“I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”
Earlier this week I mentioned Jesus’ saying he was the gate of the sheepfold, the means of entry. Presumably, he meant entry into the Life of God; he sometimes talked about the challenges of entry for certain sorts of people (i.e., easy for children; harder for the wealthy). I was having trouble imagining a person being a gate, and a friend emailed me a tidbit about sheepfolds in Jesus’ day. Scholars think they often had no gate. The shepherd, when the flock was safely enclosed, would lie down to sleep in the opening as a way of securing the flock. Thus, the shepherd became a gate.
Besides the amusing image this prompted for me, of a sleepy shepherd trampled one morning by hungry sheep going out to pasture, it helped make sense of Jesus’ words. The shepherd is the one who leads the flock in and out of the fold. Jesus says those who enter the Life of God by way of relationship with him will come in and go out and find pasture.
And for the first time it occurred to me that sheep don’t get sustenance in the sheepfold – they get rest and security. For nourishment, they go out to seek pasture. What does that say to us as churchgoers? Often people say they go to church to be fed. What if instead we saw church-time as a time to rest and recharge, be renewed, safely enclosed in the fold with the rest of our flock – and then sent back out to find nurture in our lives the rest of the week?
What if we were fed in spiritual conversation with other people, by sharing our faith journey with people who aren’t in our “fold?” What if God wants us to be pasture for others to be fed by? The going out becomes as important as the coming in, maybe more.
Why do you go to church? What do you seek there?
What do you seek when you leave and head back to your “life?”
Where do you, or where might you find spiritual nurture in the week between worship services?
Where might you offer it?
In prayer today, you might ask, “God… what pastures are you leading me to in my life right now? Who might you be asking me to provide a feast for?” And see what occurs to you, or who crosses your path.
We don’t come and go alone. The Great News is that the shepherd goes with us, coming in and going out. The shepherd leads us to green pastures and the shepherd leads us home again. We don’t have to search for pasture – we only have to learn the voice of the Shepherd and follow him.
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