Counsellor leads us further than our previous shepherd. I hope we can hear a dream of maturing in this story that challenges every picture of settled righteousness.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/april2005.html
A simple story about a shepherd walking up to a gate and it being opened by a gatekeeper is not as straight-forward as it might seem. Folks either find it too simple, there must be a trick to it somewhere, or so deep that there are too many layers to be clear about. At any rate, we will do well to be suspicious of this story, even as were the first hearers.
When questioned we begin to see that our first inclination to associate Jesus with a shepherd is too facile. Jesus identifies with a gate. Those who go through are alternately and mutually shepherds and sheep, nurtured and nurturing of one another and others.
This Gate of G*D is very close to the Logos/Word John begins with. Through this gate is everything created. We move back and forth between the womb and the world, the sheepfold and the pasture. Any who recognize the gate are welcome and have an easy way (remember your Pilgrim's Progress), those who do not come directly to the gate are thieving climbers. This is more about ourselves than the exclusivity of a Gate, which, like in Hell, is probably always open.
It is not that the gate is limiting, as this passage is sometimes interpreted, but expanding. To enter or leave through the gate is a transformative process moving a thief to a shepherd.
Think of other gateways: Peter Pan's second star to the right and straight on 'til morning, Narnia's wardrobe, the monolith in 2001, etc. What might be symbolized as a gateway in your life's experience? No, the answer isn't always Jesus. If you like, what has been your gateway to G*D? If you still want to say, "Jesus," what led you to Jesus?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html
Simple stories are usually ambivalent stories. There is much more that is needed.
If we don’t take into account more stories, this one, by itself, becomes overly exclusive. What else in John would point you in an exclusive or inclusive resolution of the kind of gatekeeper Jesus might be? That you are called to be?
One helpful image is that of Franz Kafka laughing at readings of his writings. In the introduction to the Penguin collection of Kafka’s published short fiction Metamorphosis and Other Stories translated by Michael Hoffman, Hoffman writes “When some of these stories were read aloud, people-including Kafka, reading them- fell about laughing. He is not sombre, he is not grim, but often very funny.”
Try reading this Kafka story about a gatekeeper and see what connections with the scripture you make and whether you would “fall about laughing” with Jesus or with Kafka: Before the Law.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/05/john-11-10.html
Verse 1 - those who don’t enter by a gate are thieves.
Verse 2 - those who enter by a gate are shepherds.
Verse 3 - the gate of the shepherd is opened by a thief.
Verse 4 - the sheep/thieves are called back out.
Verse 5 - not every call is to be followed.
Verse 6 - got it? Nope
Verse 7 - I am a gateway.
Verse 8 - the call I give has not been heard before.
Verse 9 - those who have gone out come in again, go out again, and again
Verse 10 - abundant life is rhythmic.
Thief, sheep, thief again, sheep again.
Sanctuary, witness, sanctuary again, witness again.
Scarcity, abundance, scarcity again, abundance again.
Back to the first part of the story. We do what we can to enter easily. We steal our way in for learning to be a shepherd is too hard. Amazingly, once unfairly in, we are led out again to pasture to learn to come back in and in the process to learn to be a shepherd. The first verse is key. We are in the middle of a larger story. Never doubt the resurrection of thieves.