The Scripture today is from John 10:1-10. Jesus is speaking and he says
“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.
Thank you, God, for continuing to speak to us through Scripture.
When we read this passage, we most often focus on the comforting image of Jesus as the good shepherd, guiding us, protecting us, calling us by name. But what about that first part about people not entering by the gate being thieves and bandits? I’d like to focus on that message today.
What does it mean to you to be a Christian?
I thought I’d start with an easy question this morning! I wonder if there was ever a time when that was an easy question? In the early days of the church, when followers of Jesus first began identifying themselves as something separate from Judaism, how do you think they defined themselves?
What do you think being a Christian meant to them?
Of course, a key component of their identification would have been a belief in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the one God, the God of Israel, right? Perhaps they would have defined themselves in contrast to others in the community such as pagans and those who worshiped a variety of gods.
Would they all have agreed on other components of their identity as Christian or would there have been a variety of beliefs as there are today? Throughout the history of Christianity, faithful followers have been challenged with determining what are the correct beliefs to be held by a Christian. What is truth and what is heresy? There were no easy answers. And today, we still struggle with what it means to be a Christian.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus declares that he is the true gate to God, that he alone is the way to God. He calls those who try to enter by other means thieves and bandits. When I read this first passage, I immediately begin to worry that this is a text that is being used to support messages of hate against Jews, Muslims, and others who are not Christian, who obviously do not come to God through the gate of Jesus Christ. Is Jesus or the author of this Gospel really characterizing all paths to God outside of a belief in Jesus as the Messiah as paths of thieves and bandits?
Do you, as a Christian, feel our way is the only way to God?
At seminary some of us recently participated in our first year evaluation to see if we should continue in our journey to ministry. It was an interesting process, with a group of three or four students meeting with two professors. We met individually and then as a group, each of us reading our statement of faith and discussing it with the other students. The three students in my group all affirmed our belief that Christianity is not the only path to God.
It recalled to me a conversation I had with a blind date years ago when we began talking about Christianity. I began to share my view of the validity of all paths and he became very angry and pointed out that duh, Christianity means you believe Christ is the only way! Needless to say, that relationship did not go any further. That was years ago, but I guess his challenge stayed in the back of my mind until the recent conversations at seminary.
Is the belief that Christianity is the only path to God so essential that without it one cannot really identify as a Christian? That would make me very sad, because I sincerely don’t believe there is only one path to God. I don’t believe Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus are thieves and bandits, but what does this Bible passage mean?
I talked to a couple of other seminary students who went through the evaluation process with different professors and they also shared the belief in all paths being valid, but their professors challenged them to explain why they are at a Christian seminary studying to be Christian ministers. Some struggled to articulate an answer.
As we have all become aware, there are many definitions of what it means to be a Christian.
These days when someone asks me if I am a Christian, I hesitate because I am not sure what I am agreeing to. Was the Florida minister who burned the Koran one who believed he was doing God’s will by fighting thieves and bandits trying to come in the wrong gate to God’s love?
I was talking to my father about this sermon and he told me about a recent article in TIME magazine about Rob Bell, a popular Evangelical minister who has written a book called “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.” Bell starts out his book by recounting an incident at an art exhibit at his church on the topic of peace.
He included a quote from Gandhi in the exhibit and later found a post-it note stuck next to the quote saying “Reality check: He’s in hell.” Bell writes “Really? Gandhi’s in hell? He is? We have confirmation of this? Somebody knows this? Without a doubt?”
Can you read this Bible passage about Jesus being the only gate to God, and really imagine it is telling about a universe in which Gandhi is a thief and a bandit who ends up in hell?
Bell suggests that maybe we need to move beyond the view that the people who believe in Jesus as the Son of God will go to heaven and those who don’t will go to hell. He proposes that maybe the redemptive work of Jesus was for everyone.
Looking at this first passage in its historical context and within the theme of the Gospel of John, it is clear the author is writing to reinforce the concept of Jesus’ divinity. John is the last of the Gospels to be written and the concept of Jesus’ divinity is more developed than it is in the earlier Gospels. The Gospel of John is meant to create a reader experience of a world that is centered in Christ. Throughout the book, there are references to Jesus declaring his role as a link between God and humanity, such as
· “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” in chapter 6;
· “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” in chapter 8; and
· in John 14:16 “I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”
At the time it was most likely written, toward the end of the first century, there was growing conflict between Jews who believed in Jesus as the Messiah and Jews who did not. In this passage Jesus is probably speaking to the Jews mentioned in Chapter 9, including some of the Pharisees, after he healed the man blind from birth on the Sabbath. He is challenged about the fact that he disobeyed the law of the Sabbath and is presenting another vision of the path to God, outside of strict observance of the laws of the Torah. Jesus is the gate or the way to God.
Listeners are urged to follow Jesus (the good shepherd), and not the others (thieves and bandits), who are false shepherds.
In researching this text, I found lots of commentary, but most was focused on Jesus as the gate to God. None addressed the concept of who the thieves and bandits are, or the specific idea that those who are seeking God outside of Jesus are not going to succeed in their search.
I found an interesting article about Christianity from a Hindu perspective in which the author quotes part of a conversation between Mahatma Gandhi and English priest and close friend C.F. Andrews about conversion from one religion to another.
Andrews makes the case for people being able to change faith traditions as they desire. Gandhi, on the other hand, presents a different perspective. He says “Supposing a Christian came to me and said he was captivated by a reading of the Bhagavad gita and so wanted to declare himself a Hindu. I should say to him: No. What the Bhagavad gita offers, the Bible also offers. You have not yet made the attempt to find it. Make the attempt and be a good Christian….. My position is that all the great religions are fundamentally equal. We must have innate respect for other religions as we have for our own.” Now that I liked.
So what does this Scripture mean to us as Christians today? Who are the thieves and the bandits?
How does your understanding of this text affect your feeling toward members of non-Christian faith traditions?
Is it possible for you to hold your faith as truth and still respect a person with different beliefs who holds their faith as truth? Is it possible that we both have the truth?
I really wanted to find an understanding of this passage that allows me to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus, and still respect those in other faith traditions who come to God through another gate. It has been a similar exercise as one I had last year in writing about the passage in Genesis 22 where Abraham is commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac. With both passages, I could not reconcile my values and beliefs as a Christian with what the Bible appeared to be saying.
With the Abraham and Isaac story, I finally came to agree with philosopher Emmanuel Kant’s comment that if we regard a given text as transmitted words of God or as divinely inspired, we find ourselves in the position of idolaters claiming to know God’s precise purpose. Sometimes we must simply acknowledge a wide spectrum of reading is possible. Once you exhaust the text, it no longer speaks or has meaning for new generations. Kant believed the Abraham-Isaac story is intentionally ambiguous and expects the reader to ponder its significance and question its intentions.
The ambiguity in the story compels the readers to make their own interpretive and moral decisions. God does not give simple assignments, Kant wrote. God expects us to study, to think, to pay attention, to engage in debate, and to work hard at understanding what God says and means.
And so, who are the thieves and the bandits? I still have no idea.
Do I think we should treat those who are not Christians as thieves and bandits because they don’t come through the gate of Jesus Christ on their way to God? No.
Is my brain tired from struggling with this? Yes.
I think I’ll just stop a while now and focus on the image of Jesus as my shepherd. I am safe and cared for. There is nothing to fear because I am being led by the good shepherd.
Let us pray.
Eternal God of all Creation, thank you for being present in every moment of our lives. Thank you for being there while we struggle to find meaning and truth in the Scripture that reflects our inward knowing of you as God. Be with as we continue to try to be good Christians, keeping your great commandments to love you above all else, and our neighbors as ourselves. Amen.
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