Potlucking Alone

April 13, 2008
John 10:1-10, Acts 2:42-47
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Eastertide 4

Torin and I have a great picture from our honeymoon, when we meandered for a month around the hills and shores of Ireland. Before we entered the town of Doolin, a village that is well-known as the hub of traditional Irish music, we came across a car stopped at the side of the road. Its driver and passenger, as well as the occupants of an oncoming car which also stopped, were standing in the middle of the road taking pictures of three sheep, perched on a low stone fence. We rolled our eyes and scoffed: “tourists,” we muttered … as we ourselves got out of the car, to take a picture.

Now, if you would just look at the picture you would probably think it is one among many-- pictures of sheep in Ireland. But after I took the picture, I realized they weren’t just perched there for our viewing pleasure. They were anxious and agitated. And we realized why. On the other side of the road was the rest of the flock. We were blocking their reunion. The three sheep were huddled together, likely devising a plan on how to overcome this obstacle that has insinuated itself between them and the flock. When we realized what was going on, we herded ourselves into our cars to go on our way; our picture of the idyllic Irish pastoral scene secured. As Torin drove away I turned around to watch the sheep. When there was a safe distance between them and the offenders, the sheep bounded off the stone fence, one of them losing its footing and stumbling on its way down, quick to recover and reunite with the flock.

Two of our scriptures today focus on the image of sheep and the work of shepherding. The fourth Sunday of Easter is known throughout the church as Good Shepherd Sunday, with good reason. One of the earliest and favorite images painted by the first Christians was God as shepherd. It is also one of the most identifiable images of our faith. It’s appropriate during Eastertide, our season of celebration and welcoming, that we refamiliarize our relationship with our God, the Good Shepherd, the God of provision.

But lest we start getting too comfortable with the picturesque image of Jesus holding the sheep, John throws another image at us. Jesus is not just a shepherd. Jesus is a gate. “I tell you,” says Jesus, “I am the gate for the sheep…Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” Simultaneously, we are led, pushed, corralled by Jesus the shepherd, saying “Go that way, go that way, no not that way, this way” while also being beckoned by an open pathway telling us to “Come this way, come in here, come through this space I have created, here, I’ve marked it for you.”

Many of us forget that this imagery of John’s holds two distinct images. More often than not we focus on the image of Jesus the shepherd when we are looking to reconnect ourselves with the one who gives us provision…like on Good Shepherd Sunday. But we often overlook the image of the gate, it is often used as a sort of “open and shut” argument about Jesus and belief. But perhaps it is not so open and shut if we take the two of them together, and see what they tell us about Jesus.

Commentator Gail O’Day, a biblical scholar who has been guiding my “muddled” walk through John these past months, says this about these two images: “The images of Jesus as the gate and the good shepherd are intensely relational;” she says. “they have no meaning without the presence of the sheep. These “I am” statements do not simply reveal who Jesus is, but more specifically reveal who Jesus is in relationship to those who follow him… The identity of the community is determined by the shepherd’s relationship to it and its relationship to the shepherd…the shepherd, and the gate, are nothing without the sheep.” She concludes that this imagery drastically affects the making of the community to follow, “The community that gathers around Jesus are the ones who share in the mutual knowledge of God and Jesus, whose relationship to Jesus is modeled on Jesus’ relationship to God…By taking Jesus as its point of access to God, the community receives abundant life.” ( "Acts/John," New Interpreter's Bible Commentary, Nashville: Abington Press, 1995. p. 672)

A community of abundant life. I bet that’s what those first Christian communities were going after. Actually to be correct, we can’t quite call them Christian communities at this point. They are still deeply rooted in the Judaic traditions, yet deeply affected by Jesus. These aren’t Christian communities—no “Christian” churches, no “Christian” mass media or bookstores, no “Christian” charities, or seminaries, or Political Action Groups. They probably wouldn’t know what to make of us if they saw us Christians today. These instead are “Christ” communities, those who modeled their relationships on Jesus’ relationship with God, his relationship to the outsiders, his relationship with everyone around him. These Christ communities took Jesus and his life as their point of access to God, and they received abundant life. We have the “first glimpse of the community for which Jesus gave his life.”

“Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” This gives us an indication of the mutual knowledge these Christ-communities took from the presence of Jesus. This type of living is what Jesus inspired in these people.

Worshipping, praising, eating together in homes, enjoying fellowship…distribution of wealth. The practice of lectio divina is an approach to reading a passage of scripture meditatively, allowing your mind and heart to dwell on a particular word or phrase that jumps at you. I have a feeling that this last descriptor of the Christ community would likely be the one that gets many of us: “they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

No searching for change in pockets, or writing a check based on the meticulously calculated amount that we talked and argued and compromised on at the beginning of the year. If we did like the first Christ community, we would be handing over our paychecks, our investments, anything of monetary worth.

And we would know the need of our brothers and sisters. The walls that we hide behind in our individual houses would be transparent. The smiles that we force ourselves to wear when we come to church so no one knows what is really going on in our lives would make way for tears and anguish. “What’s mine is yours” would be real.

But this is probably a little too rosy for many of us. Probably why it jumps out at us is the outrageous optimism. Our capitalist cynicism and invidualistic tendencies stop us dead in our tracks. It doesn’t help that this mutual sharing sounds like the idealistic roots of tyrannical systems such as the Soviet Union and China. We think of communism and socialism. And dismiss it as either a ideal without any real teeth, or an ideology that produces fangs.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian instrumental in the formation of Christian resistance to the fascism of Nazi Germany. He was eventually killed by the Nazis. In his book Life Together he explored the complexity and the importance of knitting together a divinely inspired Christian community. But he also recognized that it is not something that can be forced on people. It’s not a five-point checklist of things to do: worship together (check), eat together (check), give my money away (check).

Bonhoeffer recognizes the folly in a person who tries to force such community: “The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and god Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren and acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds [humanity] together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.”

Is what we are reading about in Acts a political prescription for a nation state? This isn’t billions of people. This is one, small, Christ community. I dwelled on this community for a while, and I came to terms many of my own reactions. I first recognized the absence of any one leader directing their interactions. I then felt inspired and excited about what this means for us. I then scoffed at the superb outrageousness that this could ever be practiced in this century…in this society. So I dwelled further with this community, this flock, and I found myself asking “where does it come from?” If a Christ-community can’t be imposed, how does it spring out from those who profess to be followers of Christ?

I think it might have to do with the responsibility, and the joyful task, the followers of Christ were given. If, as Gail O’Day suggests, Jesus is the access to God for these people, then we should ask about their motivation.

Perhaps you remember one of the last conversations Jesus had with members of the Christ community as told in the gospel of John. When he asked Simon Peter “do you love me…? He said to him, ‘Yes Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.’”

If this message is what Jesus left burning in the hearts of the first Christ-community, if this is how they understood access to God, then their relationship with one another—their economic, and physical, and emotional mutual care—was a simple bi-product of how they saw the Good Shepherd tend the flock. Love for Christ translates into love for Christ’s community.

In our year with you, I have seen the many ways we are a community that strives to witness Christ’s love and justice to the world. Like the first Christ communities we are a unique blend of individuals and families who have been touched by the Christ message. We join on Sundays to worship, sing, pray, connect, and even potluck. And then we go our separate ways. Maybe we’ll see each other at a blanket circle, or a board meeting, or choir practice. But mostly we, and I include myself in this, prefer to explore our faithfulness in our private lives.

But the Christ community of Acts inspires me to reconsider my understanding of faith—it’s not all about my private practice of faith. It is the tending, the feeding of our flock that all of us are called to. It’s not one person’s responsibility but a collective endeavor. It could be that how we treat and care for one another is one of the first practices of faith we engage in and how we keep Christ moving in the world today.

In the insightful book entitled Bowling Alone (Simon and Schuster, 2000), Robert Putnam explores the how American society is becoming more and more disconnected with each other: disconnected from family, friends, neighborhoods, and even democratic structures.

His title comes from a study on bowling statistics which shows a decrease in the number of people bowling with friends and leagues, and the increase numbers of people bowling by themselves. It makes me wonder if we don’t see a similar trend in our church communities. Perhaps, we are more and more disconnected from each other. Perhaps, we are “potlucking alone.”

Putnam concludes the introduction to his book with the following story: “Before October 29, 1997, John Lambert and Andy Boschma knew each other only through their local bowling league at the Ypsi-Arbor Lanes in Ypsilanti, Michigan. [John], a sixty-four-year-old retired employee of the University of Michigan hospital, had been on a kidney transplant waiting list for three years when [Andy], a thirty-three-year-old accountant, learned casually of [John]'s need and unexpectedly approached him to offer to donate one of his own kidneys.

"Andy saw something in me that others didn't," said John. "When we were in the hospital Andy said to me, 'John, I really like you and have a lot of respect for you. I wouldn't hesitate to do this all over again.' I got choked up." Andy returned the feeling: "I obviously feel a kinship [with John]. I cared about him before, but now I'm really rooting for him." This moving story speaks for itself, but the photograph that accompanied this report in the Ann Arbor News reveals that in addition to their differences in profession and generation, Andy is white and John is African American. That they bowled together made all the difference.” Putnam concludes “In small ways like this -- and in larger ways, too -- we Americans need to reconnect with one another. That is the simple argument of this book.”

We aren’t called to recreate the first Christ community. But I do pray that we feel the same responsibility for our flock that Christ encouraged in his followers. In small ways like eating together, in large ways like giving of ourselves and our vulnerabilities and relinquishing some of our individual pride, we need to reconnect with one another. Is that the simple argument of our reading for today? Why don’t we talk about it…over a potluck, perhaps?