Sermon at The Church of
the Holy Apostles, New York City
April 13, 2008,
The Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A
Deacon Megan Castellan
Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10
When I first went to the Middle East, I had been
thoroughly briefed on what I was supposed to do. So I got
through the lengthy security screening, and as I had been
instructed, I found a communal taxi, a sherut, and told the
driver I wanted to go to St. George’s College, Jerusalem. He
thought this was fine, so I blithely loaded my beat-up suitcase
into the back of the van, and settled down to enjoy the ride.
After the 30 minutes it took to get to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv,
we started to let people off—one at a yeshiva, one at a fancy
hotel. The driver looked back at me and asked me where I wanted
to go, again. I told him—St. George’s College. It was then
that I realized the original driver had been replaced by another
man, slightly less affable.
No, Nope! He
announced in response. I don’t go there.
Beginning to
worry, I repeated where I wanted to go. To no avail.
Nope!
I turned to the older man sitting next to me who
suddenly looked disturbed, and asked what the problem was. “He
won’t go there—it’s not safe.”
Nervousness rising now, I turned back to the driver,
and repeated my address one more time. “NO!” intoned the
driver, still chipper. “This is Jewish taxi. Doesn’t go to
east side. It’s not safe, not safe for the taxi. You can
walk!”
Accordingly, the driver pulled to the side of the road
and unloaded my suitcase. I got out, and scanned my
surroundings. Tried to figure out how I was somehow safer on my
own, wandering around lost, toting a garish suitcase than I was
in a huge white van filled with people.
As the driver was helpfully gesturing toward my
destination (ten minutes walk! Not far! That way!) I realized
we had stopped at one of the gates into the Old City, and I got
my first lesson in Jerusalem geography. The Damascus Gate sat
was the dividing line between East and West Jerusalem,
Palestinian and Israeli. And my Israeli driver wasn’t going to
cross.
But I did.
In the time I lived there, the Damascus Gate became my
favorite entrance into the Old City. It’s one of only two or
three gates that enter into Palestinian occupied Jerusalem, and
it’s the largest. It was my signpost going into the Old City’s
maze of stalls and windy passages. It led into the market
section of the Muslim Quarter—messy, noisy, and crowded, and
packed with everything you could ever want to haggle
over—freshly slaughtered meat, produce, candy, pastries,
jewelry, clothes, toys—even Internet access. Far from being a
place of fear, of limits, for me, it marked the entrance to the
excitement of the souk, to another world I had never seen
before.
So that gate was complex, it represented different
things to different people. To my cabdriver, it was the limit
of where he felt safe. For me, it led into a richer world on
the other side of the wall, and the people I lived among.
Because gates really serve two different functions, and it
depends on how you want to see it. Is the gate there to keep
some in and some out? Is the gate the dividing line between
safety and danger?
Or was it something else—was it an opening into another
place—a bridge through the huge wall that separated you—an
entrance into a different world?
In the gospel today, Jesus has just healed the
man born blind, and we’ve just gone five rounds with his
parents, and then the man himself, in front of the Temple
authorities. All this has ended with the man getting ejected
from the synagogue because of what he is claiming about Jesus.
This man who the authorities know little about, has healed him.
So the man-who-was-til-recently-blind, gets kicked out of his
community. All for the nerve of experiencing an out-of-the-box
miracle.
The religious authorities know their God. And their
belief in God is a gate that closes, that separates the safe
people from the dangerous people. Their God helps them wall off
life, and keeps them there. The safe places and the unsafe.
The righteous and the unrighteous. Their God is a gate that
keeps them on the safe side of that wall.
And this is Jesus’ response to the crowd—comparing
himself to the shepherd whom the sheep instinctively know, that
leads the sheep in and out through the gate. When they don’t
understand, he gets more explicit. I am the gate for the sheep,
and through me they will go in and come out and find pasture.
Though me, they find life more abundant.
So Jesus is not a closed gate that keeps people safe on
one side. Jesus is the open gate that leads us out, leads us on
into new life, into a different life. Jesus is the open
gate—not a dividing line between people, but a way to connect, a
way forward.
So often, we use our faith in God or our beliefs about
God, as a closed gate. It’s one of the ways we like to
distinguish ourselves from others, or at least know where people
stand. We believe these particular things about God, so that
makes us separate from those people over there. It separates us
from the life beyond our constructed walls. It keeps us safe
and comfortable, here in our sheep pen with members of our own
flock.
I think Americans especially have gotten really good at
this these last few years. We really like our niches and
categories, and we tend not to venture out of them—it just feels
safer in a scary and polarized world. I don’t like to do it
myself. There is a list of people I won’t discuss politics
with. A list of people I won’t discuss religion with. List of
jobs I didn’t apply for because I had problems with their
bishops’ politics. And it’s not because I bear these people
ill-will, or even necessarily dislike them, I just don’t want to
risk the pain of another deep-seated argument.
But the truth is, Jesus calls us out beyond our walls.
Christ is the way beyond our closed gates, and constructed
walls, into a larger world. Christ doesn’t call us to safety
and the comfort of the familiar. He calls us into the unknown,
the unfamiliar, the uncomfortable.
But always with the promise that he will be with us
along the way, as our gate, and our shepherd.
Because all our closed doors and closed walls do for us
is keep us trapped, keep us separated from God and each other.
When we wall ourselves off, we miss the relationship with the
other, we miss the joy of finding that unexpected burst of
recognition. When we wall ourselves off, we run the risk of
missing the blind man’s healing, we risk missing the wonder of
the Old City market, the joy of finding unexpected common
ground. We risk missing the deep encounter with Christ that
comes when we go through the gate, into a deeper existence. Not
an easy or a safe life, but a life unrestricted by fear or
shame. A life more intertwined with God and with those around
us. A life more abundant.
Moving out through the gate takes courage, takes the
energy to face something new, something other, the energy to
risk losing what you had before. But it is when we risk
embracing the gate that we discover more of God, and more of
each other. We see what God is doing on the other side of the
wall, some other facet of the divine. We learn to value both
the quiet of the Israeli street, and the noise and hustle of the
Palestinian market.
Our relationship with God isn’t meant to keep us the
same, and safe forever. It is meant to draw us on, ever moving,
ever changing, so that we can grow into the people, and the
community God intends. Moving us onward, beyond our fears,
beyond our limits, so we can experience the God who has no
limits. A God who would meet us in all things. A God who
lives in the marketplace, and the quiet street—and in everyone
and every thing we meet. The more we move out into the world
beyond our walls, the more we learn about God.
One of my favorite poets is Hafiz, a 14th
century Sufi mystic. Here’s what he has to say:
I don’t
want to be the only one here
Telling
all the secrets---
Filling all the bowls at this party
Taking all the laughs.
I would like you to start putting things on the tables
Things that can also feed the soul the way I do.
That way
We can invite
A hell of a lot more friends.
Amen.
.
