“Difference of Perspective”

A sermon from Psalm 23 and John 10:1-10

“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Based on my own unofficial and unsystematic research, namely, on what I’ve heard people say over the years, this is one of Jesus’ best-remembered and best-loved sayings. People hear and hang on to this very clear declaration, that Jesus’ mission in the world is bringing people life, and not just any old life, but abundant life.

This word “abundant” can mean a lot of different things in the New Testament, but it always signifies something more: more than expected, more than ordinary or usual, more than the bare minimum. That could mean a lot of different things when it comes to life, of course, and Jesus isn’t specifying whether he’s telling his skeptical audience that he’s come to give people long life, or good life, or rich, deep, vibrant, meaningful life, or … what, exactly. Maybe all of the above.

But whatever that more really is, that Jesus’ mission is to give his people, we know for sure that it’s the opposite of stealing and killing and destroying. It’s the opposite of taking life away from people, or taking people away from life.

So people hang on to this clarity, as a promise.

Also, hang on to is as something of an indicator, a signpost. Because if Jesus promises life, and abundant life, we think we can use what we know about what gives life, and what doesn’t, to help us stay on track. When we start to sense that someone or something … some piece of advice, for instance, or some set of rules and regulations, or some habit or practice … is taking us or people we love in the direction of less life, or worse life, we tend to start asking questions. To start looking for a place to turn around. Sometimes, even when the advice-givers keep insisting “This is something Christians MUST …” or “Christians absolutely positively can NOT … ,” we’re likely to protest: “Really? Because … this isn’t looking all that abundantly lively to me …”

At least, we are likely to do that if we’ve gotten a taste of the kind of abundant life that the good shepherd Jesus is leading us into.

Because, as we probably know, maybe all too well, there are different perspectives on what makes for “the good life,” different perspectives on what people are looking for out of life.

The life of that little sheep whose voice we hear in the 23rd Psalm – the contented little sheep [at least that’s how I can’t help but picture him, or her], who is happily munching on that green clover and drinking out of pools of cool, still water, and who is getting plenty of rest and restoration and who isn’t scared of the dark valley because the Lord is on the job … that kind of abundant life doesn’t appeal to everyone.

Does it appeal to me, personally, yes. And is it the kind of life I’d like to abound for the people I love? Yes, again.

But is it rock star fame and fortune? From what I’ve heard about rock stars, no, definitely not.

This Psalm 23 life seems kind of short on action, too. It doesn’t sound much like climbing Mt. Everest, or breaking a speed record, in anything, or making it onto the list of the twenty richest men in the world, or being the person other people come to begging for favors, like the Godfather in The Godfather. And as we must know, there are people in our world who do measure the goodness of their lives in all those ways.

Just as we know there are people in our world who are not particularly interested in having the Lord or anyone else prepare a table before them in the presence of their enemies. Because they are a lot more interested in crushing and destroying their enemies, and the more explosively the better. People for whom at least some of their gratification in life comes precisely from stealing life from their enemies.

But it seems clear that none of that is what Jesus has in mind when he promises abundant life.

Whatever abundant life is in Jesus’ mind is presumably going to be compatible with the kind of life Jesus himself lived, and taught his disciples to live.

A life of using his extraordinary gifts to help other people live their own lives more happily, like at that wedding in Cana; or with deeper understanding, like in that late-night conversation with Nicodemus; or with more purpose, like his invitation to that Samaritan woman at the well; or with more wholeness, like his effect on that man born blind. Or even, to live, period – as in the case of his friend Lazarus.  

And, a life of telling the truth, and of standing up against corrupt practices, even when doing that made people angry, including some powerful and dangerous people. A life of washing his students’ feet. A life of facing death for the sake of love, laying down his life for his friends.

Admittedly, not all of that sounds as peaceful and pastoral as the life we hear described in Psalm 23, either …

But we think Jesus’ perspective on abundant life is one to take mighty seriously.

And of course, the shepherd is bound to have a very different perspective on life from that of the sheep.

Because admittedly, we humans may not know a lot about sheep psychology, but from what we do know, sheep are fairly near-sighted animals, with a restricted range of vision.

They are pretty intelligent. We know they can learn things, like how to get through mazes and find rewards. We know they are very social animals, who form relationships with each other and with humans who take care of them.

But they don’t read newspapers or surf the internet. They seem to be entirely focused on what’s going on right around them, and on what’s affecting them, right this minute. They’re not known for “seeing the big picture,” for “planning ahead,” or for “taking a larger perspective.”

Sheep depend on shepherds for that kind of thing. It’s the human shepherds, for instance, who are capable of being alert to the danger of overgrazing, and then who can guard against that by moving their herds around – whether the herds like that or not – and who also can think ahead about what conservation efforts to take, and how to balance those with the demands of their sheep’s day-to-day life.

It’s the human shepherds who can research and learn the conditions for keeping sheep healthy, who can study the microbiology and parasitology and chemistry etc. behind sheep diseases and figure out how to prevent them, or how to cure them when prevention fails. Even if the medicine turns out to be bitter for the sheep.

It’s the human shepherds who are capable of recognizing that there’s a larger social and political environment, in which sheep and their wool play a very small part, however significant. Who can think up ways, as part of their shepherding vocation, to respond to and possibly to influence that much larger environment. Who can create organizations like the National Wool Growers Association – founded in 1865, and which became the present-day American Sheep Industry Association.

Sheep themselves, as far as we know, are completely unaware that anything like the American Sheep Industry Association even exists.

So we shouldn’t be too surprised that the good life as seen from the perspective of the sheep, in Psalm 23, differs from the life as seen and proclaimed by the good shepherd, Jesus.

And with all due respect to the psalmist, we can be sure we need to trust Jesus’ perspective.

We can bet that Jesus must know a lot about life, and specifically about human life, and about human life in relation to God, and about what it means for that life to be abundant. Must know a lot that we don’t even begin to know. Because if we are anything like sheep to Jesus’ shepherd – and we think we are, something like sheep, not that that’s meant to be an insult at all – we know that what we’re able to perceive of life, and of the conditions and parameters and requirements of the good life, and of the source of goodness in life, as well as the source of trouble and woe in life, all of that, has got to be limited.

People are pretty intelligent. We’re capable of learning even more than sheep. We do read newspapers and surf the internet and organize ourselves for the purposes of exploring and investigating our world and points beyond. We’ve even managed to send cameras and research missions into outer space. People are known – some of us, anyway – for “seeing the big picture,” for “planning ahead,” for stepping back and “taking a larger perspective,” for aligning our short term activities with our longer term purposes, etc. etc.

Nevertheless, all of our human science and much of our human philosophy is, purposefully, entirely focused on what we can perceive and understand within strict material, empirical limits. We literally cannot see past the boundaries of human experience.

So whatever reality lies outside those boundaries we honestly can’t speak to very well. Some people refuse to speak of it at all. Some people refuse even to consider the possibility of such reality. [Although, admittedly, that position can’t help being something like the sheep insisting that the whole world has to be one big meadow, or that the very idea of such a thing as an ocean is obviously fantastic nonsense.]

So we can see how different from our own Jesus’ perspective, which is no ordinary human perspective, but a human perspective thoroughly informed by God’s perspective, must be.

Trusting Jesus as the good shepherd can give us the kind of peace that comes from … relaxing, putting our welfare, our lives, our next steps, into Jesus’ care and protection. Which doesn’t mean that we’ll never experience pain, hardship, the equivalent of cold winters and hot summers and other kinds of sheepish discomfort. What it does mean, however, is that we can count on Jesus for ultimate security, knowing that Jesus knows the big picture, the cosmic picture, that we can only imagine, very imperfectly. We can count on Jesus’ assurance that he is gathering up the people of God, and leading them into the abundant life God wants to give us. We can trust Jesus’ knowledge of the way, no matter what happens to us as we walk through green pastures and alongside still waters and even through the valley of the shadow of death.

We know we aren’t literally sheep, and that Jesus isn’t literally a shepherd. But until we are in a position to see reality more accurately from Jesus’ eternal perspective, that’s a good way for us to think about things. Because when we can, and do, embrace the perspective of sheep following the good shepherd Jesus, it helps us remember: no matter where we go, no matter what happens to us or around us, we are ultimately completely secure, because we are being led by someone who sees farther and knows more than we possibly can, and who is leading us into life … and that more abundantly.

Image: “Open book 1,” by Alina Daniker alinadaniker, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

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