Getting More out of Life
John 10:1-10
April 13, 2008
Have you ever been to Hollywood, Florida? I hadn’t been there until two weeks ago. We spent the first two nights of our vacation at a Comfort Inn in Hollywood. Our plane arrived at the airport at about 11 pm and we caught the shuttle directly to the hotel. The next morning (while you were wearing winter coats and we had finished the breakfast buffet by the pool), Toni wanted to go to the beach. So we talked to one of the housekeeping staff who said that to get to the beach, you had to go down this road, turn left, turn right again, and then cross the bridge. “But it’s too far to walk.”
One of the things that I have learned in almost 35 years of marriage is that you never tell my wife that she can’t do something. So we took off…walking. We got downtown, turned left, walked some more, turned right and continued walking. Finally, we came upon some highway maintenance guys working on the side of the road. I walked over to them and asked them how far we had to go to the beach. One of the guys said, “See that bridge down there? You’ve only got about a mile and a half to go.” Another one said, “Your wife is making you do this, isn’t she?”
As it turned out, the beach which normal people would find to be too far to reach by walking could indeed be reached by us. Later, when we had a car, we drove the route, and it was a little over three miles – one way. We made it to the beach that day, but there is more to the story. We still had to get back to the hotel, right?
As it turns out, there is a free bus that runs around town. We had spent about fifteen minutes walking the beach. I’m serious; that is all the time we spent there. Then we found a place to have lunch. Then it was time to leave. “Let’s get on the bus,” said Toni. I asked her, “Where does it go?” “Oh, I’m sure that it will be close to our hotel.” Right!
So we climbed on the bus and asked the driver where it was going. This woman was, I believe, from an Eastern European nation, and we couldn’t understand very much of what she said. But we got on the bus anyway. Twenty minutes later, we got off the bus, having absolutely no idea where we were. So we started walking…and walking…and walking. And I started walking slower, and slower, and slower.
Dominique was with us for the first week and she and Toni walk faster than I do. I would catch up with them when they had to stop at a red light, but then they would soon be way ahead of me again. Finally, Toni turned around and asked me what was wrong. I remember saying very clearly, “Does this face give you the impression that I am happy?”
The end of the story is that we ended up walking somewhere between six and seven miles that day. Toni and I have different expectations and different definitions of the word “vacation.”
C.S. Lewis wrote an article for the “Saturday Evening Post” back in December of 1963. The title of the piece was, “We have No ‘Right to Happiness.’” He says that having a right to happiness is about as nonsensical as having the right to be six feet tall or to have a father who is a millionaire or to have good weather wherever we happen to be.
He goes on to say that we have a right to the freedoms guaranteed by the laws of just nations. We have a right to travel on public roads. We have a right to be compensated for an injustice committed against us by another party. We have many other rights. But we don’t have a right to be happy. According to Lewis, it makes no sense to say that.
I don’t know how you would define happiness. Is it having a lot of money? Is it having a vacation home? Is it having a wonderful relationship with your spouse? Is it having grown, successful children? Is it achieving recognition in your chosen profession? Is it good health? Is it a good education? Is it living in a safe and secure neighborhood? My guess is that happiness is different for all of us. What makes me happy won’t necessarily make you happy.
Many of us believe that we have a right to be happy on our jobs, but a recent Gallup poll has indicated that 77% of American workers hate their jobs. So much for happiness there. Among clergy, I find conflicting statistics. Some say that as many as 40% of our clergy in all denominations are not happy in their professions. Other stats from Duke University suggest that the majority of clergy do indeed feel fulfilled and are happy. Obviously, at least to me, we need some more confirming data.
There is a new book out which is titled “Three Signs of a Miserable Job.” According to its author, these three signs are:
We have a tendency to believe that the world owes us a life of happiness. Do you remember the blockbuster movie of last year, “The Pursuit of Happyness?” It is the story of Chris Gardner, a homeless young man and his son. Through determination, talent, and hard work, Chris rose up to become incredibly successful as a stock broker. We all want to be happy. We all want to achieve happiness. Happiness is something that we all strive to find. Perhaps you can pursue happiness, but I would agree with Dr. Lewis. Though we may spend all sorts of time and energy in the pursuit of happiness, I’m not sure that there is a right to it.
The gospel reading from John for this morning doesn’t talk about happiness in life. It does however, speak about abundant life. In my way of thinking, there is a difference.
In chapter 9, Jesus has just come from a major confrontation with the Pharisees. Jesus had healed a man who was born without sight. The problem was that he had conducted the healing on the Sabbath. The formerly blind man gave all of the credit to Jesus, but the Pharisees wouldn’t believe it. How could Jesus, they wondered, be a man of God if he was a sinner? And he certainly was a sinner if he performed healings on the Sabbath.
Moving on into chapter 10 then, we come to the parable of the good shepherd. Jesus said that there is danger out there for the sheep. The danger comes from thieves who want to kill and destroy the sheep. But the sheep are kept safe and secure while they are under the protection of the shepherd. The sheep know the shepherd and the shepherd knows his sheep.
Many people believe that this is a continuation of the previous chapter. Some say that Jesus is telling his disciples that they have to be careful about the Pharisees, but I’m not sure that is the case here. I don’t believe that this chapter is a continuation of the previous one. I believe that we have switched subjects.
Jesus often reprimands the Pharisees for their lack of faith. He often tells them that they are far from God. He is never quiet to point out their sins. He always holds them to a high standard of belief and conduct. But nowhere do we find Jesus describing the Pharisees as wanting to kill and destroy.
Chapter 10 verse 10 says that the thief comes to kill and destroy. This doesn’t describe the Pharisees. It can only describe the intention of Satan himself. This is not a lesson about the Pharisees, but is a warning about the Devil. Jesus has come to offer abundant life. Satan has other ideas and will go out of his way to kill, steal, and rob people of that abundant and eternal life.
I don’t know if you have heard of this or not, but there is a whole lot of buzz about Oprah and her brand of spirituality. She is into sort of a touchy-feely, new age, goofy “I am one with the universe,” type of spirituality. As a disclaimer, I really don’t have a lot of personal knowledge of this. I watched a five or six minute film clip of her on YouTube, and then heard about it on the radio a couple of time. So if you want to challenge me about my right or ability to speak about this stuff, I’ll listen.
The tendency of the few Christian voices I have heard is to blame Oprah and say how awful it is that she is spreading this dumb stuff. I come at the issue from another perspective. I’m not sure this is Oprah’s fault. She admits that she grew up in the Baptist Church, but there apparently wasn’t anything there to hold her.
Look around at our contemporary culture and you will see that there is a great spiritual hunger…not just from Oprah or other famous people, but from ordinary folks as well. People know that they have a need to get in touch with a power or powers greater than themselves. They are simply finding spiritual avenues outside of the church. The reasons, in my opinion that they are moving into non-traditional and unorthodox fields of spirituality is because the church has not been doing our job. I’m not sure it is their fault. I am mainly convinced that it is the fault of the church.
We have not been doing our job to reach people who are hungering for meaning in their lives with the gospel message. People are searching for happiness. We have the answer to that search. We know that true and lasting happiness comes only from a deep and profound relationship with Jesus. But we have lost our voice.
The world outside the doors of the church can often be scary. At the least, it is a world that is strange and unknown. We in the church have not taken the time nor had the interest to interact with that world. Perhaps we have been a little too afraid of being corrupted. Perhaps we have forgotten that there is no power on earth or under the earth that can stand before Jesus.
Satan loves it when our children, grandchildren, neighbors, friends, and co-workers are left out in the cold with no spirituality in which to find a firm grounding. They search for lasting happiness and find only empty phrases, false promises, and shallow pseudo- theology. These folks are easy pickings for the devil. They are the ones to whom Jesus issues his warning. The thief is at the door looking for any opportunity to rob, and steal, and kill.
Let me offer a counter-point to the three signs of a miserable job. These counter-points guide us, not toward happiness, but to eternal and abundant life because that life is the true source of happiness. We may not have a right to it, but it is there. All we have to do is pick it up. So let me close with three indicators of abundant life from which happiness flows.
The church better get this right. If we don’t understand these points, then we have no message for the world that is drifting. If we aren’t able to interpret these signs to the world, then we are playing an inadvertent part in allowing the world to go to hell. If we can’t make these signs visible and understandable for the world out there, there is no chance that they will an opportunity to ground their spirituality in the rock of salvation. If we aren’t able to understand the meaning of these signs for ourselves, then we will have nothing to share with the outside culture. If we don’t understand how these signs work themselves out in our lives, then we run the risk of becoming like the Pharisees who Jesus accused of being twice as fit for hell as unbelievers.
Do you want to get more out of life? Do you want to find more than just mere happiness? You are looking not for happiness, but for abundant life. What are the indicators?
Number one: abundant life means being known. This indeed is the place where everybody knows your name. More than that, this is the place where Jesus knows your name. He knows his sheep intimately and by name. And his sheep know him. Jesus is the face of God who is not content to sit dispassionately in heaven. This God, this Savior is one who comes and pitches his tent in our midst. God offers an abundance of love, grace, faith, hope, and salvation.
Number two: abundant life means that we are relevant to the world. Not only are we precious in God’s sight, not only are we known intimately, not only are we saved from the danger outside and within ourselves, but we are desperately needed as foot soldiers to carry on the work of Christ in the world. The Apostle Paul says that we are God’s workers, created in Christ to do good works (Eph. 2:10). Call has not called us on a whim. Jesus hasn’t come into our midst just for the heck of it. We are connected to God for the purpose of making Christ’s name known.
Number three: abundant life means to measure our ministry. This type of measurement is a different sort of math than the rest of the world uses. Think about the things that measure success in the world. Those indicators are meaningless in the economy of God. We are not measured by how much stuff we accomplish, but by how we represent Christ. At the end of the day, the question is not, “How much money did I make? or how many new customers did I bring in? or did my bottom line increase? At the end of the day, the abundant life question is, “How did I help move people a little closer to the Kingdom?
In the end, we are not here to find happiness. We are here to find something even more incredible and important. We are here to find abundant life. That life can only be found in Jesus.