4/26/2026_Easter 4_Good Gate, Good Shepherd

Acts 2:42-47
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10

I love how embodied the Easter stories are. 

Mary in hearing her beloved say her name, Jesus appearing to Thomas, inviting him to touch his wounds, the disciples on the road to Emmaus—hearts burning—knowing Jesus in the breaking of bread. 

I feel like the Good Shepherd parable really brings all of these together. Knowing the voice, trusting the one who has come searching for you, being held in safety, and being known. 

And it bothers me so much that we live in a world where we have to constantly ask the question—how do we recognize and participate in life-giving community and leadership, in a world where not all voices lead to life?

Because we know so clearly, not every voice that calls to us is good.
Some voices promise belonging but demand conformity.
Some voices promise care only to take it away.
Some voices promise safety but trade in fear.
Some voices sound so familiar we follow them before realizing they may actually be leading us away from life. 

In the Gospel today, Jesus doesn’t say, “all voices are equal.”
He doesn’t say, “just follow whatever feels right.”
He says something much sharper, much more grounded in lived experience:
the sheep know the shepherd’s voice.
And not only that—they do not follow the voice of a stranger.

So this is not naïve. It assumes there are strangers.
There are voices that do not have our flourishing at heart.
There are voices that “steal and kill and destroy.”

It’s so real.

And yet, just as clearly, Jesus names the contrast:
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

So right away, the question becomes one of discernment:
How do we learn the difference between voices that diminish life and voices that deepen it?

In all three of our readings, discernment is never just an individual task.
It is something that is formed in community.

In Acts, we’re given this almost luminous snapshot of the early church.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers… all who believed were together and had all things in common.”

This is a group of people who have just experienced upheaval.
Pentecost, as in Tower of Babel and new languages, has disrupted everything. Their world has been completely rearranged.

And yet, somehow, their response is not to retreat into private spirituality.
It’s to build a shared life—rhythms of eating, praying, learning, redistributing resources—
so that, “there was not a needy person among them.”

That tells us something about what life-giving leadership and community actually look like:
not just warm feelings, not just shared belief, but concrete practices that reduce harm and increase care.

This community is not perfect—but it is oriented toward life.

The author of First Peter is speaking to a people in a very different place.  They are suffering and navigating unjust systems.

And the text says: “If you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.”

At first reading, I cringe hard. This verse has been misused—weaponized even—to tell people to stay in harmful situations.

So we need to be careful, and we need to be clear:
this is not a call to accept abuse.
It is not a sanctification of harm.

What the author is trying to do is something more subtle and more grounded.

They are speaking to people who do not have the power to immediately change their circumstances,
Asking them: how do you live in a way that does not let violence have the final word over who you are?
How do you live so violence does not get to define you?
How do you resist becoming what has wounded you?

They point to Christ—not to glorify suffering, but to remember what comes after it. After the resurrection, Jesus does not remain in isolation or fear. He seeks out his community—his friends who faltered and fled—and meets them in their uncertainty. Then he calls them out of locked rooms shaped by fear and back into relationship, back toward Jerusalem, back into a life that refuses to let violence be the final word.

Navigating what’s happening in our country is, for me—and I suspect for many—a daily challenge. And in different ways, it shows up in our relationships, our work, our ordinary lives.

There are people living every day under the weight of violence—through systems, policies, words, and lived experience—pushed to the margins or made unsafe simply for who they are.

To live in a way that doesn’t let that violence win requires intention: sometimes restraint, sometimes courage. It means finding a rhythm of awareness, action, and rest.
It means refusing to participate in harm—and refusing to stay silent when harm is done.

It means listening, learning, standing alongside those most impacted, and insisting that violence will not have the final word over their lives.

It means interrupting what dehumanizes,
protecting what is vulnerable,
and telling the truth about harm even when it costs us something.

To live this way is to break the cycle—
to not absorb anything that would make you smaller,
to return nothing that would make the world more broken,
and to actively shape a world where violence loses its grip.

And so the passage ends with this quiet, powerful turn:
“You were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”

Returned—not to fear, not to violence, not to survival at any cost—
but to a life where even in the presence of harm,
violence does not win.
Rather, people are seen, they are known, they are shown up for.  

Because in John, Jesus is not just a comforting shepherd.
He is also a gate.

“I am the gate,” he says. “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

The gate does two things:
it allows and it protects.
It opens to what gives life.
And it closes against what harms.

Life-giving leadership is about invitation and it is also about discernment and boundaries.

The shepherd’s voice gathers—but it also distinguishes.
The early church shares everything—but not in a way that minimizes, ignores, or participates in injustice.
It calls for endurance—but not the surrender of one’s dignity or soul.

The Acts community doesn’t just say they follow Christ—they reorganize their lives so fewer people are in need.

Jesus doesn’t just say “All are welcomed in this pasture”—he becomes belonging by being it. Touching, listening, healing, being changed himself. 

And the author of First Peter insists that harm does not get to define the belovedness of those who endure it.

And if I know a thing about church it’s that the tag lines we give ourselves are not enough. 

We can't just say “All Are Welcome” and it be true. We must create it and participate in it.

Because the truth is, it is entirely possible to long for a welcoming and life-giving community
and still participate in patterns that erode it.

Avoidance instead of honesty.
Scarcity instead of generosity.
Control instead of trust.

And this is where I think the Gospel offers something deeply hopeful.

Jesus says the sheep learn his voice.

So there is familiarity here. But also relationship. Repetition.

This isn’t about getting it right all at once.
It’s about being formed over time—
so that eventually, almost instinctively,
we begin to recognize what sounds like life.

Which means if you’re sitting here wondering,
“I don’t always know what’s true, I don’t always know how to tell the difference,”
you are not behind.

You are exactly where formation happens.

I think, at its best, church is where this kind of formation takes root—
a place where we all help each other pay attention.

To those of you choosing confirmation on Saturday—hear this clearly:

Confirmation is not about signing on to every word of the Nicene Creed or claiming certainty about everything in the Bible. If we’re honest, most of us don’t have that kind of certainty—I as your priest do not have that kind of certainty.

Confirmation is—a reaffirmation of your baptismal vows—a commitment to a way of life:
• seeking and serving Christ in all people
• striving for justice and peace
• respecting the dignity of every human being

And just as importantly, confirmation is not only about what you are saying “yes” to. It is also about what we, as your community—here at Holy Innocents and in the wider Episcopal Church—are saying to you.

We are recognizing you as leaders.
As teachers.
As people whose voices matter.

Not someday—but now.

And with that comes responsibility.
You are not just joining this community more fully—you are helping shape it.
You have the right, and the call, to hold this church accountable:
to insist that we live out our baptismal vows,
that our actions match the words we proclaim,
that the values we name—justice, dignity, love—are not just spoken, but practiced.

To be a part of asking:
Are we organizing ourselves in ways that actually care for one another—
especially the most vulnerable among us?

And to wonder with us, with honesty and care:
What kind of voice am I becoming in this world?

Because the promise that runs through all three readings is this:

There is a voice that leads to life.
There is a way of being in community that reflects that life.
There is a form of leadership—gentle, discerning, grounded in love—that does not coerce but calls forth.

And it is not distant.

It is already speaking.
Already being practiced.
Already alive among us.

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

Not someday.
Not elsewhere.

Here. Now.
Among us.
If we learn to recognize the voice—
and have the courage to follow it—together.