“Abundant Life in the Time of Coronavirus??”

Rev. Deborah Church Worley

May 3, 2020

4th Sunday of Eastertide/8th Sunday of COVID-19

White Rock Presbyterian Church

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)

As I was reading today’s Gospel passage, I was hearing gates…and sheep pens…and gatekeeper…and thieves…and bandits…and I was thinking, “What does all of that have to say to us today? Jesus said, “I am the gate…” (John 10:9). And I wondered, what does that mean to us now?…

And then I got to the last verse in today’s text, one that is certainly familiar and often quoted. The one that says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)

And I thought, “That’s the one. That’s the one I really want to think about. What does it mean to have life abundantly in the time of coronavirus? Can we experience abundant life in these times??”

To us Americans, I think, abundance generally means a lot. A lot of stuff…a lot of resources…a lot of comforts, or at least, a lot that makes us comfortable…. When we think of having something in abundance, we tend to think of having plenty of it–plenty of food, plenty of money, plenty of opportunities…

In many ways, now, in this time that is dominated by the presence and spread and ramifications of COVID-19, we are living, in many ways, in a time of scarcity–scarcity of resources, fewer choices, restricted opportunities, limited control over our circumstances, grocery stores empty of toilet paper, kleenex, cleaning supplies, and other essential items….

We are not living in a time easily characterized by abundance, as we understand it. 

And yet, Jesus speaks that word to us today–“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Do we just need to hold on to that word as a word of hope? Is our only, or at least best, option, to cling to that word as one that will help us get through this period of scarcity, as one that hangs in front of us like a carrot and gives us the encouragement we need to hang on until we make it back to the abundance we used to know, the abundance that we find so comfortable, the abundant life to which we attribute so much meaning?

Possibly…but I don’t think so.

I think that Jesus offers us abundant life now. Even now. I think Jesus offers abundant living in the midst of what we are experiencing as a time of scarcity. I think through Jesus we can experience life, and experience it abundantly, even in this time of coronavirus… 

…Possibly even in a way that is richer and deeper than the ways we previously experienced abundance…. 

“What on earth are you talking about??” I can hear you thinking. 🙂 

During our time of “Shared Sabbath” this morning, I was struck by the following verse from Psalm 115: “May the Lord give you increase, both you and your children.” (Ps. 115:14)

And I thought of abundance. 

I didn’t hear “increase,” in “May the Lord give you increase,” as in more riches, more stuff, more resources…I heard “increase” as in more inner spaciousness…as in more room to breathe…I heard “increase” as in greater inner freedom…as in deeper faith…as in more profound trust…

I heard “increase,” in “May the Lord give you increase,” as in a decrease of fear, a diminishing of smallness in your spirit, a lessening of feelings in your soul of being closed-in, boxed-in, shut-in, by fear, by isolation, by powerlessness, by anxious thinking…

In “May the Lord give you increase, both you and your children,” I heard, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly…” I heard “increase” as abundance in our core beings…fullness, expansion, openness in the depth of our beings…that comes from knowing and being known by God…that comes from experiencing ourselves as not only known by God, but yes, you guessed it, loved by God…

There is available to us an abundance in our spirits that comes from belonging to God, and in that experience of belonging, an awareness of being connected to all others who belong to God….which is to say, all others. Period.

There is a deep abundance–a richness, a depth of living–to be found in knowing and being known, in loving and being loved, In belonging and being connected to God and to one another….that can exist in the presence of scarcity–scarcity of resources, fewer choices, restricted opportunities, limited control over our circumstances, grocery stores empty of toilet paper, kleenex, cleaning supplies, and other essential items….

In and through Jesus, we are shown us and invited into the Reality of God, which is a Reality grounded in abundance. In and through Jesus, we are offered life and life abundant…yes, even in the midst of this worldwide pandemic, during which so many of us are experiencing scarcity in ways we haven’t before. 

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

God, may it be so.

Now more than ever.

Amen….