Open the Gates

The sermon this week was on "I Am The Gate" from John 10:1-10.
To often this is read as 'exclusive'--some are in and some are out, but the text doesn't say that. Even the 'thieves and robbers' get in!--just by a different way. This should make us think about how we 'limit' God's love--often by thinking that we are 'gate-keepers'. That is God's 'job', we are just called to use the gate.
Use the gate to come in for respite and then go out to share God's love that we have experienced--and to make sure the gate is OPEN for others...
What we are called to do is to make sure we use the ‘gate’ for both coming in AND going out!
+++++
Following Jesus leads through that narrow place (a gate) where we are focused on the 'voice/the call' and go out into the wide world of genuine freedom.
Freedom to offer God’s love extravagantly and graciously to all because we know that’s how it has come to us.

Meister Eckhart, the 14th-century mystic, put this well:
“God leads us through narrow paths to the highway, that we may come out into the open”.
And “The more the soul is concentrated, the narrower she is, and the narrower, the wider.”

As we come in through the gate and are focused on the “voice of the shepherd” – on the unbounding and generous love and grace of God, then the wider our own hearts must become as we have no choice but to share that love in the ‘widest’ of all ways that we can each day…
Go forth, coming in through the gate when you need to hear the voice of your shepherd, …when you need to focus on God’s love,
And then go forth through the gate to God’s world… offering God’s love to all – just make sure you leave the gate wide open!