Easter 4 3rd May 2009 John 10:11-18

What makes churches grow?

God, surely, but we can give a hand.

This is something of a summary of today’s scripture, notably the gospel reading from Saint John Chapter 10.

We’re reading Saint John’s Gospel today partly because there’s not enough of Saint Mark to stretch through the 52 Sundays of Year B in the 3 year Sunday lectionary cycle. John’s Gospel has a very different ethos to the other three synoptic gospels, literally side-by-side gospels, named so because you can put whole stretches of Matthew, Mark and Luke side by side and see the similarity. You can’t do the same with Saint John because this Gospel seems to have the historical Jesus and the risen Lord Jesus merged together.

For example in Matthew, Mark and Luke there’s a brief story Jesus told about the shepherd who had a hundred sheep and losing one left the 99 and went for the lost sheep. In Saint John chapter 10 we have an explanation from the lips of Jesus that he is that shepherd, the one who lays down his life for the sheep. St John has access to the heart of Jesus really, just as the beloved disciple rested on that breast or heart at the Last Supper.

The heart of the risen Lord comes leaping out of the gospel this morning – the heart he has for mission: I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also or these I must bring.

Churches grow because the Lord who died and rose and is with us wants that. He wants the human race to be brought together so that there is one flock, one shepherd.

It’s the Lord’s will that his church grows. We read in a parallel scripture from Saint Paul in 1 Timothy 2:3-4 God our Saviour desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

The foundational ‘why’ and wellspring of mission is God’s heart for the world. As we catch more and more of that heart from the scriptures and from the Eucharist we want to be missionaries who sow the love of God in the world.

As God’s people we need to be reminded of this and to seek more of God’s heart.

That’s one way we can give a hand, to get more enthusiasm and expectation for growth. The start of a new ministry at the Rectory is a privileged time for us all, to help build such faith for a new era in the life of Saint Giles.

If God desires his church to grow how can we help achieve this end?

We need to watch out for wolves, which means false teachers, and we need to better hear the Lord’s voice.

The 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.

I wrote P&P this month how Bishop John Hind’s words at my launch still echo in my mind. They were based on 2 Timothy 1v14: “Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us”.

This ‘good treasure’, Bishop John explained, is ‘the revealed faith of the church through the ages to be made public and open to all’ as opposed to ‘a set of religious opinions or arbitrary moral teachings’. John Hind’s wolves!

When Saint John wrote his gospel he was concerned to warn the Christian community about false teachers who denied the uniqueness of Jesus. They had opinions at logger heads with this.

Perhaps today’s wolves are the rather attractively broadminded Christians who hold that salvation is through any religion and not through Christ alone. Unless we avoid such thinking we won’t be well equipped to see the flock of Christ grow as he wants: these I must bring.

The uniqueness of Jesus is strongly affirmed in our first reading from the Acts Chapter 4 where in v12 we read there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we may be saved.

I believe that the questioning of Christ’s uniqueness in the internet age - which sets his claims against so many others - is a major undermining of Christian enthusiasm which we need to work through in our own thinking.
In the 2001 World Christian Encyclopedia 10,000 distinct religions are identified, 150 of which have a million or more followers. Is it reasonable to believe that Jesus is the only way and that the other 9,999 religions are false?
Everything hinges on the resurrection as our gospel indicates. There Jesus says I have power to lay my life down and I have power to take it up again. No other person who has ever lived has made this claim. The Good Shepherd theme is traditionally linked to Eastertide. Jesus is the fulfilment of Psalm 23, the Lord who is shepherd leading us through the valley of the shadow of death to his Father’s house. Only Jesus can do this because he’s passed through death to the final destiny of humankind. We can attain that destiny only through him.
Jesus died from what is ours wrote Saint Augustine. We will live from what is his.
Since death is something universal the claim that one man transcends it should make people sit up and listen to! Look at the leaders of the other religions, see their graves! Where’s Jesus’ grave stone – you won’t find it!

If one religion is true it seems bound to be at the expense of all the others. Is it totally a black and white matter though? Is Christianity right and every other religion wrong?

Saying yes to Jesus doesn’t mean saying no to everything about other religions. Quite the opposite – it can mean saying ‘yes, but…’ to other religions, which is a far more engaging attitude.

I say ‘yes’ to what Buddhists teach about detachment because Jesus teaches it and Christians often forget it. I must challenge Buddhists about the lack of a personal vision of God since I know Jesus as God’s Son.

I say ‘yes’ to what Muslims say about God’s majesty because sometimes Christians seem to domesticate God and forget his awesome nature. I have a real issue with Muslims about how you gain salvation because I know Jesus is God’s salvation gift and more than a prophet.

What makes churches grow?

God, surely, but we can give a hand by helping communicate the good news of Jesus as Son of God and risen Saviour.

We need to watch out for wolves, that is deceptive teaching, and we need to better hear the Lord’s voice.

These I must bring and they will listen to my voice says the Lord. We know that sheep can get used to their shepherd’s voice. If we are Christ’s sheep how can we get better attuned to what our shepherd says?

By confessing our sins, which unblocks our ears. By spending time in prayer. We can’t expect to hear God’s voice unless we show our desire for it by attending silently to him. Filling our thinking more with what the bible says helps. Sometimes the Lord’s voice comes in the underlining to us of a bible verse or bible teaching as in a sermon. We hear his voice also in the profound encounter of sacramental worship where the silent act of Holy Communion can thrill with his inspiration.

Mission, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said, is finding out what God is doing and joining in. We can’t expect to join in effective mission unless we find out what God’s doing and we can’t expect to find this out unless our inner ears are attuned to Our Lord. These I must bring and they will listen to my voice he says.

What makes churches grow?

God, surely, but we can give a hand by building our confidence in what Christ alone has achieved for the world and attuning our spiritual ears to him in Word and Sacrament. As a church we need more of his heart for mission, more confidence in him and more discipline to attend to him in prayer.

Good Shepherd, Jesus risen from the dead, open up your possibilities to us, for they exceed all we can ask or imagine! Show us what you’re doing Mid-Sussex so we can be part of it and see the fruit of lives transformed by the good news of Jesus!