Living in Abundance

Ann Beaty
Fellowship Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

May 15, 2011

Text: John 10:1-10

In this passage from John, Jesus says that he has come so that his sheep – his followers, all of us – may have life and have it abundantly. Life, obviously, is good, desirable and important. And how much more so, then, do we, as disciples of Christ, desire that our life be “abundant” – full of meaning and substance in relationship with Jesus?

Living abundantly as Jesus offers is the chance to not simply exist, but to thrive and to flourish in faith. It is to live having a sense of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. It is to know God and to be known by God, to accept others and to be accepted. It is to trust that God is our Good Shepherd in all of life.

I believe that if there is one thing we all pretty much desire – even if we don’t all name that desire the same “thing” – it involves living life with this type of abundance and assurance.

There is an interesting segment of videos circulating on YouTube from an episode of the PBS documentary series, Frontline called "The Persuaders." One segment in that episode is entitled: “Emotional Branding” and it shows how marketing has shifted from earlier times when products promoted that they would make things “whiter, brighter, stronger, and cleaner” to a different approach now when these words have ceased to have meaning. (web link in the bulletin insert)

Now, since the early 1990’s, advertising has put the focus not so much on what the product can do for us to what the product can mean in our lives. This is a significant shift!

For example: A recent commercial for the laundry detergent Tide presents a visual story depicting the deeper meaning of what can happen in your family life if you use Tide. The intended message is (and I quote the designer of the ad): “Tide enables liberation from the heart of laundry to the heart of a happy and fulfilled family”. The message? That abundant life in the form of a fulfilled family can come from using the laundry detergent Tide.

The narrator of the YouTube clip actually states that "emotional branding intentionally seeks to fill the empty places that civic institutions like schools and churches used to fill.”

What has happened to cause this shift? And what does this mean for us today as disciples who do desire to live abundantly in relationship with Jesus? Are we no longer looking to the church or to our faith for that fulfillment? Are we really being convinced that we can get abundant life from a plastic bottle of laundry detergent?!?

I suspect that authentic abundant life – which John describes in our scripture today as flowing from relationship with the Good Shepherd – demands that we be more vulnerable than we're most often prepared to be in our day to day living.

So much of our life is about protecting ourselves: giving the impression that we really do have it all together and in this way guarding ourselves against vulnerability – guarding ourselves against other people finding out that we really don’t have it all together, that we really do need God and each other to navigate this journey of life. We like to think we can take care of it all ourselves.

The difficulty, though, is that we cannot experience abundant life without admitting to our human frailties...without admitting that we need God to guide us in all of life. We need God to guide us to the green pastures of fulfilled living and to guide us back to the sheepfold when we find ourselves lost or in danger.

Think about it. It seems to me that much of our life is caught in this double-bind of wanting intimacy and honesty in our relationships – with each other as much as with God – and yet simultaneously holding back, not risking exposing ourselves fully to others for fear that they may reject us. It's a legitimate fear, of course; people have rejected us in the past.

All of this is where the good news of the gospel comes in and takes over! It is this very real human condition that God embraces in the incarnation, taking on our lot and our life in the flesh and blood of Jesus. The man born of woman, born under the law; the one who experienced love and laughter, sorrow and disappointment; the teacher of love and peace who was executed on the cross – this one knows the deepest recesses of our fears and insecurities and has embraced them all.

And when he is resurrected, he comes bearing the peace he has offered all along accompanied with the promise that his love is greater than fear and that his new life is greater than death.

Desiring to live abundantly with God means we embrace this promise. And it is a promise! Abundant life is not something to earn, achieve, buy, or find in a bottle of Tide!

Rather, it is a gift, the sheer gift of a God who loves us enough to lay down his life for us. And so Jesus comes as the gatekeeper and Good Shepherd, the one who knows his sheep – intimately and truly – and who calls us by name so that we may believe and receive the wonderful truth about God's great and victorious love for us.



I love that we use the Sunday School curriculum “Godly Play” in our preschool classes at TUMC. The very first lesson presented in the book introduces to the children the concept of the Good Shepherd. I can’t imagine a better starting place as we begin to teach our children that the Good Shepherd is there for them and that abundant life means living and trusting in the presence of God always.

Godly Play is based on a Montessori method of learning and so in addition to the story given by the teacher, there are many “wondering” questions that the children are asked and allowed to reflect on. I’d like to share the story of the Good Shepherd with you now. Maybe you can even imagine that as you listen to me tell the story and ask the questions, you are yourself the child hearing the story.

The teacher begins by placing the story pieces on the floor – felt pieces: green for the pasture, blue for the cool water, dark pieces for the places of danger, and brown strips for the security of the sheep fold. The sheep are placed in the sheepfold with the Good Shepherd near by. Then the story…

“Once there was someone who did such amazing things and said such wonderful things that people began to follow him. They didn’t know who he was so one day they asked him. He said: “I am the Good Shepherd and I know each of my sheep by name and they know the sound of my voice. I open the sheepfold and they follow me to the cool water and the green grass and they follow me back to the safety of the sheepfold.

And at night I count each one of them and when one is missing I go back to the cool water and the green grass and even to the places of darkness and danger and I carry them back to the safety of the sheepfold.”

Then the questions…

I wonder if the sheep have names?

I wonder if the sheep are happy in this place?

I wonder if they are scared in the places of danger?

I wonder if you have ever been scared?

I wonder if you have ever been lost and found?

I wonder where you are in the story?

Amen.

Resources:

Working Preaching: David Lose, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN

YouTube Link:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/

Young Children and Worship by Sonja Stewart (Godly Play Lesson #10)