Trustworthy shepherds, safe sheep, plentiful pastures, still waters, guiding gates, right paths, full tables and overflowing cups, all these idyllic images presented in today’s scriptures make a stunning claim—there is enough, life is abundant. Sometimes this promise simply feels false. It sounds like toxic positivity or prosperity Gospel’ What is “abundance” for those without the cushion of privilege, for the countless people who work hard yet can’t afford their lives? For those who seem to suffer way more than their fair share of tragedies? For the ones who are lonely, who rightly feel abandoned?
”I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” These beautiful yet hard-to-trust words of Jesus bring to mind an anecdote that indigenous scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer shares in her essay “The Serviceberry”. As she harvests a bountiful crop of berries, thinking about what do with them all, she muses:
“This ‘problem’ of managing decisions about abundance reminds me of a report that linguist Daniel Everett wrote as he was learning from a hunter-gatherer community in the Brazilian rainforest. A hunter had brought home a sizable kill, far too much to be eaten by his family. The researcher asked how he would store the excess. Smoking and drying technologies were well known; storing was possible. The hunter was puzzled by the question—store the meat? Why would he do that? Instead, he sent out an invitation to a feast, and soon the neighboring families were gathered around his fire, until every last morsel was consumed. This seemed like maladaptive behavior to the anthropologist, who asked again: given the uncertainty of meat in the forest, why didn’t he store the meat for himself, which is what the economic system of his home culture would predict. ‘Store my meat? I store my meat in the belly of my brother,’ replied the hunter.”
Kimmerer continues, reflecting on the meaning of this story:
“I feel a great debt to this unnamed teacher for these words. (‘I store my meat in the belly of my brother.’) There beats the heart of gift economies, an antecedent alternative to market economies, another way of ‘organizing ourselves to sustain life.’ In a gift economy, wealth is understood as having enough to share, and the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away. In fact, status is determined not by how much one accumulates, but by how much one gives away. The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, as interdependence and the ongoing cycles of reciprocity. A gift economy nurtures the community bonds that enhance mutual well-being; the economic unit is ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ as all flourishing is mutual.” 1
Abundant life is a lie when we approach it individualistically, within the framework of an economy whose driving purpose is profit for corporations rather than our collective well-being. Abundant life can only exist as a mutual reality. We will only have it if we have it together. Jesus, too, defines abundant life as mutual flourishing—life together, life as part of a flock. In Jesus’ teaching from John, what gives the shepherd the right to enter the sheepfold is the depth of the shepherd’s relationship with the flock. The shepherd knows each of the sheep by name. They, in turn, recognize the shepherd’s unique voice. They have learned through experience that this person is trustworthy, that following the shepherd’s guidance will provide protection and plenty.
The Gospel writer calls this teaching of Jesus a “figure of speech.” Its function is similar to that of the parables in other Gospels. These stories that Jesus used to teach always resist being read as allegories, as simple, obvious comparisons between one thing and another. They are more ambiguous and more puzzling than that. For example, in this figure of speech Jesus is portrayed as both the shepherd and the gate—a slightly absurd combination which the artist, Peter Koenig seeks to capture in the painting on our bulletin cover.
Koenig has another painting in which the shepherd is a muscled figure in tattered clothing, brandishing a staff to beat back the wolves leaping at his legs. Indeed, in the very next verse after today’s reading, Jesus declares: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus’ promise of abundant life is grounded in his own experience of placing his body on the line to protect the flock. The economy of mutual abundance depends on our shared willingness to take risks to defend the community from thieves and bandits, to stand up to inauthentic leaders who abuse their power, to those who come to only to steal, kill and destroy.
Today’s passage, scholars point out, is a sort of commentary on the episode that comes right before it—Jesus’ healing of a man born blind. That story contrasts the man’s restored sight with the religious leaders’ spiritual blindness. The leadership of Jesus is trustworthy and the community he calls into being is visionary. But the religious leaders of his time could not perceive God at work in any of it. They mistrusted Jesus and harbored deep disdain for the man he healed. The man’s blindness, they believed, was punishment that permanently relegated him to a life of begging and alienation from society. Today’s passage is an extended critique of their leadership, which was not concerned with the good of their people but instead with their own self-preservation, as ones who chose to collaborate with an oppressive Roman regime.
Yesterday there was a remarkable gathering here—a neighborhood potluck with an Ecuadorian feast at the center of it. The cooking started very early in the morning, and by afternoon the Gathering Hall was filled with dozens of people of various cultures, backgrounds and ages celebrating new networks of collaboration and care and continuing to build relationships. A series of games helped ease language barriers. As loud music blared in Spanish, folks played musical chairs and balloon stomp. Onlookers laughed, cheered, and one person told me they were holding back tears as we watched pairs attempt to dance with oranges held between their foreheads.
The organizing of this event was confusing. The cooking process was messy. I felt a disorienting sense of unpredictability about the whole thing. The point is—this discomfort isn’t bad. It’s an undeniably clumsy process, to reach for each other across all that programs us to stay in separate worlds. It’s very challenging, amid our society’s dynamics of power and privilege, to build trusting, authentic relationships that can overcome these barriers. A somewhat simplistic narrative has gone viral about the power of neighboring here in the Twin Cities. As if we know how to inhabit a culture of mutual abundance. I don’t think we do, quite yet. I do think we are learning and growing in that direction. That is the new green shoot I sense is trying to emerge out of our long, hard, icy winter.
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” That is the promise of Easter. Today’s Gospel makes claims about centrality of Jesus, and his shepherding ways. And yet the real gift of resurrection, I believe, is that life of Jesus is now embodied in the community as a whole. Collectively, my friends, we are called to be a trustworthy voice, to offer a shepherding presence, to protect each other with self-giving love, and to build relationships that make it possible for us all to have abundant life. Amen.