I Am the Gate

1 Peter 2:1-10 p. 984
Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. 2Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— 3if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and 5like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For it stands in scripture: “See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” 7To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner,” 8and “A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. 9But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

John 10: 1-16 p. 872
“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. 11“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.









In the Gospel of John, there are many “I AM” statements by Jesus. Jesus says “I am the bread of life”, “I am the living water”, “I am the light of the world”. All of them are statements that are life giving and life affirming, and all of them use ordinary objects drawn from everyday life, to begin to enter into the mystery that is Immanuel- God with us.
One of the most familiar I AM statements is Jesus saying “I am the Good Shepherd”. We have stained glass windows, artwork, hymns, that reflect this image. Those of us who know real-life shepherds (like Andy & Mary, or Anne & John Knight) see that this makes sense, and is a beautiful illustration of God’s love for us. We see from those human shepherds what care, what diligence a shepherd takes: out in all weather, making sure the fields contain nutritious grass and water, making sure the sheep are safe, that the lambs and mothers are alright, that there are no predators menacing the flock.

After talking about being a shepherd, Jesus uses another image: “Very truly, I tell you- I am the gate for the sheep,” however, inspires no art work, no stained glass windows, no hymns. It is not, at first, a really compelling image. It is hard even to imagine that. When Jim and I recently traveled in China, we experienced lots of gates: going through customs and immigration, in lines at gardens and at tourist attractions, even going through security at the Metro. There were a lot of gates, and all of them were designed to control, to restrict, people and the flow of traffic.

So the image of Jesus as a gate might seem strange, even unpleasant to us. It may help, though, to know that in Jesus’ day shepherds sometimes actually, physically were gates for the sheep. Out in the fields, a shepherd would make an enclosure—or rocks, or of brush and briars, and then, at night, would gather the sheep into the enclosure. The shepherd would lay down in the small opening, keeping the sheep in, and the predators out—literally becoming the gate for the sheep.

But if we are talking about Jesus as the gate, then what is the sheepfold? The sheepfold, historically, has been thought of as the church—a place of safety and refuge, a place of togetherness. The sheep, cared for by the shepherd, were safe from predators, and would be healthy and thrive.

One of the ways to begin to understand this text is to understand that in the Gospel of John, there is nearly always first a sign, a miracle, and then a discourse, an explanation. In this morning’s text that Jesus performed, is way back in John 9- we heard it in Lent- the story of the man born blind. If you remember, the man was cured of his blindness by Jesus, and then the man and his family were quizzed by the Pharisees, and then the man was cast out of the synagogue. This text, about Jesus as the gate- or, in Greek, door- is about a way for those early Christians, cast out of the synagogue, kicked out of their families, to find a home, to find safety, to find abundant life in Jesus.

But, if there is a door, or a gate, then there is also a fence, right? The way that we think about gates is that they are the opening in the fence. And Jesus tells the Pharisees, and the early church this: “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” So the gate both lets in, and lets out. The gate both opens and closes, protects and sets free.

The church, the sheepfold, for many centuries, did something I find, if not abhorrent, then at least objectionable. It has to do with fencing and gates: it is commonly known as “fencing the table”. And it began, as most things do, with good intentions. Calvin, in Geneva, wanted to have the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper celebrated every Sunday. The problem, though, was that the elders were to examine all people before they came to partake of communion. Those elders had read 1 Corinthians, in which Paul writes to the church there, that “they eat and drink damnation unto themselves” if they do not take the Lord’s Supper in a worthy manner. By the way, Paul was talking about the rich people in the church in Corinth hogging all the food, before the poor working people and slaves could get off from work and come to church, which was held in the afternoon.
The elders took very, very seriously, that warning, and took very seriously their charge to care for the spiritual welfare of the church. All were to examine themselves, and the elders were to examine all members of the congregation. “How is it with your soul?” the elders would ask the members. Anyone continuing in “unrepented sin” would be excluded from the table—the table was “fenced”, for the good of the members. In some times and places, even up to the early 20th century, communion tokens were given to those declared worthy by the elders—and members presenting tokens on Sunday morning could join in communion. In other times and churches—and Jim and I grew up in one—the people were to “rightly examine themselves” in prayer the week before communion—there was an exhortation to self examination and confession that is still used today. Needless to say, this much examination and self examination took time—and communion was not celebrated weekly, as John Calvin had hoped.

The church has a different understanding now of eating at the Lord’s Table, and while we do exhort you all- us all- to confess and repent of any sin, we understand that Jesus the gate, opens to us the way of abundant life and righteousness. The door opens, and we go in and out, to find pasture.

But to go back to our metaphor, if Jesus is the gate, and the church has been seen as the sheepfold, I want to ask in what ways the church has been closing the gate? In what ways have we been fencing the table, fencing off access to Jesus, who brings abundant life? With our talk, in our gossip and our words? The writer of 1 Peter says this: “Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.” Is it in our polity and life together? Or what we say after the meeting is over and we are in the parking lot?

Some of you may know, that this past year, the PCUSA has been voting, presbytery by presbytery, on changes to the Book of Order, and to the Book of Confessions, the two parts of our church’s constitution. Some of those changes are just boring, rearranging lines in the Book of Order that nobody really reads or cares about, you may think, and some of them are controversial.

Certainly the most controversial one is the one that deals with ordination standards: the wording proposed is “Standards for ordained service reflect the church’s desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life (G-1.0000).” What is changed is any language about chastity in singleness and fidelity in marriage for those seeking to be ordained—words that are good in and of themselves, but were most often used to bar gays and lesbians from being ordained in the church. This past week, the 87th Presbytery voted yes on this amendment, meaning that two-thirds of the presbyteries in the PCUSA approved it, and it will become part of our Book of Order at the next General Assembly in 2012. I know there are some who welcome this change, and I know there are some who are opposed to it. But what I hope—no, what I pray for, is that we do not fence each other out. That we remain Christ’s church, one flock, one shepherd, listening to his voice calling us.

In a church wide letter to congregations everywhere, the General Assembly Staff- Cindy Bolbach, moderator, Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk, and others, write this:

Reactions to this change will span a wide spectrum. Some will rejoice, while others will weep. Those who rejoice will see the change as an action, long in coming, that makes the PC(USA) an inclusive church that recognizes and receives the gifts for ministry of all those who feel called to ordained office. Those who weep will consider this change one that compromises biblical authority and acquiesces to present culture. The feelings on both sides run deep.
However, as Presbyterians, we believe that the only way we will find God’s will for the church is by seeking it together – worshiping, praying, thinking, and serving alongside one another. We are neighbors and colleagues, friends and family. Most importantly, we are all children of God, saved and taught by Jesus Christ, and filled with the Holy Spirit.


For here is an interesting thing: in the same discourse, in the same speech about being both gate and good shepherd, Jesus says this: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them in also, and they will listen to my voice.” “Other sheep I have, that are not of this sheepfold” is the old translation. If Jesus is the gate, bringing in other sheep, sheep we don’t know, sheep we don’t recognize, sheep we don’t like, sheep who are different from us, sheep that we actively disagree with, if Jesus is opening the way for them, then who are we to stand in their way, who are we to close the gate? The unity of the church on this issue rests in our one Lord Jesus Christ, and not in our agreement or unanimity. We are one because we are bound to each other in Jesus Christ. We belong to each other because Christ has called us, and we belong to him. There will be voices that, in decrying this change in our Book of Order, declare that the time has come to break fellowship with those with whom they cannot agree . Let us all listen to the voice of Jesus, and be one flock, with one shepherd. Amen.