John 10:11-18; 1 John 3:16-24
Presented May 7th, 2006, by J.D. Kline
The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Not long into my first pastorate I picked up a book by Morton Kelsey, Episcopal priest and counselor. Entitled The Other Side of Silence: A Guide to Christian Meditation, Kelsey’s book begins with a personal confession. Writes Kelsey, “The first years of my ministry showed me one thing more and more clearly. If I wanted to go on speaking as a pastor—or even as a Christian—about the reality of the Christian life, I needed to have some experience of what I spoke; otherwise I could not live with myself.” It was as if Kelsey was putting down on paper my own yearnings for a deeper spiritual life. It was not that I didn’t believe in God, not even that I didn’t have the rudiments of a relationship with God. But it was becoming increasingly clear to me at that stage of my life that I needed to be far more intentional in nurturing and deepening a sense of connectedness with the Holy One. I needed to pay attention to the deep yearnings within me, to my hunger for the kind of relationship with God that would sustain me through the changing experiences of life.
It does not come naturally or easily for many of us to develop a level of intimacy with God, the kind of intimacy that even begins to approach the quality of relationship Jesus shared with God. Many of us are far better at recognizing and responding to the needs of others than we are at acknowledging our own needs. As I have been seeking to come to terms with grief in the days since Janice’s death, I have had to acknowledge anew how difficult it is to face my own limitations, to give voice to my own needs. And yet something critical is missing when we resist placing ourselves in the hands of God and allowing others to provide us with support and encouragement, strength and challenge.
It’s all too easy—isn’t it?—to talk about the love of God and about commitment to embracing the ways of Jesus. But it’s something quite different to experience relationship with God in a vital and personal way, and then to act upon it. Unless we develop the more personal dimensions of faith, unless we take the risk of trusting God and seeking to put our faith into action, our relationship with God remains little more than formality. Maxie Dunnam, former editor of The Upper Room, reminds us, “Few things are as hollow as a relationship intended for passion that instead is marked by mere duty.” And perhaps one of the greatest tragedies facing the contemporary church is the number of its ranks who settle for an experience of faith as little more than duty and obligation, rather than finding in our faith a sense of passion and purpose.