Daily Lesson for March 25, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from John chapter 10 verse 16:

 "And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice."

It is astounding what kinds of limitations Christian people have come up with to try and determine who is in and who is out of the fold of God. In the early church it was whether or not you were circumcised. Later, the Catholic Church made it's stand on what must be believed about the pope. Not to be outdone, we Baptists did the same thing with what should be believed about Scripture.  In the 20th century, Pentecostals the line between true Christianity and false was whether or not you could speak in tongues.  And today, the dividing line for orthodoxy is whether or not you believe it's okay to be gay.  If you don't you're in; if you do you're out. "We have to draw the line somewhere," it's said.

Please.  When are we going to stop this ignorance? When are we going to wake up and see that God continues to push open our boundaries to include more people?  When are we going to wake up and finally hear what Jesus said -- that he has many sheep that are not of our fold?  When are we going to see that we aren't the ones who get to draw the lines?  When are we going to change our consciousness and understand the Gospel is a gospel of inclusion and not of exclusion.

It was in college that I first heard the Gospel of inclusion preached by my now friend and mentor Charlie Johnson.  He talked about the difference between a bound set and a centered set. A bound is static and all about boundaries.  On the other hand, a centered set's defining locus is not the boundary lines, but rather the center.  A centered set is not static, but dynamic; and what belongs to it is based on movement toward the center.  Christianity is a centered set, Charlie said, and the center is Christ.

Christ has other sheep that are not of our fold. He calls his sheep and they recognize His voice and come.  He called and they came. He still calls and they still come. And He's going to keep on calling and they are going to keep on coming. 

This means we are going to need a lot bigger fence.  Or, better yet, it means we are going to need to do away with the whole fence idea altogether, because the Gospel is really not about good fences but about the Good Shepherd.