Joel D. Kline
Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren
April 17, 2005
The Fourth Sunday of Easter
I read this week of an architect who claimed that the most important part of a church building is the front door. I thought about that comment as I considered our structure here at Highland Avenue, where most of us enter, not by the front door, but by the parking lot door, the back door. For those who do enter by the Highland Avenue entrance, by the front door, what do you see? Above the doors, carved in limestone, are the words of the Sauer Press motto from the 1700s that have come to embody the Church of the Brethren understanding of the Christian life, the call to live our lives For the glory of God and my neighbors’ good. And the four small stained glass windows on the doors depict the four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, a reminder of the central role that the New Testament plays in our life together, as our rule of faith and conduct. Perhaps the architect who put such stock in the front door of a church building would be pleased with our entryway.
At the same time, perhaps it’s all right that most of us enter the church building through the back door. For do we not often remark that the best friends in life are “back door” friends, those who know us well enough to enter into our homes, even when they are cluttered and chaotic? To enter by the parking lot door—might this not be a symbol that ours is a church community in which one doesn’t have to “have it all together” before entering into our fellowship? Do our doors, whether the front door or the back, somehow communicate a welcome to all? Do our entryways suggest that those who enter will find here a place of searching and of belonging, a place where all who yearn for a deeper touch of God’s gracious love will find acceptance and opportunity to grow? Do visitors and new participants sense an invitation to join with us in a growing journey of faith? How readily do new persons sense that our intention is to be a place to deepen faith, proclaim peace, embrace community, welcome others, and serve our neighbor, in the compassionate spirit of Jesus?
Why all this talk about doors, you may be wondering? In this morning’s Gospel lesson from John, chapter ten, Jesus asserts, depending upon the translation you are using, “I am the gate” or “I am the door.” One of the unique features of John’s Gospel, you may remember, is its highly figurative, deeply metaphorical presentation of Jesus. There are six additional “I am” statements attributed to Jesus: “I am the bread of life;” “I am the light of the world;” “I am the good shepherd;” “I am the resurrection and the life;” “I am the way, the truth, and the life;” “I am the vine, you are the branches.” In today’s lesson the affirmation of Jesus, “I am the door,” is linked to the more familiar image of Jesus as the good shepherd.
Not only is Jesus the good shepherd, he is a shepherd so good that he is even willing to lay down his life for the sheep. It is that imagery that stands behind the description of Jesus as the door. In ancient Palestine during the warm season, when sheep were out on a hillside, at nighttime they would be gathered into makeshift sheepfolds. The sheepfolds included an opening by which the sheep could enter and exit, but there was no gate or door of any kind. Rather, the shepherd himself would lie across the opening, so that no sheep could go in or out except over the shepherd’s body. In a literal sense the shepherd became the door.
Just so, Jesus serves as the door to abundant life. It is a rather humble image in many ways, is it not? As United Methodist bishop William Willimon suggests,
The door is not the house, not the dwelling place, not the goal; a door is a passageway into the house, a means of getting to a destination. Thus, when Jesus says, “I am the door,” it is similar to Jesus calling himself “the way.” Jesus is the way to God, the way to abundant life, the path to true freedom. Jesus is the means whereby we get to God. Or maybe the traffic is moving in the other direction, with Jesus. Maybe Jesus is better thought of as the way God gets to us.
For the New Testament affirms over and over again that ours is a God ever yearning for relationship, a God who goes the extra mile in seeking connection with all creation, a God whose tenacious love will not let us go. Jesus is the One in whose life the grace and compassion of God are most clearly seen and experienced. Jesus’ life is one of inviting love.
Laurie Beth Jones in her book Jesus in Blue Jeans tells of sitting in a field of wildflowers high atop the Swiss Alps, snowcapped mountains piercing the clouds, with the slightest tinkling of cowbells floating up from the valley below. Writes Jones,
The more I tuned into it the more I began to hear this subtle symphony echoing through the hills. I learned later that each local farmer puts bells on the cows so he can always know where they are, even when he can’t see them. And at evening, when it’s time to lead them home, he takes a wreath of flowers and puts it across the shoulders of the cow that has given the most milk that day. Then the farmer simply walks in front of the cows and one by one they fall in line and head for home . . . . No whips or cattle prods are used on the cows in the Swiss Alps. They know well the voice of the farmer, and when he calls they turn toward home, knowing he will lead them home.
So it is in the church, as we heed the voice of Jesus, the one who shepherds us into the very presence of God. Not by threat or intimidation; not by fear of an eternity of hellfire, but by compassionate love. And our calling as followers of Jesus is to reflect the same kind of compassionate love. With Jesus, we are to be doors that lead to life. For have we not received the lofty calling to live for the glory of God and our neighbors’ good, to live in ways that invite and draw others into relationship with the Creator of all life?
The noted theologian Karl Barth once asserted that the church exists “to set up in the world a new sign which is radically dissimilar to [the world’s] own manner and which contradicts it in a way which is full of promise.” Do you hear the challenge in those words? Our calling is to stand counter to the predominant culture, living and proclaiming peace in a world of violence and discord, hope in a world of brokenness and despair, healing in a world of fear and suspicion, compassion in a world of indifference and animosity. We are to be doors of promise that open the way to new life.
In his autobiography the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko recalls an incident in 1944, when his mother took him from Siberia to Moscow. They arrived in the city at a time when some 20,000 German prisoners of war were soon to be led across Red Square. The pavements, recalls Yevtushenko, swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by soldiers and police.
The crowd was mostly women—Russian women with hands roughened by hard work, lips untouched by lipstick, and with the hunched shoulders which had borne half of the burden of the war. Every one of them had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans. They gazed with hatred in the direction from which the column was to appear.
At last we saw it. The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips folded disdainfully, their whole demeanor meant to show superiority over their plebian victors. “They smell of perfume, the bastards,” someone in the crowd said with hatred. The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back.
All at once something happened to [the crowd]. They saw German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty bloodstained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades; the soldiers walked with their heads down. The street became dead silent—the only sound was the shuffling of boots and the thumping of crutches.
Then I saw an elderly woman in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman’s shoulder, saying, “Let me through.” There must have been something about her which made him step aside. She went up the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colored handkerchief and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it into the pocket of a soldier, so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now from every side women were running toward the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had. The soldiers were no longer enemies. They were people.
In his book The Ladder of the Beatitudes Jim Forest, long active in the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, shares this story, then observes, “This is the sort of story most history books pass over—miraculous moments when enmity is replaced by mercy [and] compassion opens the way to actions of healing and forgiveness.” Is this not what it means for you and me to heed the admonition to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, to become doors of promise, doors of compassion and peace and hope and new life?
Surely this is what Peter has in mind when writing in his first letter that we are to walk in the footsteps of Jesus—living in such a way that the spirit of Christ becomes visible among us. We cannot do it alone. Indeed, is that not the power of our call to be the church, that each one of us brings our unique gifts and talents and energy as together we seek to be living doors of compassion and grace?
Philip Yancey has an intriguing book entitled Church: Why Bother? Yancey speaks of his own pilgrimage, growing up in a “hellfire and brimstone” fundamentalist church in the South, a church brimming with legalism and with racism. He speaks of a time of rejecting the church, yet has found himself spending the rest of his life climbing back toward faith and climbing back toward church. The church is indeed flawed—Eugene Peterson has observed that the church is composed of equal parts of mystery and of mess—and yet Yancey has discovered anew that Christianity is not merely an intellectual and an internal kind of thing. By very definition, Christianity must be lived in community. You and I have been created for relationship, and we are called to live in such a way that God’s new reality—life in the realm or kingdom of God—breaks through. You and I are to be doors to new life, inviting, welcoming, upholding, challenging, encouraging, strengthening one another.
Henri Nouwen reminds us that the spiritual life ever involves reaching out—“reaching out to our innermost self, to our fellow human beings, and to our God . . . In the midst of a turbulent, often chaotic life we are called to reach out with courageous honesty to our innermost self, with relentless care to our fellow human beings, and with increasing prayer to our God.” Is this not what it means to live for the glory of God and our neighbors’ good?
Together let us seek to be a “safe” community, the kind of place in which grace is not only preached but practiced and lived—a place of acceptance, a place of compassion and loving-kindness, a place of peace and hope and self-giving love. Amen.
O God of healing and wholeness, God of reconciliation and new beginnings, send down your waters upon our thirsty land. Our land is thirsty for justice and for peace, for righteousness and for hope. All too many people live in fear of violence, abuse, racism, injustice. Fill us, holy God, with your spirit of courage and forthrightness. Fill us with the Spirit of Christ, that we may join in bringing good news to the poor, restoring sight to the blind, proclaiming release to the captives, and letting the oppressed go free. Hear us now, gracious God, as individually we pray for the healing of all your creation . . . .
Loving God, quench our thirst for right relationships. Send your waters of new life upon us. For we confess that each of us comes before you this day, aware of our brokenness and our need. Some of us are experiencing the pain of fractured relationships, the loss of persons we love, the uncertainty of having to begin anew. Some of us are struggling with health issues, and yearn for a fresh taste of your healing care. Hear us now, O God, as we hold in your hands those especially needful of your gracious touch . . . .
God of all creation, may your kingdom come on earth. May we do your will, here and now on earth, even as it is in heaven. May seeds of freedom and hope flourish. May Christ’s gospel come alive in our hearts and throughout all creation. May we know, deep in our hearts, your grace and your goodness.
God of healing and wholeness, send down your waters of new life. We pray these prayers in the name and spirit of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.