Jesus said,
The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice.
I know them and they follow me.
I give them eternal life.
They will never be lost.
And no one will ever steal them from me.
The Father who gave them to me is greater than anyone.
And no one can steal from the Father.
The Father and I are one.
I think this must be one of the shortest Gospel readings ever,
Or in the whole missile.
And when looking at it and looking for inspiration,
You almost get a bit of a panic.
In the longer Gospel readings there's a lot to work with,
But here we have almost a stanza from a poem.
But this is such a powerful,
Powerful message that we hear Jesus shares with John and the disciples.
And of course we know that Jesus had to put his words into a context that the people of the time could understand.
If he were born today,
Or started his ministry today,
I don't think he would have necessarily spoken about sheep.
I think maybe Jesus would rather have said that the people that believe in me follow me on Instagram.
And they listen to what I say.
Because isn't that where we find ourselves?
Where we don't hear the word of Christ anymore?
Or we have become.
.
.
We've deafened ourselves to the word of Christ.
In that there is so much clamor out there,
And our context is that of disconnect.
How often do we not connect with each other physically?
Technology is a wonderful thing.
It has allowed us to create this community.
It has allowed us to,
Through the pandemic,
Still be in touch with each other.
So it is a massively wonderful blessing from God.
I just wonder how true the old adage of too much of a good thing plays here.
In that we have become so used to taking a phone and texting somebody,
That now when somebody calls us,
We kind of shudder before we answer.
Rather,
Send me a message,
Because it's quicker and I can answer in my own time,
And I can do it in the way that I want to,
And I can do it in between other tasks.
Jesus,
I think,
Wants to sometimes just take us back into his fold.
I know them and they follow me.
And it does sound,
Again,
Like an influencer.
My fans,
And we give our fans cute nicknames.
The fans and followers of Jesus,
Of course,
Are called Christians.
But Jesus doesn't want us to follow him in order for him to get higher ratings,
And in order for him to get more money.
There is nothing in the story of Jesus that was truly of benefit to him.
He came to share with us the message of love.
And not just love,
Of unconditional love.
And what did we do?
We crucify him.
We kill God,
The very same God.
As Father Bruce was telling me earlier today,
The God that created us,
We go and kill.
That's nice,
Isn't it?
But it's so human,
We destroy.
But now,
Here we go back and we see Jesus knowingly come to earth,
Being born,
And being killed,
So that we could be saved.
So that we can realize that everything we think separates us.
Every single thing that we think separates us from each other is only illusion.
And through his death and his resurrection,
Jesus claims us for that truth.
Isn't it beautiful?
I am the truth.
It takes on.
.
.
It's a statement that is coming up more and more for me.
I am the truth.
What is the truth?
That we are all saved.
We are all one with God.
We are all part of God.
We are all part of unconditional love.
Anything that goes contrary to that is not truth.
And yet we go through it in order to learn that truth.
And I thought,
It sounds silly,
But we need to learn what is not,
To start learning and experiencing what is.
It sounds like a beautiful theological exam that we can write.
But what does it really mean?
I give them eternal life.
They will never be lost.
And no one will ever steal them from me.
And Jesus goes further and he says,
The Father who gave them to me is greater than anyone.
And no one can steal from the Father.
Why can nobody steal from the Father?
Because the Father doesn't own everything.
The Father is everything.
And how can you steal from everything?
Jesus also says then,
The Father and I are one.
Which is interesting because he says that we are equal to him.
Now that suddenly gives me cause to have a massive ego.
Because inherently isn't Jesus now saying we are all God?
And that might be true.
But I think we are still very much asleep to that divinity in us.
Because if we can really embrace that,
And we can really start living that divinity,
Then we automatically become saints.
We automatically then get to a space where we don't judge each other.
Because just as we are then divine,
Each other person is also divine.
And how can the one part of divinity judge the other part of divinity?
A couple of Sundays ago,
Quite a couple of Sundays ago,
We read about the body.
We are all the one body.
And the hand cannot tell the eye I am more important.
Because both are divine,
Both are needed.
And we come back to this again today.
But this reality and this realization isn't something that I think for any human being is completely possible.
Because when we reach that stage we stop having the need to be human.
We stop having the need to have this experience.
So that is why we need guidance.
And we'll get there in the end,
I believe so.
But that is why Christ came.
To be our light.
To be our truth.
To remind us.
To be our shepherd.
To keep us contained in this holy and sacred space.
Where we can become fully part of God.
And when we do that,
I think we step into our birthright,
If one wants to put it that.
But we step into the divinity that is.
Just the divinity that is.
Amen.
