Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 13, 2008
The Rev. James Richardson
John 10:1-10

Many years ago, I was a rookie newspaper reporter in Riverside, Calif., a small city that is about 90 miles east of Los Angeles. When I lived there, there were still orange groves and grazing lands on the edge of the city. A friend of mine who still lives there tells me I am dating myself by telling you I can remember when Riverside was rural.

Back in the Day, there was a biannual ritual in Riverside that rookie reporters were dispatched to cover. Twice a year, the sheep ranchers brought their sheep down from the Box Springs Mountains, above Riverside, to be sheered in the valley below.

Now, there were a lot of sheep, and when the sheep were on the move, they were a giant clump of fleece traveling in a huge bouncing wave of wool and dust and noise. Oh, and the aroma wafted for miles and miles – which is why, I suspect, rookies were sent to cover this.

Anyway, this tidal wave of sheep was so huge that California Highway Patrol shut down county roads, and even Highway 60, so that the sheep could pass through. It was a major event when the sheep came down from the mountains for sheering.

I mention all this to point out a major fact about sheep that may not be well known to city folks: You cannot get a herd of sheep through a narrow gate. They will mow the gate down. A herd of sheep needs a very wide highway when on the move.

I suspect that Jesus knows this basic fact about sheep when he says  “I am the gate for the sheep.” He cannot possibly be talking about a small gate, not when he is talking about sheep. 

“I am the gate,” Jesus says. “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” Jesus can only be talking about a very wide gate, a gate wide enough to allow all of the noisy, dusty, smelly sheep to get through.

Unfortunately, some good Christian folks down through the ages, who apparently don’t know much about sheep, interpret this saying, and others like this, in a narrow, restrictive way.

If we are to take Jesus seriously – and he talks a lot about sheep in the Gospel of John -- and if we take seriously our charge from Jesus to be his hands and feet in the world, then there is one inescapable conclusion: We are the assistant gate keepers.

And that means our job has something to do with keeping the gate open wide, and the hinges well oiled, so that all the sheep can get through, especially the sheep who struggling just to walk.

Opening the gates, in fact, is the mission of the church. Opening the gates and keeping them open is why there is a church. Someone once said the church is the only organization in the world that exists for people who are not yet its members. We are here to open the gates and help all the sheep get through. If we don’t do that, we have no reason to be here at all.

That is why I think this huge, noisy conflict in the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church about the inclusion of one small group of people, who happen to be gays and lesbians, is a great blessing. It is not a side-issue or a distraction. It is the central issue of our church, in our time, because it is more than just about one group of people. If one group is excluded then all of us are excluded. The struggle we are in engaged in is whether we are willing to maintain a gate big enough for all the sheep to get through. All the sheep.

And that brings me to All Souls Parish:

Jesus does not call us to be content as the flock that we are now, but to bring more people in so that they may know and touch the healing power of Christ’s love that is the birthright of all people. In other words, being here is not all about us. This church also is here for someone you have not yet met.

And here is the hard part: Our mission is really to build a church to give it away – all of it – to the people whom we have not yet met, to people who are just on the other side the gate, to people who may not be anything like us, and to people who have not even yet come the world. We need to be working on the future of All Souls Parish not out of a sense of institutional survival, but because it is about someone else’s future. It is about building a church for your grand-children’s grandchildren.

Yet, there is a problem. Good, well-meaning church people sometimes do things to narrow or close the gate. They may not mean to, but they do. I am not saying that happens here. In fact, I am very enamored with how All Souls is so embracing of all souls – young, middle-aged, older;  gay, straight, rich and poor.

Yet, sometimes, without meaning too, good, well-meaning people get clubby. In a town like Berkeley, with so many well-educated people, and so many frazzled people just trying to get everything done they need to get done in a day, we can act like a club without meaning to.

We can act clubby by missing the opportunity to slow down, say hello to a new person, or by just assuming that everyone who is here knows everyone else. We can act clubby by assuming everyone is on the same page with everyone else in politics, or on the same page in how we do our worship.

One way we can guard against clubbyness is to check ourselves when we lapse into those habits.

Then we can take a few more simple steps to open gates just by noticing the people around us, and inviting our friends and loved ones to this church on a Sunday. We could double the size of this congregation in a year if everyone did that. All of you know someone who would love to be here, if only you help them take the first step through the gate. They might even say “yes” and come with you.

And then, do a few more very simple things. Take time to notice someone here, someone you’ve never met or talked with much; take the time to hear their stories and not be in such a rush to answer your cell phone or get to the next task. And I say that as someone guilty as charged of all of that.

I also bring this up today because you are engaged in the serious business of picking a new rector – a new pastor for the flock. A lot of time and money is going into this task, with a dedicated search committee and a vestry that is taking its task very, very seriously.

Here is the hardest part to consider in that task: You are picking a Rector not only for the people who are sitting right here today – but you are also picking the rector for people none of you have yet met. You are picking a rector for the people who are coming here.

“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold,” Jesus tells us elsewhere in the gospel. “I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.”

That is why we need to be thinking beyond ourselves and beyond the ministries we are already doing.

Our task is to open the gates and keep them open. Each of us has a role to play in opening the gates, so watch out, the sheep are on the way. 

AMEN