When do you have enough TV channels to choose from?

According to the satellite TV industry, there is no such thing as enough. Every year more and more households are sticking out their own little satellite downloading system and beaming in anywhere from 100-600 channels of entertainment and information.

Our overwhelming desire for this kind of electronic-overload is played for laughs in the commercials aired by DISH Network and Direct TV.

In one series of ads the satellite installer has the stuffing hugged out of him by an emotionally overcome client. Another shows satellite installers carefully trained in CPR so they can revive their stunned clientele.

In still another a husband and wife happily abandon their bedroom to let the satellite TV guy get them hooked up right away. The couple then sit around in their pj's discussing channel-surfing with their new buddy, all thoughts of their former togetherness abandoned.

The theme in all of these commercials is that people are so ecstatic about getting expanded channel capabilities that all else in life pales beyond this unparalleled experience.

And it is cheap, too!

Prices for satellite expansion now are about equal to plain old cable TV hookups. Satellite TV has it all.

The abundant life at a great deal!

But is the abundant life really defined by the ability of lonely insomniacs to watch Romanian soccer, or Philippine hai-lai at 3 o'clock in the morning?

How many of those six hundred channels do you suppose we all end up actually watching? What are we looking for as we channel-surf across all those digitally-processed frequencies?

It's not that more isn't better. Choice, variety, and change are some of the most sought after benefits our postmodern culture can offer. Ask some struggling poor family in what we call the third world if they wouldn't like to be able to choose something other than rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Ask some child who has seen only poverty and pointlessness if they wouldn't like the options of education, meaningful work, and a fulfilling career, instead of continuing down the dead-end trail they have been forced to tread all their lives?

In today's gospel text Jesus' promise to those who enter by him is twofold. First, his promise is for their complete salvation (verse 9). But this salvation is fleshed out and made real to us by a second promise, that of an abundant life (verse 10). Those who come in and go out through Jesus, using him as the pivotal point in their lives, will be safely led to rich pastures during the day and back again to a safe haven at night. The good shepherd watches over the sheep at all times. The safe gateway ensures that all their comings and goings are accounted for, that their path is always one Jesus has his eye upon.

But to be part of the good shepherd's flock takes an ability for some selective hearing, some distinguishing discernment. Those who would follow their own good shepherd first have to tune in to his voice. Jesus declares that it's this ability to hear their master's distinctive voice, that causes his sheep to prick up their ears (verse 3) and come to him.

Staying tuned to the shepherd's voice enables the sheep, then, to follow their own master out of the sheepfold, ignoring the calls and enticements of other voices who might lure them to one side or the other. When the sheep stay tuned to their master's call and follow his lead, they safely proceed out the proper gate and out to the lush grasslands, always under the shepherd's protective gaze and perpetual presence.

Jesus wants us to have abundance. Jesus wants us to get lots of channels. But to really access all the abundance Jesus offers us we have to consider how those crazy satellite TV systems work.

When we set up a dish to get that panoply of tacky TV stations, it's not a mechanism that sends out some kind of wide open band to see if anything is out there. The dish is something we set up to receive the signals that we know are coming at us all the time.

Jesus promises all those who "enter by me" the abundant life because he knows that we're continually, eternally, surrounded by God's Spirit. There are no drought-stricken, barren spots in the spiritual kingdom of God. The Spirit's power is always rich and deep around us. But we have to let ourselves receive it. The abundant life Jesus promises comes to us once we enter through the gate, the doorway of faith in Jesus Christ.

Christ is our satellite dish who, once activated, beams uncountable numbers of channels of spiritual presence and power to us. The dish isn't something we set up to send out signals to see if God might be lurking out there in space somewhere. The dish is something we set up to receive God into our lives so that God might become God in us. We receive the abundant life, the millions of possibilities and promises of the Spirit, when we become receivers for God's spirit through Christ.

In Jewish culture there's long been a spiritual satellite dish in every household. The practice of setting up a mezzuzah, a small tube-like container that holds a tiny scroll with a traditional prayer recognizing God's eternal power and presence, is affixed to every doorway, or every doorpost in an orthodox home. Upon entering or leaving by a a mezzuzahed doorway, the devout kiss their index and middle fingers and press them to the mezzuzah. Before moving from one space to another, then, they're plugged in to the continual presence of God's spirit in their lives. (You might want to hand out mezzuzah's as gifts to everyone.)

When Jesus promises the abundant life to those who enter through him, those who receive him as their way to salvation, he tenderly refers to his followers as sheep.

Sheep are simple creatures.

Okay, you might even say they're pretty stupid.

Ask a sheep to figure out some grand logical question or connection and you'll shear enough wool to cover the world before you receive an answer. But as simple as sheep are, they can recognize the voice of their master, they can successfully tune-in the sound of the one who watches over them and keeps them safe.

Not only tune-in, they can tune-out the distracting voices of other shepherds. They can ignore or flee from the voices of strangers who might harm them (verse 8). Sheep are good receivers. They might not be creative or clever. But they can find and follow the frequency that promises them a life of rich pastures and safe sheepfolds.

Isn't it comforting to know that Christ offers us the gift of abundant life if we can just manage to be as smart as a sheep? That's all it takes. What if we had to be as fast as peregrine falcons? Or as strong as elephants? Or ants? Or as clever as foxes?

But no, we only have to exhibit the same amount of sense possessed by sheep. But to be sheep-smart, we do have to learn to turn off our own frantic, self-centered signaling, our constant questing for some elusive spiritual truth.

Instead, we have to reverse power and allow ourselves to become receivers, not transmitters. We have to receive God into our lives. We have to receive Christ's gift of salvation. We have to receive a variety of channels and possibilities that we never dreamed existed for us to access. We have to be willing to receive the abundant life in all its forms and richness.

But there is one more thing about these satellite networks. To get more channels, you have to pay for them. There is a cost to the discipleship that brings abundant life. What are you willing to pay to get more channels of the Spirit? What costs are you willing to bear and share to receive all that God has out there for you?

What do you need to do in your life to let Christ be Christ in you . . . the real meaning of the abundant life?