What do you get when you cross an English major with a pastor? Someone who reads the Bible and sees parallels to literature.
This is the
first line of a poem called Mending Wall by Robert Frost, the
poet who’s probably best known for his poem The Road Less Traveled.[2] In the poem about the wall, a man and his
neighbor meet at the wall between their properties, as they do each spring, to
repair the gaps that have opened up during the winter, replace stones that have
fallen out, and maintain the barrier that they have built between them.
Something
there is that doesn’t love a wall. In
this poem, that “something” is portrayed as the forces of nature, but to me it is
actually someone who doesn’t love walls. God doesn’t love walls. Walls keep us from each other, and from God.
Something
else God doesn’t want are people getting in the way of people seeking God. Throughout the Bible those people are being
challenged. Some of those people had
been appointed to lead people to God and weren’t doing their job. They are often referred to as bad shepherds.
Jesus is the
antithesis to walls and bad shepherds.
He says in John 10:9, “I am the door” and in verse 11 “I am
the good shepherd.” And he expands
on that by also telling us, “I came that you might have life, a life lived
to the fullest” (10:10).
It helps us
to understand what Jesus is saying better if we know more about the environment
in which he is speaking. There are two
aspects of that situation in Jerusalem at that time that give us a broader
picture. One is that it is Hanukkah,
and the other is that Jerusalem in is the middle of a desert.
Hanukkah is the celebration that remembers a
time when the Jews were trying to regain control of the temple. When they finally did, one important task was
to relight the flame that was supposed to be burning 24/7 to symbolize the
eternal presence of God. Special oil was
required for this sacred flame. God had
given Moses specific instructions for preparing this oil, and the process took
seven days. They could only find one
day’s worth of oil that was already prepared, but they lit the flame anyway,
and that one day’s oil lasted until the new oil was ready. A miracle.
That’s why Hanukkah is 8 days long—celebrating how that oil lasted.
During
Hanukkah celebrations in Jesus’ time, one of the scriptures that would have
been read was chapter 34 of Ezekiel which chastises bad shepherds. Bad shepherds had allowed the Jews to fall
away from God and lose the temple. They
would have also read God’s promise in Ezekiel 34 that he himself come be the
good shepherd. In Ezekiel 34:16 God
says, “I will search for the lost and bring back the
strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.”[3] And in the midst of
this Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd,” affirming that he is God and
he is the one who God promised.
The other
aspect of the situation here is that Jerusalem is in the middle of lots of desert. Shepherds taking care of flocks of sheep in
this region are doing this in a desert.
It’s rough terrain. There are
lots of rocks and cliffs. It’s hard to
find water or grass. A shepherd would
have to keep the sheep from wandering off cliffs, rescue them—maybe using his shepherd’s
crook—if they feel into a crevice or off a cliff, and lead them to water and to
grass. Jesus says in the midst of this,
“I am the good shepherd.” I will
lead you to what you need. I will help
you find water and the way to life lived well.
Shepherds
also had to bring the sheep into enclosed areas to rest. This might be a pen with a fence, or a ravine
with rock walls on three sides. To get
them there the shepherd had to show them the way in, and then sometimes the
shepherd would stand or sit or lay across the opening in lieu of a gate, making
sure sheep got in, and predators stayed out.[4] Jesus says, “I am the gate,” or “I
am the door.”
So a
shepherd, a good shepherd, is a caretaker, making sure sheep have what they
need, and making sure they stay together and don’t get lost, and don’t get
eaten by predators. A shepherd is
kind of like a mom.
Isaiah 40:11 says that God “tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.”
He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.”
We may have
lots of people in our lives who function like a mom or a shepherd to us, who
make sure we have what we need and show us the way. Parents, teachers, pastors, bosses, mentors,
grandparents, other family members, friends, people in our church,
neighbors. In a broader sense our
governments are also like shepherds called to promote the general welfare,
establish justice and tranquility. Make
sure we can get what we need and are protected from predators.
As you are
reading this, you are probably thinking of specific people who fill these
roles, and maybe thinking how that person is a good shepherd or maybe how
that person is not such a good shepherd.
Or maybe thinking about how we ourselves fill these roles. Every one of us has been shepherded by
someone in some way, and every one of us is a shepherd in some way to someone.
It would be
wonderful if all of us and all the people we’re thinking of were all good
shepherds. But the reality is that all
of us and all of them fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). We celebrate about the ways in which we have
been shepherded well, and are thankful for the good shepherds in our lives, and
thankful for the opportunities to be good shepherds. At the same time we need to have grace for all
the ways in which we fall short, and ask God to help us forgive ourselves and
others for all the ways in which we were not good shepherds and forgive all
those who were not good shepherds to us.
We’re all human and none of us is perfect. Even with the best of intentions, we will
fall short of the glory of God.
Forgiving
ourselves and forgiving others isn’t always easy. That’s why Jesus said we need to forgive
someone 70 x 7 times.(Matt. 18:21-22)
We may have to keep forgiving, and keep asking God to help us
forgive….ourselves and others.
Through
grace and forgiveness we move forward into the future seeking the better life
Jesus offers. We accept grace and
forgiveness, and follow Jesus to a better life, a fuller life, not weighed down
by our faults or the faults of others, trusting Jesus to guide us.
The way
to a better life is by following Jesus.
He is the door, and the only perfect shepherd.
Something
else about doors. They can be open
or shut. I think sometimes we fall
into thinking of Jesus as a door that’s closed.
Keeping out the riffraff, maybe.
But Jesus says in verse 16, “I have other sheep that aren’t among us
yet.” There are more sheep out
there. That’s why he also said, “I
came to seek and save the lost.” (Luke 19:10, Matt. 18:11)
A closed
door might just as well be a wall. Nobody can come in if
the door is shut. But we see throughout
the gospel stories that Jesus was inviting people in. He is the OPEN door. He loves us all so much that he laid down his
life in order to be that open door.
The door is
open—Jesus is the door—but someday it will shut. There will be a day when Jesus comes again
and the time for going through the door will end. And there will be no more opportunity to step
through ourselves, or to show other people the door.
Maybe going
through the door sounds like a bad thing to some—going into an enclosure, a
pen, being confined. Psalm 23 paints
a different picture. On the other
side of the door is abundant life with the Good Shepherd who leads us beside
still waters, leads us to green pastures, and protects us from our enemies.
The last
verse of that psalm says “Surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the
days of our lives.” That word
“follow” doesn’t quite say enough. A
shepherd doesn’t follow, he leads. And
that’s why some translations instead use the word “pursue.” Surely goodness and mercy will track us
down! Jesus said he came to SEEK the
lost. To find them and not leave them
out wandering in the desert all alone.
He is the
good shepherd who calls us to enter by the door. He is the door.
…who calls
us to a better life. He is the way to
goodness and mercy.
…who calls
us to forgive ourselves and others for falling short
…who calls
us to help others find the door, to offer hope, to show the way to that hope.
Something
there is that doesn’t love a wall.
…because
walls keep people out. Walls divide
us. Walls keep us from God.
Jesus is the
door, the open door, waiting for all to come in.
Walking
through the door and being forgiven and forgiving and thankful for all of that
are important. And just the beginning.
Something
there is that doesn’t love a wall.
Jesus came
to break down those walls, but like the men in the poem we can be people who
rebuild them. Who shut doors or just simply
fail to open them.
There’ve
been some very famous walls in our world.
The walls around the city of Jericho.
The Great Wall of China.
Hadrian’s Wall that divided England and Scotland. The Berlin Wall. Most of those wall have come down. But what continues to divide us are the
walls that we can’t see. The walls
of difference and misunderstanding.
You probably
know the story of how God helped Joshua and the Israelites break down the wall
around the city of Jericho. There was a
Sunday school supervisor who went to visit a classroom and see how things were
going, and she asked one of the children, “Who broke the walls of Jericho?” And one little boy said, “I didn’t do it.” The supervisor was dismayed that the boy
didn’t know about this Bible story that she expected was already being taught
in the Sunday school, and so she went to talk to the curriculum committee about
it. Someone on the curriculum committee
said, “I know that boy and if he said he didn’t do it, then he didn’t do
it.” Frustrated with the lack of
understanding, now the supervisor went to talk to one of the church elders and
tell him what the boy said about the walls of Jericho. The elder said, “I don’t think you need to
worry. I know this boy’s family and if
he said he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it.
Now, let’s work on getting that wall fixed. I’ll get 3 quotes.”[5]
It can be
hard to know where we will find barriers to communication and
understanding. Where we will find walls
that need to be broken down.
Even the
steps across the middle of the front of the church can be like a wall between
the people up above and the people down below.
If we let
them, they can be barriers.
Jesus came
to be the way through those barriers. His
mission and ours is to make sure the doors are open and the way is clear for
each of us, and all of the people we meet outside the doors, to know God
and know the hopeful, merciful, goodness of God’s love and grace. To seek the lost sheep and show them the
way. To tell about God’s great love for
all of us that came to earth in Jesus Christ.
Something
there is that doesn’t love a wall.
Jesus
invites us all to come in.
May you have
the courage to step through the door to accept your forgiveness and grace and
mercy, to forgive others as we have been forgiven, and to show others the way
to abundant life lived with you. May God
help you to see where there are walls and barriers that need to come down and to
have God’s eyes, to see the people around us the way he sees them, as people
for whom his son laid down his life, as people God loves and who God wants to
know how much he loves them.
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