May 3, 2020
Hope Lutheran Church
Rev. Mary Erickson
Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; John 10:1-10
I Shall Not Want
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Life. And abundant life, no less. John refers to life quite a few times in his gospel.
• At the very beginning of his gospel he says that in Jesus “was life, and the life was the light of all people.” (Jn. 1:4)
• John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
• Jesus declares to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life.” (Jn. 11:25)
• And at the end of his gospel, John writes, “But these (stories) are written that…through believing you may have life in his name.” (Jn. 20:31)
Today we hear Jesus say that he has come to bring abundant life. What is that? What does abundant life look like? It doesn’t mean that we have way more material wealth than we need. Abundant life isn’t the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
Simon and Garfunkel performed a song called “Richard Cory.” Richard Cory is the wealthy owner of a factory in a town. A man who works at the factory compares his own life with that of Richard Corey. He curses the life he lives and curses his poverty. If only he could be Richard Cory! But in spite of all his wealth and fame and fancy living, Richard Cory secretly suffers. The final verse of the song ends, “Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head.”
So abundant life doesn’t equate with riches. Rather, abundant life implies overwhelming well-being. When we live in abundance, we don’t just live; we thrive. Abundant life has a sense of security to it; it’s full. Things that remind me of abundant life:
• The desert in bloom. After a rain storm, a desert explodes in a riot of activity. The once barren and dry landscape transforms almost overnight. Every plant erupts with bloom. Abundant life.
• The sound of children playing. The makeup of neighborhoods change with the passage of time. If you happen to live in a neighborhood where a lot of children live, there’s a certain sound when the neighborhood is alive with children playing outside. Squeaky trike wheels, balls bouncing, shouting, occasional wailing, laughter. It’s a wonderful sound. Abundant life.
• There’s a feeling to summer, especially at night. Singing crickets, lightening bugs sailing past like blinking lanterns, the scent of flowers wafting upwards, the sky above teeming with stars and the Milky Way. Abundant life.
The abundant life that Jesus speaks of carries with it the sense of God’s eternity. Even within the fleeting moments of this very brief life we’ve been given, there’s an overlying awareness that something bigger is connecting the fibers and sinews of our realm.
Julian of Norwich was a holy woman who lived a life set apart. She lived as an Anchorite. An anchorite was a monk or nun who chose to live a very sequestered life. They took a vow to live their remaining days within the walls of a very small cell. There, they devoted themselves to a life of prayer and contemplation.
Julian became the writer of mystic reflections. She most famously wrote this:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
That is abundant life! Here is this woman who lived a very, very small life. She lived her days confined inside of four very cramped walls. She ate the meager scraps of food sent her way. Her days were filled with a solitary sameness. But she knew abundant life! She wanted for nothing.
In a similar way, so many people who grew up in economically challenged families have told me, “We were poor, but we didn’t know we were poor.” They lived happily. Their days were filled with well-being. They weren’t oppressed by a sense of want. They lived fully.
In a nutshell, they lived out of a mentality of abundance. That abundance mentality can be compared to a very different mentality: one of scarcity. These two mentalities drive our lives and sense of well-being in two very divergent ways.
When we live from a framework of abundance, we have security. That security endows us with freedom. We’re free to give of ourselves. We’re free to create. Freely we share our love, our compassion, our ideas and wisdom. We reach out to others in support and solidarity.
By contrast, a mindset of scarcity is dominated by an overriding sense of fear. There’s only a limited amount of resources and we’re in danger of running out at any time. This scarcity mentality puts us at odds with one another. If you don’t get it, then they will. You’ll be left out in the cold. So we circle our wagons and pull inside. We grasp at all we can get and keep it to ourselves. But even as we gather more and more, we’re shrinking inside.
We find ourselves in a time when our supply chain has been threatened. And one of the things that has exacerbated this lack of resources has been hoarding. Hoarding toilet paper, hoarding hand sanitizer, hoarding flour and yeast, and now, hoarding meat. This hoarding only makes the situation worse. But we live dominated by our fear that we won’t have enough.
“I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Our Psalm today, Psalm 23, begins with words of abundant life: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
King David writes this psalm of trust. He knew a thing or two about shepherding. David grew up herding his father’s sheep. He begins his ode with these words of contentment: I shall not want. The phrase communicates a deep, anchored trust in God to see him through all manner of thing.
And it’s not a Pollyanna statement at all! David is fully aware that life carries real danger and threat. “Even through the valley of the shadow of death,” he writes, “I shall fear no evil.”
David’s trust in the Lord sees both ends of the life spectrum:
- Both good and evil,
- Both sufficiency and want,
- Fullness and hunger,
- Wellness and disease,
- In life and even through death
David certainly experienced both ends of the spectrum! And through the wide expanse of his circumstances, David gained an awareness of God’s constancy. He sensed the invisible hands of God underneath him. Those hands faithfully undergirded and supported him through all things.
It’s that constancy, that steadfast, faithful presence of God, that leaves David with a sense of well-being. David rejoices in the abundant life he’s been given.
It leaves him with a wellspring feeling. “My cup overflows,” he says. David has more than enough. God provides David with more abundance of life than he needs. It’s overflowing. And so David is left with resources to share with others.
That is exactly what the first-generation church experienced in our reading from Acts. They lived abundantly! Their cups overflowed with the joy and hope of Christ’s new life within them. And because of this, they were able to share their worldly wealth with one another. They distributed their bounty to everyone in their community, as they had need.
Friends, that same abundant life is given to you and to me. Christ’s spirit comes to us even now. Hear the voice of your Good Shepherd. He calls YOU by name. God is able to make all grace abound to you. In all things, at all times, having all that you need, you may abound. Dwell in the abundant, steadfast love of our Lord.
