Standing Under the Scriptures
May 10, 2009

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

1 John 4.7-21: This unusually lengthy passage (which the lectionary appoints) is a sort of hymn about love of God and of our fellow Christians.

John 15.1-8: Jesus uses the image of the vine and its branches to convey the need of his followers to be united with him.

Our readings last Sunday were also both Johannine. Our first was 1 John 3.16-24, which if it does not actually share authorship John’s Gospel shows strong affinities with it. We noted its caring and concern for those whom it addressed and its promise that God would grant what in accordance with his commandments they asked for. We noted also that it laid certain requirements on them and, as we stand under the Scriptures, also on us. These are to keep God’s commandment, namely to believe in his Son and to love one another. Further, we are not to hold back our own resources from fellow Christians whom we see to be in need. We are even to lay down our lives for our fellows, should the occasion arise. The question thus arises of how we are to fulfil these requirements. For fulfilling them requires not only the will to do so but also the ability, neither of which we have in ourselves.

We found that the first verse of our passage pointed to that which both inspires and enables us, namely the love that Christ has shown for us:

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us.”

For the elaboration of this brief statement we turned to our second reading, John 10.11-18: “I am the good shepherd.” The good shepherd is defined by his laying down his life for his sheep, in contrast to the hireling who flees at the appearance of danger. It is by virtue of this love and the utter commitment that it entails that we have the security and safety to fulfil the requirements laid down in 1 John and at the same time are inspired to do so.

However, our life is not thereby made snug and cosy, as we may be prone to suppose. For Jesus goes on to speak of the wolf who on gaining access to the fold snatches and scatters the sheep, such as we see going on today. We gave consideration to what the wolf might represent. One suggestion was the forces of the secular culture around us. Allied to this would be the embodiment of essentially secular values in doctrines which purport to be the gospel and are in fact such close counterfeits of it that they are difficult to distinguish. The New Testament contains many warnings against these (see for example Matthew 24.4 and 5). Such false doctrines are in fact current not only in the world but also in the church, even close at hand. Thus it is not for us as sheep to be just passive, basking in the protection of our shepherd. We need to be constantly on our guard, sharpening our perceptions of what we are presented with to the utmost. We need also to be sure that it is not some hireling that in our own community we are following but a true shepherd, one who is genuinely committed to the gospel even at the greatest personal cost.

Nor are we to consider that the little flock of which we are members, our own congregation, is the be-all and end-all of the Good Shepherd’s concern. Jesus goes on to speak of having other sheep, not of this fold, and of needing to bring them in also, so that there may be one flock, one shepherd. What makes all into one flock is heeding his voice, and thus not that of another. But again this gathering in is not something that we can passively leave to him. Implicit here is the call, indeed the commandment, to us to effect it, to make known the laying down of his life which is its ultimate basis. For his laying down of his life---so that he may take it again in his resurrection---is not only the mark of his commitment to his flock. It is also the means by which ultimately his flock is constituted. Finally, it corresponds to the charge which at the end of our passage he speaks of having received from his Father.

Let us bear in mind that our own being is constituted by his laying down his life and by nothing else. And as he has thereby opened the way for us, let us not diffidently hold back but confidently enter into it.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted