March 15, 2026

Abundant Life

Our gospel lesson today ends with just about my favorite utterance of Jesus: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  John offers many cryptic words from Jesus about why he came, and what he was all about.  He says, “I came . . . to testify to the truth, I came . . . not to judge the world, but to save the world, I came . . . so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind, I have come as light into the world. . . .”  In many ways they’re all saying the same thing, but of all these, this is my favorite; he came that we might have abundant life.

And just what is that?  I’d like to spend the next fifteen minutes or so noodling on that question.  First of all, let me suggest what I believe life abundant is not.  If you watch much TV or spend much time on the Internet you might be led to believe that if you use Aspercream you can climb mountains at any age.  Or if your friends all ask about why you seem so much happier and healthier and vital, it’s because you finally asked your doctor about Viagra.  And if you are looking for exotic looks, daily usability and blistering performance then, obviously, you’ve got to get your hands on the new Audi R8.  I feel pretty confident that’s not what Jesus meant by life abundant.

But it’s so easy to get confused.  New toys, shinier cars, zippier smart phones, all seem to resonate with some sneaky little voice inside that keeps whispering to our inner ear that the cure for our malaise, the answer to our nagging questions, the vanquishing of our pain or emptiness lies in something just around the next corner.  All we have to do is take out the credit card and pony up.

After a lifetime of piling up shiny new toys that become closet fillers, then get moved to the basement, before finally being taken to the dump, I remain unconvinced that they have made my life any more abundant.

With apologies to the “happenin’” ones among us, the clues to abundant life are not being tweeted or twittered or tooted or Facebooked.  They’re ancient.  I’ve stumbled upon some of them in, of all places, this tired old book we call the Bible.

One such key is found in the second chapter of the book of Acts where it’s reported that, “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.”

If that sounds a little utopian to you, it’s little wonder.  This description of the folks who made up the early church touches a very tender place in most of our souls.  It speaks of deep, meaningful, and genuine community.  What these very early Christians discovered was the same simple lesson of the loaves and fishes: that sharing multiplies.  Sharing your resources with others, particularly with those in need, multiplies the power of those resources and multiplies your own sense of self.  Sharing your home and food with friends multiplies the goodness and joy of living.  Sharing your experience of the holy, your devotion and worship, multiplies the power of the Spirit that dwells in our hearts and in our relationships.  We touch and handle that multiplying power when we come together here in this place that has been hallowed by the laughter and tears of generations of believers.  But if we’re truly honest, we know that there is yet a leanness in our souls, a vulnerable place that yearns for something more.  Once a week for an hour or two of prayers and polite conversation is beautiful, but it’s not enough, not nearly enough.  Our spirits are roused by this description from the book of Acts because our culture, and therefore our hearts, have become so starved for true community.  “Friending” people on Facebook has become such a pervasive cultural phenomenon precisely because it speaks to that hunger in our hearts.  But it’s like giving a starving man a cardboard picture of steak and potatoes.

I can’t direct you to a website, I can’t send you to an organization, I can’t offer a five step program, but from the lessons of scripture and of my own experience, I can tell you this: If you want to find abundance in life, seek ways to deepen, enrich, and expand your relationships, work at making community – this community of faith – as real, as honest, as profoundly meaningful as it can be.  That means, in part, finding ways to move beyond and beneath our casual conversations about the weather, and to risk sharing our deepest hopes and fears, joys and hurts.  It means, in part, finding ways to work, shoulder to shoulder, on those things that make the world a little better place to live, and to celebrate and sing and cry together with passion and purpose.

But, in the end, it’s still not the whole story.  It’s not possible to find abundant life with others without bringing some abundance of our own to the game.  That’s where the 23^rd Psalm comes in.  There could hardly be a better prescription for what ails our hearts and minds than this ancient song of the Israelites.  The very first line is a two-by-four upside the head for those of us who’ve spent a lifetime collecting toys to try to make life better somehow: “I shall not want.”  The thing that stabs at our souls and hurts our hearts so much is precisely how much of the time we spend “wanting.”  We want not just things, we want fulfillment, we want pleasure, we want meaning, we want comfort, we want productivity, we want security, we want companionship, we want, we want, we want . . . .  Are there those among us who have even a glimpse of what a life without want would be?  America is addicted to want.  We have so much.  Especially in comparison to the rest of the world, we have a tremendous amount of comfort, of security, of ease in living, of avenues for fulfillment.  And yet we are not satisfied.  And as for those who have more of these things than you and I?  They only want more.  There is no end to this wanting – at least no end that can be achieved trough acquisition of the things we think we want.

The cessation of want is not a material or social endeavor; it is a spiritual quest.  As Gandhi said, the greatest battles are fought within.  And the only way to live without want is to pull it out of us like a weed, root and all.  That’s far more easily said than done, but it is a struggle worth taking on.  Personal meditation and reflection can help.  Focusing the mind on letting go of desires as you go through your daily activities can help.  Shifting your perspective by looking outside of yourself and finding great value in what is already at hand can help – like taking time to revel in lying down in green pastures or being led beside the cool waters.  Those are ways that our souls can be restored, that we can regain a degree of wholeness and peace.

A dear friend of Dadgie’s and mine named Jim was diagnosed with cancer.  We received word that the diagnosis had been made some time ago, and it was incurable.  We didn’t know how long he had to live so we flew to Chicago to see him, not knowing if we’d find him emaciated, on his death bed, plugged into monitors and IV’s.  We found Jim at home, looking exactly as he always had.  He was in the back yard tending his rock garden.  It was a beautiful creation of stones in different colors and sizes arranged in a lovely pattern.  He told us that he spent a good deal of time each day pulling weeds out from between the stones.  As he pulled each weed, he imagined he was uprooting a bit of that which did not belong, like the cancer cells in his body.  This spiritual exercise was very characteristic of Jim.  It also turned out to be key in helping him to not only have a better quality of life, but to keep him alive, I’m convinced, for far longer than medical science predicted.

You may not have a rock garden, but you can find concrete images, patterns of reflection, spiritual disciplines that can help you to uproot that in your life that is eating away at you.  And as you pull it up and recognize it, I suspect that you will find it has everything to do with your wanting.

And I suspect it will have a lot to do with your fears.  The Psalmist says, “I fear no evil.”  That’s another beauty.  You and I are driven by our fears, even at times when we don’t realize it.  Our fears are the flipside of our wants.  We fear meaninglessness, we fear loneliness, we fear poverty or attack or illness, we fear death.  Is it possible to live fearlessly?  The quest to do so is much like the uprooting of our wants.  it’s a spiritual journey.  I believe that when we can truly feel ourselves connected to the heart and soul of the universe, when we can finally recognize the oneness of all that is, and of our participation in that oneness, we can indeed dissolve our fears in the joy of being.

These things don’t happen overnight.  They require great effort, patience, practice and perseverance.  They are truly worthy endeavors for anyone at any time of life, but especially for those of us in our fall and winter years.  The achievement of the kind of wholeness that vanquishes fear and uproots want is the ultimate task and crowning achievement of life.  It can serve as a beacon of hope to those who follow.

I can’t get inside Jesus’ head, but as far as I’m concerned, this is what he was talking about when he said his whole purpose in being was that we might have life and have it abundantly.  I think he meant that we were to pay attention to all he shared through the course of his ministry, and that if we did, we would be led to find a spiritual center that would release us from fear and want, and that we could bring the wholeness and peace of that spiritual joy to others, sharing of ourselves, our resources, and our very being in true and deep community.

And that is life abundant.