Bible Text: Acts 2: 42-47, John 10: 1-10 | Preacher: Rev. Berlin Guerrero | Series: 2020 | In John 10, using a comparison, Jesus distinguishes between a thief and a good shepherd: the bandit does not enter through the gate unlike the shepherd who enters through the gate; the stranger is not followed – his voice is not recognized by the sheep, but the good shepherd is followed because his voice is recognized. The thief comes to kill and destroy, but the gatekeeper comes to lead them out to find pasture. Then Jesus says, “I came that you may have life and have it abundantly.”

 

It is our desire to have an abundant life. And often, we must pause to ask ourselves, what does ‘abundant life’ mean? How are we to have an abundant life?

 

Many Australians have been accustomed to living a life in abundance: plenty of food, live in big houses, to have more than one car per family, plenty of holidays and money to spend for such. There are plenty of opportunities and privileges for education, jobs, career and so on. (At least this was several years ago.)

 

Yet perhaps this is not the only kind of abundant life Jesus was talking about. An abundant life of a Christian or for the Church is a life that is made available for others – a life lived to be given freely or perhaps extravagantly for others’ sake. It is bread for the world that is meant to be broken in order to be shared.

 

In many underdeveloped countries, majority of the people have never experienced what abundant life means. The fact that life-sustaining resources of the land are owned and controlled by the few, the people who work on the land, like farm tenants and poor peasants, do not receive a fair share of the produce. They are deprived of a decent existence and a better future. Laborers who work themselves to the bone are paid very little, barely enough for their needs in one day, just enough for them so that they can return to work the next day. But the big businessmen and foreign investors are able to amass huge profits from the toiling masses’ blood, sweat and tears.

 

Yesterday, we commemorated International Labour Day. Workers up to this day are fighting for decent wages, safe working conditions, job security, rights to join unions, to organize and strik. But these centres on one very important matter: to have a share in the fruits of their labour. As long as labourers are alienated from the products of their labour, are treated as commodity and remain exploited and oppressed, a life lived to the fullest will remain a dream.

 

There’s a big difference in living a life in abundance and a life in deprivation. And sometimes people are quick to say, “If you are poor, you are a sinner and poverty is God’s way of punishing you” or ‘God favors you that is why you are rich and prosperous. This is called theology of prosperity. It draws people’s attention towards wanting to be rich. “My God is rich therefore I am rich! I should be rich!”

 

This way of thinking closes its eyes to a world where the prevailing economic system is a like a thief that gets its wealth through exploitative and unjust means – a system of abundance for a few and hunger and want for the many; a system which kills and destroys; a system of death and not life.

 

The apostles and the early church obediently practiced what they believed as the way to live as Christians not only as individual believers but also as a community. Luke’s account in Acts says:

 

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Luke 2:42-47)

 

We may say that this was a representation of what an abundant society can be – when all things are held in common to mean there is common ownership, better still common custodianship; when their possessions and goods are made public and the proceeds are distributed to all in accordance to their need.

 

For a moment in history, in the life of the early Christian church, a new way of living as a community was lived out by the believers. The apostles’ teachings based on their personal knowledge of Christ became their guiding light. There was fellowship – a kind of collective way of how matters are decided upon and done. There was breaking of bread in worship and sharing food at home. Because of their practice of unity and oneness based on the values of selflessness and self-giving, they began to earn the admiration and support of the people who want to live the same way.

 

If Jesus represented God’s Kingdom, what does it mean when he said, “All who came before me are thieves and bandits”?  Was Jesus saying, “All human kingdoms that come before him are socio-economic and political systems which robbed people of their freedoms, dignity and humanity”? And therefore those societies characterized as thieves and bandits are societies, which in no way can bring about an abundant life for the world?

 

Jesus grew up in Palestine, which was at that time a colony of the Rome. The Roman Empire expanded its territories through war exploits relying on slave labour to sustain its economy. For Jesus, such socio-economic arrangement represented not life but death, deprivation and not abundance.

 

Today we are under the clutches of global capitalism. Capitalism is considered the most exploitative economic system and is in an ever-worsening crisis, which gravely affects us all.

 

This established world order also resorts to repression. It builds arms and weapons to protect its vast economic interest and attacks those who oppose it. Like a wolf in a sheep’s clothing, it deceives people by pretending to be benevolent and protective but in truth it ravishes the resources and feasts on the fruits of labour through modern-day slavery.

 

Elenie Poulos, the former Uniting Justice national director, in one of her blogs entitled: ‘Labour’: not another commodity” wrote:

 

In 2009 the Uniting Church in Australia adopted a statement called An Economy of Life: re-imagining human progress for a flourishing world. This statement describes the Church’s concern that our understandings of progress and wellbeing are now determined by a global economic system geared to the making of profit for a few at the expense of both the current and future well being of all people, especially the most vulnerable, and the wellbeing of the planet.[1]

 

As Christians and as a church, we must always work for a better world. We are to bring forth an economy of life that will redound to a truly abundant life for all.

 

Amen.

[1] Elenie Poulos, Labour: not another commodity, The Little Rev Goes Blogging, accessed at http://thelittlerev.wordpress.com/category/economic-justice/ (9 May 2014)