Psalm 23, Acts 2:42–47, John 10:1–10

Sleeper, Awake at the Gate
Illumination, Belonging, and the Courage to Live Together

There is a prayer that echoes beneath nearly every human life:

Don’t pass me by.

It lives beneath the roadside beggar, beneath the one standing at the margins, beneath every person who risks becoming invisible—reduced to a category instead of received as a human being.

Leonard Cohen once gave voice to that prayer in the streets of a city:

“Please don’t pass me by…
I am blind, but you can see.”

Before theology, before doctrine, the Gospel begins with presence.

A person stands before us.

And the question is simple: will we stop, or will we pass by?

We are trained, often unconsciously, to step around suffering. We explain it, categorize it, manage it. But the Gospel interrupts that instinct.

It does not first ask for answers.

It asks for attention.

Because the scandal of the incarnation is this: God comes disguised as interruption. The holy appears as the one we were about to ignore.

Here in Minnesota, we know this tension intimately.

We have seen neighbors living in fear of detention.
We have seen families navigating systems that do not recognize their dignity.
We have seen policies that reduce human beings to problems.

And yet—we have also seen something else.

We have seen communities show up.
We have seen churches open their doors.
We have seen neighbors accompany neighbors.

We have seen people refuse to pass one another by.

The church begins not when it solves suffering—but when it notices.

And when we begin to notice, something shifts.

Scripture calls this awakening.

Paul writes, “Once you were darkness, now you are light in the Lord.” Not that we once lived in darkness, but that we once moved through the world without seeing clearly.

Baptism is not behavior management.

It is the healing of perception.

It is learning to see again.

In the Gospel, Jesus kneels in the dust and makes mud. Creation begins again—not in perfection, but in wounded humanity. The man must move before he can see.

Before belief—trust.
Before comprehension—movement.
Before sight—obedience.

And when sight comes, disruption follows.

Because clarity unsettles systems built on blindness.

“I was blind, now I see.”

A simple truth—and yet it changes everything.

Because once we begin to see, we begin to live differently.

We notice who is missing.

We notice who is excluded.

We notice the quiet ways systems depend on our silence.

And then something else happens.

After the man is cast out, Jesus finds him.

The deeper miracle is not sight—but relationship.

To see and to be seen at the same time.

And that is where resurrection begins to widen.

Because resurrection is not only personal.

It is communal.

It is what begins to happen between people.

In Acts, resurrection looks like this:

People gathering.
People sharing.
People breaking bread.
People holding all things in common.

This is not an idea.

It is a reorganization of life.

What we might call the Beloved Community.

And Psalm 23 dares to speak a truth that feels almost impossible:

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

Not that we will have everything.

But that we will not live from scarcity.

And when people begin to trust that there is enough, they begin to live differently.

They share.

And in the sharing, something new becomes visible.

Jesus names this threshold:

“I am the gate.”

Not the wall.

Not the barrier.

The gate.

A place where life opens.

“Whoever enters by me will come in and go out and find pasture.”

Abundant life is not excess.

It is what happens when no one is denied access—to dignity, to safety, to belonging.

If Christ is the gate, then the church is not called to guard the entrance—

but to keep it open.

And this is where illumination becomes vocation.

Because once we see, we cannot unsee.

We become a people who refuse to pass one another by.

A people who notice.
A people who remain.
A people who make space.

Resurrection becomes something we practice.

Dying to fear.
Rising into trust.
Dying to isolation.
Rising into community.

And when we grow weary—when the suffering feels too close, too overwhelming, too constant—we remember another voice:

“Reach out your hand, if your cup be empty
If your cup is full, may it be again
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men.”

Grace meets us in both emptiness and fullness.

The early church organized their lives around this truth.

And we are invited to do the same.

We live in a world where walls are easier to build than trust.

Where scarcity is preached more loudly than grace.

Where people are rendered invisible.

But the Shepherd’s voice still calls:

You belong.
There is enough.
Do not be afraid.
Open the gate.

And so the question returns to us:

Who are we still passing by?

Where is Christ already present—waiting just outside our expectations?

Baptism forms us to live differently.

To see differently.

To love differently.

To become a people who embody what we proclaim:

That no one is expendable.
That grace is not rationed.
That belonging is not earned.

So come to the water.

Rise from practiced distance.

Rise into recognition.

Become a people who live together through the gate—

a people who do not pass one another by.

Sleeper, awake.

And the light of Christ will shine upon you.

Amen.

Rex Mckee is a Deacon in The Episcopal Church in Minnesota, serving at Saint John the Baptist. He is a co-leader of ECMN Immigration Caucus, MWD Task Force, Caucus and Episcopal Migration Response Network. Rex describes himself as an aging radical hippie beat poet theologian philosopher peacemaker;  “If I start from a place of love, more times than not I will find what is "right," but if I start from a position of "right" I will rarely find love.” You can find more of his writings on Substack:  https://rexmckee.substack.com/