An unexpected gate

John 10:1-10 

At the most southwestern point of California, about 20 miles from downtown San Diego, there’s a park that looks out over the wide expanse of the pacific ocean.  Standing in the park, you can see the tall slats of the border fence march through the grassy, sandy bluff, down towards the beach, into the water.  The waves roll up out of the pacific and crest across the beach, across both sides of that fence. On the Tiujana side of the wall, this park is known as la Parque de la Amistad.  On the San Diego side of the wall, this park is known as Friendship Park.

Decades ago, people met at the wall and exchanged cards and notes with family, you could even buy a tamale or an ice cream from one side and pass it through to another.  At one point there was a special space with a gate on either side of the border where 2 or 3 people from each side could come together and embrace.  For many years, Christians have met on both sides and even celebrated Holy Communion together. A border church.  

At first, the bread and the wine were passed back and forth through the fence.  Then that was prohibited. Before the park was closed because of the Covid-19 virus in March, the church set up a table on each side of the border and celebrated communion together, each on their own side, but together.

Today’s gospel reading has talk about a fence and gates and sheep pens and shepherds who open the gates.  the bible says, “the sheep hear [the shepherd’s] voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out…then…he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”  

I know some of you grew up on farms.  I’ll confess that I don’t have a whole lot of experience with animals and gates other than the two gates in my Chicago house that keep my dog in the backyard.  One I open to take the trash out to the alley and the other I open when we want to go into the front yard.  There are also some other choice dogs in the neighborhood that I’m happy are kept out of my yard and away from my dog. 

When we lived in Mexico, we lived in a gated neighborhood.  In that case, I wasn’t as concerned with keeping us on our side of the gate as I was with keeping unauthorized people out.  Today? In our covid world, we’v got all kinds of other gates and barriers out there.  There are the masks and gloves that we wear that keep the germs out, the stores that have created plexyglass barriers between customers and cashier.  When food or items are delivered, you can ask for people to just “leave it at the door” which serves as a barrier.  There’s the six feet of social distance that is also a barrier. 

Don’t get me wrong, I actually think that these practices are good and healthy right now, but we are taking great care through these barriers to keep ourselves and our germs apart.

In our scripture reading today, when Jesus is talking about sheep and gates and shepherds, he is talking to that man who was born blind who Jesus gave sight to.  I don’t know if you remember this story, but Pastor Kevin actually preached a wonderful sermon about this bible story for our first virtual service in March. 

There was a man who was born blind. He was ostracized, and sat and begged outside of the temple gates. Jesus found him, and made a paste out of some mud and his spit (do you remember this one?) and he puts it on the man’s eyes and suddenly the guy can see. After Jesus heals him, the guy is still barred from the community, and, Jesus goes and finds him again on the outskirts and brings him back again and restores him to the community.  Then, Jesus tells a story about how the people are the sheep and he tells them, “I am the gate.”

When I hear this story of Jesus, my mind goes to all those gates and barriers that divide and classify people. Then, I can’t help but think about ideas of gates that keep certain people in or out of the church.  I’m not necessarily referring to the famous “pearly gates.” While we often think of eternal life when we hear about gates--and yes, Jesus has most certainly prepared a place for us--we’re missing a big part of the story if we think that’s the whole story of the gate Jesus is talking about here .

But there have long been other kinds of gates that keep people in and out of the church. Depending on who you’re married to, maybe the church will let you through the gate, maybe not.  Depending on how you’re dressed or if you can “talk the church talk” maybe the church will let you in, or maybe you’ll feel so weird and awkward that it’s best to scoot out as fast as possible.  

Back to Friendship Park that sits between San Diego and Tijuana.  Today, those tall metal slats of the border fence are covered with a sort of metal grate so that people can’t pass things through the barrier.  After that border church celebrates communion, each on their own side of the fence, they share the peace. They do this by sticking their tiny pinkies—that’s all that will fit—through these metal grates and sharing the peace. Pinky peace. I can’t help but think that this is an image of what it means when Jesus says, “I am the gate.”

When Debie Thomas recently reflected on this pinky peace at this little border church, she wrote that this is an image of Jesus the gate and the:  “eager, loving hands reaching through small gaps in an old, steel barrier insistent sharing of song, prayer, bread, and wine across a bleak…border.”

Jesus isn’t the gate that separates us, condemns us, divides us or polarizes us.  Jesus is the door in the wall, the way in the wilderness, the tiny hole in the metal grate where a pinky fits through, that brings life in.

I don’t know what the walls are that you’re feeling in your life right now.  Maybe they’re walls of financial concerns, or health concerns. Maybe you’re exhausted with work and just feeling blocked or walled in. Maybe you feel surrounded by a wall of loneliness. Maybe it’s an angry wall built against folks who are irritating you for whatever reason. Maybe is a fortress constructed around our political opinion. Maybe the walls are just plain, dull weariness from being shut into our homes for weeks upon weeks—sometimes with people we really love and yet that are kind of making us crazy right now.

Whatever the walls are, I do know that the resurrected Jesus shows up wherever you are. (Like that time he showed up in that locked upper room where the disciples are gathered and afraid.) Jesus is the gate, the doorway where the light of the world reaches through to us even if it is at times only a pinky reaching through that little hole. 

Jesus the gate is in the bag of groceries that you gave or received from the food pantry. Jesus the gate is in the begonia that was left on your doorstep, the masks someone made for you, in the loving card that came in the mail. Jesus the gate is in the patient you lovingly cared for. He is in the beautiful hymn or song that you hear in worship that touches your soul. Jesus the gate is in the bread and wine that we will share in together shortly. 

Two nights ago, Jesus was a gate into my tired wall and I spent 20 wonderful minutes reading stories over zoom with some of the children from church in our pajamas and my soul was filled.

No matter the walls that surround us I know that Jesus is the gate and will call our name and like that pinky coming through the wall, we will hear his voice that leads us to green pastures and beside still waters, That voice will reach through and restores our soul, I am the gate, Jesus says.  I will find you. I’ve got you.   

There’s a lot of talk about the border right now that has to do with danger, crime and fear. One of the pastors of the border church in friendship park, John Fanestil, had a different take on it. He called the border “a place of encounter, exchange, friendship and fellowship.”  In other words, as Debie Thomas puts it, that little church makes it their practice to look for Jesus exactly in a place that is marked by a wall.  (They look for Jesus in a place where so many see only a wall or crime or danger!)   That is a spiritual practice to live into!

That’s how I pray for us to live: focusing our eyes on Jesus the gate who breaks through those walls, ushers unexpected grace into our lives, and leads us to bear the light of Christ to others. Blessed by the journey.