Easter 4  C                R Lundquist                           4/29/07. Lundquist

John 10:22-30   http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=44895359

Researchers recently asked 4 – 8 year olds:  “What does love mean?

“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore.  So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too.  That’s love.”  Rebecca, 8

“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.”  Terri, 4

“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”  Bobby, 7

“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.”  Tommy, 6

“During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared.  I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.  He was the only one doing that.  I wasn’t scared anymore.”  Cindy, 8

“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.”  Mary Ann, 4

“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it.  But if you mean it, you should say it a lot.  People forget.”  Jessica, 8

The Rev Lewis Groce, Trinity’s Good News, Trinity Lutheran Church, Tullahoma, TN  (Feb 07)

Love is what we see in Resurrection – God’s love for each & all of us, created in the Divine Image.  This is the God who says, “I love you,” over & over to a people who forget.

Author & preacher Lane Denson tells of his youngest son @ age 3, who would come in from play, and if no one was in sight would announce loudly, “Hey, somebody, I love you”  Wow – unconditional love.

“My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.”  Jesus said this in winter, in the east side of the Temple, protected from the wind…  Perhaps his questioners resented the weather – “How long will you annoy us, bother us?”  (true translation of “in suspense”)  Jesus’ answer to them is a message of love to us.  Jesus’ words are enough to build a community focused on God’s promise.   Jesus says, “Hear, know and follow – to eternal life.”

1.       Herbert O’Driscoll put it this way:  community is where the good shepherd is heard.  We listen for the voice – in prayer, scripture, worship, sacraments, sharing, responding to needs.  Henri Nouwen talks about developing an attentiveness to God’s voice, listening as if the doors were shut.  The distractions fade as we focus on hearing the Voice.

2.       The Community is where we are known – intimacy.  This is the heart of the gospel.  Intimacy w/ God, other believers, self, & spirit.  It is a sacred intimacy found in Christian community.  Author M. Scott Peck recounts leading a workshop on intimacy in congregations.  He had the participants gather into small groups to share with each other.  1 woman insisted on speaking w/ him about some things that were troubling her.  “This is what your small group is for,” he said.  She responded: “But some of the group members are from my church!”  How tragic that the community meant to assist her was the very group she couldn’t trust!

3.       Community is where we follow.  William Willimon has said that “the opposite of sin is faith, not virtue.”  So often the balance is portrayed as sin vs. virtue, as if sinlessness were perfection.  No – the antidote for sin is faith.  The Christian community is marked by faith in spite of imperfection.  Jesus Christ becomes the one we cannot live without.  This becomes our way of life – for Jesus never said, “Love me.”  He said, “Follow me.”

4.       Community is where we experience eternal life.  Not time eternal, but God eternal.  Sharing in God transforms us from a group into a faith community.  Eternal life occurs wherever God meets us – and it cannot be snatched away.  Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple put it this way:  “The life of faith does not earn eternal life, it is eternal life.”

So we are Christian community, a sacrament of Easter to the world.  We are faithful despite imperfection, as we listen, as we are known, & as we follow.

Some of you know of my fondness for books and stories often considered to be for children.  This book, The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams Bianco, is about a young boy’s toys, toys that are able to talk with each other.  The title character has a lot of questions near the beginning:

            “What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room.  “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

            “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse.  “It’s a thing that happens to you.  When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

            “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

            “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.  “When you are Real you don’t mind begin hurt.”

            “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

            “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse.  “You become.  It takes a long time.  That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.  Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But theses things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

I think it’s fair to say that we are loved into reality by a compassionate God & a Risen Christ.  The one who stands in the door & yells, “Hey, somebody, I love you!” Except that the Shepherd who calls us each by name makes it personal, and that “somebody” is you.

            “My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.”

            That’s what love means.