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Not a crumb, 4.26.2026 · St. Paul Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone and welcome to the St.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Paul Podcast.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: My name is Mark Needhammer, Senior Pastor at St.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Paul Lutheran Church, located in Davenport, Iowa, part of the Greater Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Right here, each week, you will find beautiful music and a message of hope and good news to guide your life.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: I am hopeful that this podcast can inspire you and help you on your journey of faith as you grow in love and trust in our God.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm so grateful to be spending this time with you.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure where you are as you listen to this podcast and how the world looks outside your window.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: It's April here in Iowa, and it's been a pretty wet spring.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: All around us, things are bursting into bloom.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: The birds are singing.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty glorious.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: All the buds and bulbs which waded quietly through the long days of winter have stubbornly persisted, and we now enjoy their bounty.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: But I also know that not every place is full of beauty, full of wonder.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: We gather for worship on this podcast with all the complicated and contradictory realities of our lives.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: We praise God with our gratitude, but also our yearnings.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: The same has been true for centuries, and these words we hear from Jesus today, from the Gospel of John, also speak into that complicated, contradictory reality.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: As you listen to these words from Jesus from the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John, listen to the way Jesus names his provision and his care for his people.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: Jesus speaks with his followers about how he is a good shepherd who cares for his sheep, knowing them by name.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: This happens even as thieves and bandits threaten.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: Jesus shows up to care for them as both a shepherd and a gate, to provide them safety within the keep, but also to care for them as they head out into pasture.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: So here are these words from John, chapter 10, verses 1 through 10.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, Very truly I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate, but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: When he has brought out all of his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from that stranger because they do not know the voice of strangers.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: So again, Jesus said to them, Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: I am the gate.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: So let's take some time now to hear a little about sheep and gates, not to mention some dogs and plants, all which teach us a little something about grace, about joy, about abundant life.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: Last week I was interviewed on a podcast, this podcast for pastors, hosted by a former professor of mine, and we were talking about leadership and theology, and near the end of the interview, he asked me, he said, So, he said, in the 10th chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus says, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: So this professor of mine asked me, what does abundant life look like for you?
7:23
SPEAKER_01: This is a great question, isn't it?
7:25
SPEAKER_01: How would you answer that question?
7:28
SPEAKER_01: Really?
7:28
SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: Now or in the coming days.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: As I was asked this question, the first thing that came to my mind was dogs.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, one particular dog, a border collie named Lizzie.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: My brother and his wife are fostering this little border collie, Lizzie.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: They actually have three of their own border collie and are part of a great rescue operation out west.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: And Lizzie has had a pretty rough time of it.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: She came from a dog hoarder and experienced all kinds of abuse and neglect.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: She ran away while she was being rescued and was hit by a car, eventually making her way to my brother and sister-in-law's house.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: She's had a time of it, sweet Lizzie.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: But she's doing better now.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: When we first learned about Lizzie and all that my brother and his wife Connie are doing for her, my mom sent a text to my sister-in-law naming their compassion.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: But Connie, in her characteristic humility, wrote back in a text that said something like, We're just glad we can help them heal and show those dogs how fun the world can be.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps this is part of the healing, life-saving, redeeming work of Jesus to help us heal so that we can discover again how fun, how good the world can be.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps this is abundant life.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't it be an incredible thing if everyone would not just survive, but really live in such a way that they felt the belonging and the safety, the freedom they needed in order to rest, to play.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Imagine.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: Imagine a world where bombs didn't explode in playgrounds.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: Imagine a world where parents didn't have to work multiple jobs to afford a place to live, but had time to kick the ball around outside with their kids.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: Imagine a world where gunshots don't echo across classrooms or ballrooms.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: Imagine a world where our elders had people around them to laugh at their jokes, where each one of us could know the inner healing, the outer safety, the deep belonging we need in order to really play.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this is part of this great big vision of the reign of God, where all humanity is drawn into the goodness of God, where all creation flourishes.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this feels like an impossible dream, simply a prayer, a hope.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: What we think of as we say, Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: But that prayer, this vision, invites us to ask, how can I use my unique self to help others in this congregation, in this city, in my neighborhood, to really experience abundance.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: An abundance that doesn't have anything to do with things and stuff and material goods, but the kind of abundance of life and flourishing, to be able to have more fun and to feel more safe, and to experience more joy.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Like a shepherd leading his sheep, this vision, this imagination can guide us, can guide our actions.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: But the wonderful thing is this message of abundant life is not just a dream, not just a kind of someday.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm convinced that we experience it, we glimpse it, we know it here and now, maybe just in part, but we can come to know abundant life.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: I think in many ways it's as much a perspective, a kind of paradigm, a way of seeing and experiencing our world.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: In some ways, it's a kind of noticing.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: Abundant life is all around us.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: It's already here, even in the midst of all the challenges, in the midst of all the heartbreak, in the midst of all the grief.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: It is spring, after all.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: And abundant life is literally bursting from the ground, and the round buds of peonies about to burst open, and the scent of lilacs, and the trees alive with color, and the song of robins that wake us up too early.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: There's another Robin, not a bird, one, but a human one, who joins those birds in teaching me about abundance.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: There's a writer, her name is Robin Wall Kimmer.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you know of her.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: She's an indigenous botanist, a writer.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: She wrote this beautiful book called Grading Sweet Grass and a little one called uh The Service Berry.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: The Service Berry, by the way, is a humble shrub of sorts that makes these delicious berries.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: And uh we have one, I think, in the Memorial Garden.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: Those of you who are botanists yourselves would know.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: But in this essay, she writes about service berries.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: And she writes about the joy that comes when she can enjoy the goodness of berries, some like we have often in those of us with raspberries in our backyards or can enjoy the abundance of these little berries.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: So Robin Wall Kimmerer writes this.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: In the presence of such gifts, those berries, gratitude is the intuitive first response.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: The gratitude flows towards those plants and radiates to the rain, to the sunshine, to the improbability of bushes spangled with morsels of sweetness in a world that can be bitter.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: Gratitude is much more than a polite thank you, Robin Walkimera writes.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: It is the thread that connects us in a deep relationship, simultaneously physical and spiritual, as our bodies are fed and our spirits are nourished by a sense of belonging, which is the most vital of foods.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Gratitude creates a sense of abundance.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: The knowing that we have what we need in this climate of sufficiency.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Our hunger for more abates, and we take only what we need in respect for the generosity of the giver.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: Gratitude creates a spirit of abundance which gives us a sense of sufficiency where our hunger for more abates.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: We take what we need and we experience the generosity of the giver.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: Abundance, Kimmerer seems to say, is already here.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: We just have to notice it, to hear, to pay attention.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: And this moves us to gratitude, which creates a sense of abundance.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: In giving thanks, we notice that we already have our daily bread.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: And this sense of abundance helps us to experience belonging and community, moves us to generosity.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: And the wonder of this is that God blesses us with the sweetness of life, even when the world can be bitter.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, after all, given the struggles of our world, these complications in our life that feel so messy, or the griefs that feel too heavy, or we feel caught in an unending winter.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Still, abundance is for us.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: And perhaps it's this practice of gratitude and generosity, of abundance, that can become a bit like canning.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: We can store the joy of those moments we have in our hearts, store them in each other, a sort of putting things up for the winter, like raspberry jam on a snowy day or a bite of canned peaches in January.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: We can hold on to those memories or taste that life, or even the longing, the joy, the goodness, knowing that God persists in goodness, that abundance can be preserved, that it's never written out.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: It's still there to nourish us, even in those times that feel so hard.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: The thing is, abundant life is not about stuff, it's not about everything going right.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: It's about the presence of God that holds us and keeps us no matter the circumstance.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: It's about belonging to this community and this generous giver who refuses to give up on us.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus gives us an image of this as he talks about sheep cared for so deeply.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: They have enough.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: And they can relax into the goodness of the pasture, going in and going out and coming back.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: The joy of the community, of belonging, even as those thieves threaten.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: The opposite of abundance, as you might know, is scarcity.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: That feeling like we don't have enough, that others are going to take what we have if we don't hoard it and protect it.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: And it just spirals and spirals into isolation and loneliness, keeping things for ourselves.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: When we are driven by the spirit of scarcity, we are pulled away from others in fear of losing.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: We pull into ourselves, hoarding what we have or taking from others, what belongs to others.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: We become like those thieves that snatch and scatter and steal.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: According to Jesus, though, it can never be my abundant life.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: It's always our abundant life.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: It's never just about one sheep after all, but a flock.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: All God's beautiful ones together, drawn into community by that big-hearted, open-doored shepherd.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: Abundant life is a shared endeavor found in all creation, and we get a vision of it in that early church that we heard about in Acts 2, which Pastor Katie read about a bit ago.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: You might just remind us about our own church today, as these first followers of Jesus lived in abundance, holding things in common, giving as anyone had any need, singing songs and praising together, breaking bread.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like abundance.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: Even as a persecuted minority where life was hard and things were meager, those first Christians never experienced scarcity because they had each other.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: Together they found out even in the struggle that gratitude creates abundance, which brings about belonging and generosity and joy.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: Fun.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: Delight.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: One last thing.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: That word, which we read as abundance, in the original Greek is a sort of strange word, which would be exceedingly abundantly more.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: Or even more above.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: It's like Jesus is saying I came that I might have exceedingly abundantly more life.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: Life more than more, bigger than big, infinity times infinity, life and goodness and joy.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: This is what God longs for us and for this world.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: Not just a bit, not just a taste, more than enough for everyone.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: Plenty.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: Cups overflowing with room for seconds, maybe even thirds.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: And all of this makes me think of a poem by dear Mary Oliver.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: This poem called Don't Hesitate.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: I'll read it to you.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: Here it is.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: Mary Oliver says If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: Give in to it.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: We are not wise and not often kind.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: But much can be redeemed.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: Still, life has some possibility left.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps this is life's way of fighting back.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: That sometimes something happens better than all the riches and all the power in the world.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that's often the case.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: Joy is not made to be a crumb.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, whatever it is.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Don't be afraid of its plenty.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: Joy is not made to be a crumb.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: Abundant life is no crumb.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: Not made to be scarce or hoarded or kept in isolation.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: And like those early followers of the Book of Acts, we get to follow the shepherd Jesus in acts of gratitude and generosity to help bring about God's great big dream for this world so that all of us can really experience just how fun, how full of plenty, how abundant this world really is.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: Thanks be to God.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: You live among the least of these, the weary and the weak, and it would be a tragedy for me to turn away All my needs you have supplied when I was dead, you gave me life, so how could I not give it away so freely And I'll follow you into the bones of the broken I'll follow you into the world I'll meet the needs for the poor and the needy God I'll follow you into the world Use my hands Use my feet to make your kingdom come through the cold results until your work is up speak without work since head and one cross you want one shred So how could we not give it away so freely And God I'll follow you into the mold I'll follow you into the world I'll make the beat to the point And the big God I'll follow you into the world I'll follow you into the halls of the broken I'll follow you into the world I'll make the needs for the boy and the needy God I'll follow you into the world I give all myself I give all myself I give all myself to you and I give all myself all myself and I give myself all myself and I give all myself to you I follow you into the hall I'll follow you into the world I'll be to the walk and the beacon I'll follow you into the world I'll follow you into the homes of the broken I'll follow you into the world amid the needs for the poor and the meeting now we turn to God in prayer saying those words Jesus taught us in the Lord's prayer Our Father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom with all the creation so that you would experience goodness and mercy all the days of your life.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: I hope you've enjoyed this podcast and thanks for your support of the ministries of the St.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Paul Lutheran Church our commitment to endeavors that lend hope to other people stretches across the country and around the world.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: We hope that in a good way you feel a part of that reach.
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SPEAKER_00: Tune in next Thursday for another edition of the Saint Paul Podcast