On 7 May we read John 10:1–10, about the Good Shepherd and his sheep. In his homily Michael Paterson focussed on the final verse:

Today’s Gospel offers us a huge challenge. At the beginning of each day, at the start of each thing we do, it’s up to us whether we approach that day or that event as conscripts of the thief or as friends of the life-giver.

The thief steals and kills and destroys through the harsh word, the refusal to forgive, the refusal to reach out to others, the long face, the negative attitude, the absence of hope.

But the card-carrying members of the Resurrection Party bring zest and energy to dead spaces in our family or church life; they inject hope and positivity to their work places; they foster abundance and wage war on measured meanness in their interactions with others.

So: what’s it to be, friends? The Lenten option of fixating on all that has gone wrong in our lives and aligning ourselves with the thief? or the Easter option of freshness, vitality and the much harder work of rising from the dead and bringing others back to life too?

Do read the whole of Michael’s sermon, at this link. And why not start each new day by reflecting on John 10:10, and using the “thief or life-giver” question to give you the right focus for whatever you are setting out to do?