Year A: Easter 4 | John 10:1-10
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church | La Union, NM
April 25, 2026
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
There is no recording of this service.
There’s a propensity throughout history for those of us who claim the title “Christian” to use it as a badge of superiority or exclusion. We use it to separate ourselves from others we deem to be lesser and use it as a marker against which we can reject other people. We wear it not simply as a badge of identification or honor but as a weapon we brandish with pride, in the most negative sense that word allows.
It isn’t really all that much of a surprise. Ever since the Garden of Eden, humans have used any available reason to excuse themselves and put others down for whatever the trouble of the moment is. “It’s Eve’s fault!” “It’s the snake’s fault!” “It’s the Egyptians’ fault!” “It’s the Moabites’ fault!” “It’s the Christians’ fault!” “It’s the pagans’ fault!” “It’s the Mexicans’ fault!” “It’s the Muslims’ fault!” “It’s the trans people’s fault!” The whole cycle of history revolves on people finding a scapegoat so we can avoid looking at and spending time and energy to amend our own flaws and failures.
We even do it with today’s Gospel reading, taking Jesus’ words to create barriers against those outside the Christian community. And we’re wrong to do so. In fact, when we do, we’re not only rejecting but actively opposing Jesus’ teaching here. We set ourselves in the way of his work!
To put this portion of the Good Shepherd discourse into context, we need to jump back to the fourth Sunday of Lent—two weeks before Palm Sunday, which, this year, was March 15. That day we read the story of Jesus healing the man born blind. To recap, there was a beggar who had grown up congenitally blind. One Saturday, Jesus makes some mud, smears it on the guy’s eyes, and sends him to wash it off. Upon doing so, the man discovers that he can see. The celebration raises a ruckus, and some of the local guardians of tradition (those John calls the Pharisees) have the man brought in for questioning. When he tells them Jesus did it, a great debate arises, with some of the guardians complaining that this “work” should never have happened on a sabbath day while others kept pointing out that with a miracle of this magnitude, God’s hand must have been involved, sabbath or not. The angry voices prevail, and when the man continues to stick to his story without condemning Jesus, he’s exiled from his community only hours after he finally became someone who could contribute to it rather than simply consume other people’s resources.
Jesus finds the man, who pledges himself to Jesus (which is what we read as “believe in” or “have faith in” actually means). Having watched the whole situation play out, some of the Pharisees who follow Jesus begin questioning their own allegiance. Are they just as blind as the ones who preferred ancient theories of behavior over the obvious realities right in front of them?
It’s immediately within that context—aggressive, even violent, exclusion and ensuing self-critique by those who shared a name with the offenders—that Jesus begins to speak today.
When we approach stories in the Bible, we tend to start by observing details and inferring ideas about God from there. But it’s much better for us to begin with a big-picture approach, working down to details once we understand the overall image. The big picture Bible message, repeated over and over throughout the course of thousands of years, is that God is merciful and loving and kind. God created us out of generosity and joy and continues to uphold us with those same traits. The top-down, micromanaging deity in the sky is a human creation, one we use to shame ourselves or impose our desires on others. The true God, the one we ought to love and serve and imitate, continually offers support and sustenance to everyone and everything, uplifts the downtrodden and humble, and burns with a passion for the renewal of all things—especially human relationships. When we do any theological work and examination, that’s where we need to start. If the details we find point us in a different direction, we humans are misinterpreting what we see. So when Jesus says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture,”[1] rather than using the text to exclude, as much of our history has taught us, we need to approach it with that same openness and love.
The reality is, when Jesus calls himself “the gate,” he isn’t pointing out the barrier—whatever material it is we open or close to allow or prevent entry. He’s talking about the gateway—the hole itself. The gateway is what allows access between areas and people otherwise cut off from one another. A gateway doesn’t exclude. Walls do; people who try to barricade the gateway do; but the gateway exists to allow for movement—for expansion, growth, interaction, and change.
In context, the man born blind has been cut off—locked away from his own community, family, social safety net—everything he had ever known. He’s trapped, penned in like an animal with no way of escape. The people he trusted and respected have thrown up walls on every side, leaving him a prisoner within his own society. But Jesus arrives, offering a way out. But not simply offering a way. Jesus claims to be the way—the opening that allows the man escape from the cage in which the social guardians have placed him, a doorway to a new and different life.
There’s no promise it will be easy, no promise of acceptance or reunion. The loss may always haunt him. But rather than simply being left confined and waiting to die, the gateway becomes a new opportunity to live.
As I said when I began, we in the Church have a long history of using the label “Christian” as an excuse to demean and exclude. We’ve built a wall in front of the gateway and whitewashed it with a cross to make ourselves feel superior to those “outside.” But we ought never to have done so.
That’s why we in the Episcopal Church are working so hard to tear down walls, to reopen the Kingdom to all of God’s children. We’re attempting to unblock the gateway, to clear the path for Christ and all who would hear his voice, regardless of sex, ethnicity, language, orientation, presentation, or political association. Our job, in following Jesus, is, in part, to keep the gate open. But to truly follow, to reflect our Savior in his mission of hope and reconciliation, we ourselves are to become gateways, opening the Kingdom of Heaven to all who would live within. We are to go in and out, not stay locked or huddled inside. We are to carry the Kingdom with us, not simply as outposts guarding disputed territory but as openings welcoming in those we’ve previously excluded, whether enemies or outcasts or simply wandering sheep. Jesus ought not be our barrier against others, our means of making ourselves feel clean and secure while excluding others to desolation and death. Jesus is the one who provides access—to all.
“[He is] the gate[way]. Whoever enters by [him] will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.”
[1] John 10:9 | All Bible quotations are from the NRSVue unless otherwise noted.