What’s amazing about this is not the scope of the current problem, but that the problem had never been addressed before. We have this image of California, California has this image of itself, as a lush paradise where anything is possible, where oranges flourish in the warm Pacific sun and the mild Mediterranean climate means a year-round harvest season. The problem with this vision is it’s simply not true. Here’s the thing about California, it’s an arid state. The San Joaquin Valley, the heart of our entire nation’s agricultural production, is high desert. The food that we eat travels hundreds of miles to reach us, nourished by water that traveled hundreds of miles to reach those crops, through a vast system of canals and reservoirs. In addition to agriculture, the megalopolis of southern California, depending on how you define it, is home to between eight and ten percent of the entire US population. That’s a lot of people and produce to support in a desert.
Lest you think I am picking unfairly on my home state, or that problems like this are huge and far away, we in Michigan are not immune to our own issues of consumption and environmental destruction. Last summer the city of Toledo was without water for several days after the buildup of algae in Lake Erie, fed by the runoff of phosphorus from farms and cattle feedlots, contaminated the city’s drinking water. Even closer to home, Enbridge only just finished clean-up of the oil spill in the Kalamazoo River, an incident which left questions about the state of the rest of the pipelines that run through the state, including under Lake Michigan.
The fact of the matter is we as a species are not living within our means on this planet. I try not to bring my own politics into the pulpit, but this is not a political statement, is a categorical fact. And a fact that has profound implications for how we understand God.
Our Gospel reading for today is Jesus familiar words about how he is the good shepherd. The good shepherd, says Jesus, lays down his life for his sheep. This is in contrast to the hired hand, who does not own the sheep, who has no loyalty to the sheep, the hired hand will run away when the sheep are in danger. This is because the hired hand does not care for the sheep. But the good shepherd stays with the sheep, cares for the sheep. And the sheep, in return, know the good shepherd, follow the good shepherd for the sheep know his voice.
This in and of itself is good news for us, is comforting news for us, that Jesus, unlike all the powers of this world that do not love us, that do not care for us, that are invested in nothing but their own gain, unlike those powers, Jesus will never leave us. Jesus is with us, and for us, and is constantly working to bring us deeper into relationship with him. But more than that, this good shepherd discourse talks about what life with the good shepherd is like. The verses before this morning’s passage talk about the difference between the good shepherd and thieves. In John chapter ten, verse ten Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, I came so that they might have life, and have it abundantly.”
I came so that they might have life, and have it abundantly. Abundance, that’s what Jesus wants for us, that’s what Jesus lived and died and rose again to give us. Abundant life, full life, a life free of the powers of those who think only of themselves, only of their own gain, those who seek to steal or kill or destroy, or those not invested enough in our well-being that they run away and hide when such trouble comes calling. But abundance is not excess. In fact, abundance is in some ways the opposite of excess. Excess, living beyond our means, living in a way that is not sustainable, robs us of the abundant life which Jesus wants for us. When we do not live within the constrains of this good earth, when we take advantage of our planet and take more than our share, when we become the thieves who steal and kill and destroy, when we entrust ourselves to hired hands who do not truly care for us, we entrap ourselves in a system of dependence that is not freeing, it is not life-giving, and it is not abundance.
But, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd cares for the sheep. The good shepherd never leaves the sheep, even when they wander off. We have story after story, parable after parable, of how Jesus goes after the sheep, brings the sheep back in the fold, returns the sheep to the safety of the flock. The good news is no matter how far we stray, Jesus the good shepherd urges us home.
More than that, Jesus said in this reading this morning, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” Jesus here is talking about those outside the people of Israel, outside of those who heard the teaching he was giving, but I think it tells us something important about the message Jesus had. It says that this message is one) bigger than we can imagine, and two) constantly expanding and finding new ways to be in the world so that, as Jesus promised, “There will be one flock, one shepherd” and all will be drawn into God’s cosmic embrace.
If we apply the creativity of Jesus message to the problems facing our planet, we discover that Jesus’ constantly expanding message of salvation is also true for how we live together well on this good creation which we have been given. To jump back to where this sermon started, the conversations about how to respond to California’s water crisis are coming up with surprising and life-giving solutions. A project in Orange County has come up with a way of recycling wastewater. By running it through a series of filters and processes the end product is actually cleaner than most tap water, for a fraction of the cost of importing it from other parts of the country. There are also discussion of the creation of large-scale desalination plants to render water from the Pacific Ocean potable for drinking and agricultural usage. Such projects have always been unworkable in the past due to the large amount of energy they require. But modern technology has learned to harness what is one of California’s greatest natural resources, it’s sunshine, into a steady and reliable clean energy, that could power new ways of supplying one of it’s least, fresh water.
These are big scale solutions, but there are also smaller scale solutions that we can be a part of, that we are already a part of. At Trinity we’ve already switched some of our light bulbs to low-energy usage bulbs. We use paper cups at coffee hour instead of Styrofoam. We support a garden so that more food is produced right here in our community and doesn’t have to travel from California or elsewhere. These are small steps, but they are steps, ways in which we, right here, right now, in this place, are living into God’s vision of abundance.
The earth has enough, enough water, enough food, enough fresh air and natural wonder, for us to live in abundance. And we have been gifted with incredible abilities to think and to ponder, to learn and to create. That too is a gift from our creator. Things that were once not possible, to gain energy from the sun, to drink from the ocean, to grow plants in ways that are not only sustainable for our environment but that produce yields more than ever before, enough to feed all who hunger, all of that is proof of the ways in which God is working in a new way through us, is bringing the world closer into God’s heart through our hands, through our minds. The hard part, the part that takes courage, is letting go of the old ways of fear and our need for independence, so that we can live into the interdependence which God has created us for. But the promise we have is that Jesus, our Good Shepherd, came so that we may have life, and have it abundantly. And Jesus our Good Shepherd will not stop coming until we, all of us, put aside our ways of thieving and running and fear and are drawn into the promise of abundance.
This morning during our prayers we will have the opportunity to reflect on the ways in which we are living into God’s dream of abundance for our world. If you have not gotten a chance to already, when we sing our prayer refrain, I invite you to bring forward and place in our baptismal waterfall something that represents how you care for creation, how you live into God’s abundance. There is also paper and pens available near the waterfall if you want to write or drawn something to add to the display. We have placed the display in the current of the waterfall to remind us that God’s grace is abundant, and in flows through our lives, bringing newness of life and abundance. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Information about California’s drought came from “Drying Up: The Race to Save California from Drought” by Elijah Wolfson. Newsweek, April 23, 2015.
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