On this Sunday, we are yet again given another story by Jesus about sheep and reminded that he has come to give us life and that it would be a full life (John 10). But what does any of this even mean? There are two different questions that I want to think about in relation to this; the first is what does it mean for us to be like sheep, while the second is what does it mean to have life and to live it fully? I think our Acts reading for today will help us to understand that a little bit more too.
So let’s begin with the sheep question. As someone whose only interaction with sheep has been on farms or at the zoo, it’s hard to think about what Jesus is talking about here. My only encounter with them has been when they are enclosed in small spaces, no longer tended to by a shepherd who is with them at all times. We have broken up the land so much and come to “possess” it that I cannot even imagine a shepherd with a herd of sheep wandering along the countryside here. Maybe I’m projecting here, but this doesn’t seem like a full life… I don’t know if I want to be compared to these sheep, kept in their enclosures to be used or looked at by people.
I think I’ve told you all before about being so amazed to see an actual shepherd and sheep wandering the hillsides in the Holy Land. They weren’t enclosed in a pasture, but wandered and grazed, truly in relationship with the shepherd who was there to care for them. I can’t ever imagine seeing that here. It’s left me curious about how sheep build trust now, with someone who only comes to feed them and take their wool. Do they know who this person is, or does it feel like a stranger whom they cannot trust? What about all of us that look at them the other side of the fence? It doesn’t surprise me that so often I see sheep with their backs turned to us…
At our Bishop’s Convocation this past week, we had four Native speakers who came and shared their time and their stories with us. While their stories are only theirs to share, I will be completely honest and say that what they have shared with us this week has influenced my thinking on a daily basis, especially when it comes to how we understand Scripture. I cannot think about this sheep and shepherd story in the same way I used to because in so many ways now, I see us as today’s sheep. We are trapped in systems and enclosed in “expensive” spaces that divide up the land and keep us separate from one another. Gone are the days of hundreds of sheep being and living together. It completely changes the way that sheep live. It changes the way we live. It was especially apparent when I moved to Seattle and was warned about the “Seattle freeze” and how difficult it would be to make friends here. Over and over I hear so many people talk about the isolated culture of life here, whether from their own experience or the experiences of their friends. I think we have a lot more in common with these sheep than we might like to admit.
So then when we talk about the communal living of the sheep being shrunk down to small pastures, I cannot help but want to connect this with the Acts reading for today. The way that the people in Acts lived was countercultural to the individual mentality that would have been imposed by the Romans, but it is also so completely different from the way that we live today. Quite frankly, I think most people don’t even realize that this style of communal living is a part of the early church’s history because it is so far removed from any way of living that is encouraged in the United States. When people want to return us to the ways of the early church, I don’t think they realize that this is what life was like; a return to a communal way of living.
“Those who believed lived together, shared all things in common; they would sell their property and goods, sharing the proceeds with one another as each had need” (Acts 2: 44-45). Our current economic system is not set up to support this way of living. Instead we are taught to get ahead of others, to put value into how much money we have and what kind of possessions (and how many of them) we can own. That’s not to say that people don’t give money to organizations that help people in need, but this communal understanding of life isn’t the primary way of thinking. We are often taught to give somewhere between 5-10% of our income, but then we have our living expenses and savings for the future.
I would argue that it isn’t even the primary way of thinking within the structure of our churches either. While like the disciples in Acts we join together for worship and the breaking of bread and we collect offering, the larger systems of our society have led this to be a few hour activity every week, but not the primary way of living. We come together for an hour or two and then go back to our homes and our possessions, only to come back for a few hours again the next week. This way of living for the disciples wasn’t separate from their life of faith, but was a part of their life of faith.
I’m not saying this to completely dismiss the ways in which we are church together, but especially after hearing our presenters this week, I have to think that there is so much more that we are missing when it comes to living life fully and abundantly. I think about the statistics that we always hear about the levels of anxiety, depression, and social disconnection in our communities. And while all of this was heightened by the isolation of the pandemic years, it was a reality in our world even before the pandemic came and shook up our ways of being. It feels like we really struggle as Americans to know how to care for and be present with one another, especially when the relationship calls for something deeper than just writing a check.
I also don’t want to say that the way the early church lived is the best example to follow because it wasn’t perfect either, but I do want to call us back to thinking about what a full life looks like. I personally think that a large part of that is the relationships that we have with others, the genuine, vulnerable relationships that we have. The ways that we come together to share meals, to share the joys and concerns in our lives, to simply be together in the midst of tragedies. How can we continue to move the church in that direction? To follow the shepherd that wants to lead us out from our enclosed spaces into the pasture together, to be as we were created to be, not as who we are told to be to have worth in our world.
I say these things knowing that it isn’t a change that will happen overnight and I don’t even know if it will happen in my lifetime, but I do believe that God is calling us to something different. Something besides just stress and worry and concern over how we are going to pay our bills. I keep seeing things on social media that remind us, especially those of us just beginning our career lives, that life is more than just going to work and paying bills. To which we respond, but how can we actually do that, especially in a place like Seattle? So what life are we going to create together, following the shepherd who wants us to have life and have it fully? May we trust the shepherd’s voice to lead us.