Domes - Our Monthly Newsletter
Dunbar UCC
April 13, 2008
John 10:1-10
The Gate
- Jesus said that he’s the gate. Think about gates for a minute. Gates are places where you enter a place, or leave it. It can be a physical place -- like the gate on a fence, or a gate can be metaphorical. Baptism is a gate we enter when we choose to follow Jesus Christ. Marriage is a gate that opens a new relationship. Parenthood is a gate with many new responsibilities.
- In prison, gates separate the inmates from visitors -- To open that gate, you have to break the law. Sometimes, you can’t open a gate unless you have money -- like a movie theater -- or a neighborhood with expensive houses.
- We go through gates every day -- The doors of this church are a gate. Our sign outside says (or will say) that all are welcome to enter this gate -- this place. Why? Because we are the Dunbar United Church of Jesus Christ -- it’s his church and if we excluded anyone, we wouldn’t be following him. The doors of our homes are gates -- Sometimes, we’re probably not too careful about what we allow to enter the gate of our homes -- look at the TV shows and radio programming we allow to enter -- and the stuff on our computers. If you’re driving to Mexico you have to go through a gate -- It’s probably easier for to get through that gate if you’re American.
- Nationality wasn’t a condition to get through Jesus’ gate -- money wasn’t either. Jesus let poor people, foreigners, and criminals through his gate -- he let rich people through his gate too -- though most of them weren’t interested in entering -- Rich or powerful people usually want others to serve them -- but Jesus said that anyone who goes through his gate must serve others.
- Why would anyone want to enter the gate of Jesus Christ? Why would someone want to be a servant all their lives? Jesus said that God wired us to enjoy life only we’re living for others -- even in the face of death. That’s how we’re made and we can’t change that -- though we try. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, spent much of her life working with people who were dying. She worked once with a boy in the final stages of cancer. She asked him to draw a picture to show how felt. He drew a picture filled with dark clouds and a cannon pointed at his heart. When Kubler-Ross saw it she didn’t say anything, but took it and drew a figure of herself in white hospital coat, standing next to the boy, facing the cannon with him, with her arms hugging him. A few days later, without being asked, the boy drew another picture. The sun was shining, there were flowers everywhere, and now he had a smile on his face. What had changed? Kubler-Ross helped the boy see that the gate of love is more powerful than the gate of death. And the gate that opens to love -- the greatest of all the gates -- is the one we call Jesus Christ.