Sunday, May 13, 2018

Between Ascension and Pentecost


Easter 7B 2018 RCL
                                                        Rev. Dr. Adam T. Trambley                               
May 13, 2018, St. John’s Sharon

On Thursday of this week, we celebrated the feast of the Ascension.  The Ascension is one of the major feasts of the church, when Jesus is taken up to heaven forty days after the resurrection.  The celebration is a difficult one, however.  The image we are left with is Jesus giving his disciples some instructions and then leaving, while the disciples themselves stand around wondering what to do next.  They were hoping, of course, that after this resurrection miracle everything would be finally fixed – the Romans would be gone, God’s people would be able to run their own lives the way they wanted to, and all the prophecies about peace and prosperity and everyone knowing God’s law in their hearts would at long last come to fulfillment.  Unfortunately, none of those things had happened yet.  Some of it, quite frankly, looked unlikely.

Instead, Jesus says two things.  First, he says that they are going to receive the power of the Holy Spirit.  He is going to his Father, and when he does, he will send his gift of the Spirit so that the disciples have the gifts they need to be witnesses of his resurrection to the ends of the earth.  That gift of the Spirit is what we celebrate next Sunday on Pentecost.  Second, Jesus says to stay in Jerusalem until then.  Luke’s gospel tells us that the disciples remained in Jerusalem with great joy, and that they were continually in the temple blessing God.  In other words, they did what they knew they were supposed to do until the Holy Spirit came and they were ready for the next work of ministry which Jesus had laid out for them.

We ourselves live after Pentecost.  We know the power of the Holy Spirit, and we have been given the commission to be witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection and to spread the good news beyond the friendly confines of our personal Jerusalem.  Yet, we might do well this morning to stop for a minute and see what the readings today tell us about living in this in-between time.  Living in the in-between time is not easy.  Jesus has been taken up from us and maybe we aren’t feeling the Holy Spirit lighting us on fire or seeing the power of God renewing the whole world.  Maybe we have at times felt clarity about God’s purpose for us, but lately we feel like we are just getting by, whether spiritually, emotionally, or in some other way.  This ten-day period between Ascension and Pentecost is a good time to remind us of how to live in those times, as we seek to live faithfully while waiting for God’s Spirit to propel us onward.

Our readings today are good ones for the post-Ascension pre-Pentecost time.  We hear three important messages in the different readings.  The first is to stay rooted in Jesus.  The second is to live good lives.  The third is to do the things that prepare for future ministry.

The gospel and epistle both talk about the importance of staying connected in Jesus.  In John’s first letter, we are reminded that having the Son means that we have eternal life.  Like the first disciples who were called to be witnesses of the resurrection, we are called to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and have faith in him.  This belief is not necessarily checking off every point in the Nicene Creed.  Instead, accepting the testimony of the Son of God is accepting that Jesus shows us the way to God through his life and his teachings.  Believing in the Son of God means that following Jesus and his way of self-giving love is the way to eternal life.  Having the Son of God means that we would rather dedicate ourselves to loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves than to love primarily ourselves and ignore God’s people.

In John’s gospel, Jesus assures us that this life grounded in him is possible, even while he is away.  Jesus closes his discourse with his disciples at the last supper with a long prayer for them, and we read part of that prayer this morning.  Jesus prays that the Father will protect those that are his own after he goes back to the Father.  We can trust that Jesus’ prayers are heard.  This prayer is our assurance that we can, in fact, live lives grounded in Jesus and his life and teachings even as we are surrounded by the trials and temptations of the world around us.  Sometimes, all we need to succeed is knowing that we can succeed. Jesus prayer to his Father on our behalf is knowledge that we are not only capable, but also are destined, to remain in him.

Second, this morning’s psalm is great advice for how to live good lives in this in-between time.  Psalm 1 is one of my favorite psalms.  Verses one and two are pretty solid advice for how to live faithful, fruitful lives. 

The psalm begins, Happy are they.  Here happy means happy.  The advice to be given is not some spiritualized blessing or an assurance that if things are bad now, they will get better later.  Instead, the psalmist is saying straightforwardly, “look, if you want to be happy in all the ways that are part of having a good life, do this.”  His three pieces of advice are: do not walk in the counsel of the wicked, do not linger in the way of sinners, and do not sit in the seats of the scornful.  These instructions make sense, because the wicked and sinners and the scornful inevitably lead us down paths that make us miserable. 

What I’d really like for this part of the sermon is the ability to show a bunch of movie clips, because Hollywood often does a better job at making these points than preachers do.  Imagine the stereotypical counsel of the wicked – a bunch of gangsters into drugs, gambling, prostitution, blackmail, murder, and all sorts of other things.  Inevitably, some naïve, young person wanders into those councils looking for money, power, prestige and what he thinks will make him happy.  Spoiler alert – nothing he finds ends up making him happy.  Either he gets gunned down early or he has to go through a gut-wrenching, soul-searching time where he loses everything, has a huge conversion experience and spends his life overcoming the councils of the wicked – in which case he may become an important force for good, but he is not going to be happy.  If you want a distinction between good and happy, see, for example, Batman.  Not every counsel of the wicked is as stark as a good gangster movie, but they all have the same feel and end up the same way.  If people are talking about how to do something harmful to others, get out of there.  Nothing good will come of it, for you or for anyone else.

When the psalm continues happy are they who do not linger in the way of sinners, the point is similar.  In recovery circles there is a saying that if you hang out at the barber shop long enough, eventually you will get a haircut.  If being around the counsel of the wicked is a problem, actually following the steps of people while they are sinning is even worse.  Too often, people, especially good people, get enamored with sin.  Something fun must be happening if everyone is doing it. But sin isn’t fun – in the long run it doesn’t bring happiness to the sinner or anyone else.  We are happy if we avoid even lingering in the way of sinners.

The psalm mentions one particular sin as particularly worth avoiding, however – the seats of the scornful.  Scorn is looking down on people for being less than we believe that we are.  We could scorn them for their lack of sophistication, for their decision to live in ways that differ from ours, for their driving capability, for “who their people are”, or for any number of other reasons.  Scorn is not the same as recognizing bad decisions made by God’s children, or even that those decisions have consequences.  Scorn is deciding that the people themselves are inherently less important, less special, less good, and less worthy of being God’s children than we are.  Scorn means we look down on people rather than loving them. Sitting in the seats of the scornful will make us unhappy because we reinforce for ourselves that God made some people as expendable and we draw lines between ourselves and others.  Happiness comes when, instead, we focus on the goodness and love with which God has made everything and everyone in the universe, including ourselves, and recognize our unity with all of God’s people.  We all do well to take care to avoid sitting in the seats of the scornful – it can be all too easy.

The psalmist than says that instead of hanging out with the wicked, the sinful, and the scornful, we can delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on his law day and night.  This advice is one of those instructions that seems ridiculous and overly-pious to those who don’t take it and self-evident to those who do.  The Bible is not boring or dull, even if certain parts here and there rarely make it into feature films.  Scripture is interesting, exciting, joyful, and life giving.  People who read it, tend to keep reading it for a reason.  Studying the God’s word is delightful, even when done day and night.  If you are awake at midnight and have a choice between doing some exploring on the dark web or reading the Bible, you will be much happier reading the Bible.

Verse three of psalm one gives an assurance for those who act in these good ways, similar to the assurance we receive in Jesus prayer.  The psalm says that such people are like trees planted beside streams of waters, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither, everything they do shall prosper.  We can be confident that, if we do what we are supposed to be doing, things will work out.  Not necessarily on our timeline or how we want them to, but they will.  The psalm says, for example, we will bear fruit in due season.  We always want fruit in the middle of winter when it is hard to come by.  We want fruit in ministry when things are difficult and we are working out how to be a church in a new environment.  At the right time, however, fruit will come, and in the meantime, our leaves will not wither.  We will still have what we need.  The psalmist even writes that everything they do will prosper, which is incredible assurance.  That prospering comes, however, by meditating on God’s law and avoiding sin, wickedness, and scorn.  Being happy and prosperous makes working on those simple items pretty good ideas.

Finally, we hear in the first reading from Acts that in this time between Ascension and Pentecost the apostles did what they needed to do to get ready for the next move of God.  Judas had betrayed Jesus and committed suicide, and the twelve were now eleven.  So Peter and the others selected someone to take Judas’s place. We are in a similar situation.  We know that things like church attendance and many other measures of Christian faith seem to be down at this point in our society.  We know that what we are doing won’t be the same forever, and yet at the same time we are waiting on God to open up what God is going to do next.  In the meantime, we prepare ourselves for what God may do.  We say our prayers, including prayers for God to act quickly.  We work on loving each other more deeply.  We make sure that we are good stewards of our facilities and finances.  We encourage one another as we deepen our own walk of discipleship.  And we look for those places where the Holy Spirit is moving in our lives and our community.  We develop and utilize the spiritual gifts we are given.  We listen to the needs and hopes of the community around us.  And we set our faces fearlessly forward, into whatever future God has in store for us.

Living between Ascension and Pentecost is not always easy, but it is not complicated.  We stay grounded in our life in Jesus.  We avoid sin, wickedness, and scorn while meditating on the scriptures.  Then we prepare for the next amazing thing God is going to do in our lives and the lives of his people.    

Sunday, May 6, 2018

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you


Easter 6B 2018 RCL
                                                        Rev. Dr. Adam T. Trambley                               
May, 8 2018, St. John’s Sharon

On the night before he died for us, Jesus had gathered his friends for a meal.  After eating with them and washing their feet, he talked with them, encouraged them, and prayed for them. Today’s gospel is in the middle of that last supper discourse, and we hear it with two separate ears. On one side of our head, we hear the preparation for the loss, the separation, the suffering and the death to come.  On the other side, we hear Jesus’ words in the light of his resurrection victory having ourselves received the power of his Holy Spirit.

“As the Father has loved me,” Jesus said, “so I have loved you.”  How exactly has the Father loved Jesus? The answer is difficult, in part because we aren’t privileged to see the Father and the Son when they are spending time together in realms of inapproachable light from before time and forever.  We do know, however, that the Father has put all things into the Son’s hand, and that the Father raised Jesus from the dead and put all his enemies under his feet.  We know that the Father has made Jesus the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, through whom all things have come into being.  Yet, we also know that the Father sent him to reconcile the world back to himself.  Jesus received the ministry of salvation from the Father, and although Jesus himself freely choses to undertake that ministry, his obedience to his Father’s will led him to his passion and death, as well as the other sufferings of our mortal existence.  The Father’s love for Jesus is not a sweet, sentimental love, but a profound love that offers Jesus a central place in the midst of his own life and work.  The Father’s love for Jesus provides him a challenging and satisfying and life-giving purpose, but that purpose also involves trial and sacrifice.

Jesus says he loves us just as the Father loves him.  This love should probably terrify us more than comfort us.  If we are honest, the depth of Jesus’ love for us is not what we would chose.  A love that causes the Word to be made flesh and dwell among us.  A love so passionate that it reaches out and compels us to acknowledge it, to respond to it, to be transformed by it.  A love we might want to hide from, to shield ourselves from, to allow to pass over us without crossing the lintels of our house.  A love that sacrifices more than we could ever imagine for each and every one of us.  A love for us just like the Father’s love for Jesus. 

That love of Jesus for us opens for us a place in the life and work of Jesus. He calls us to abide in his love, which means that we are united with him.  We say that we are baptized into his death and also baptized into his resurrection.  What gets left out of many of our creeds and affirmations, however, is how we are also baptized into his love, into his passion – not just the passion of those days leading up to his death, but also the passion that describes the fierce desire for each and every one of us to share in the abundance of his life starting today.  Abiding in that self-giving love that Jesus has for the world means that we share in the mission and ministry he has received from the Father.  Abiding in that self-giving love means that we also have a challenging and satisfying and life-giving purpose that will require trials and sacrifice.  Abiding in that self-giving love means that we live in obedience to Jesus’ commandments to love one another.

Jesus tells us that following his commandments and abiding in his love will bring us joy.  Grounding ourselves in Jesus love means that his joy is us and our joy will be complete.  The fullness of joy can only come to us when we are living into the purpose that we have been made for.  We can’t hope to find joy if we are running away from God.  Joy comes when we embrace who we are made to be and allow God to transform and empower us as agents of his love in the world. 

Joy is not the same as fun, however.  The love Jesus us calls us into is described as laying down one’s life for one’s friends.  We know that Jesus laid down his life for us on the cross.  We, too, are called to lay down our lives for one another.  Usually, however, we don’t lay it down in a dramatic, all-at-once kind of way.  Some people do.  We know the examples of people who have given their lives to protect and defend those they love, whether from foreign aggression, from rampant crime, from fires, or from other natural disasters.  We also have the witness of generations of martyrs who laid down their lives rather than betray their faith in Jesus.  For some of us, a time may come when the love of God compels us to such a sacrifice.  Most of us, however, lay down our lives for one another in smaller acts of love.  We sacrifice our lives day by day in obedience to the loving purpose of God.

These acts of sacrificial love can take many forms.  We stay up all night holding hands with someone who is dying, offering the only comfort left to them.  We hold a sick infant, beyond when our arms want to fall off and our eyelids want to close, knowing that as they throw up on us we are going to get the same flu bug they have.  We give up a full-time job, and the income and security that comes with it, to stay home and raise children, or we work extra jobs to make sure that our children have what they need.  We foster and adopt children that need homes, knowing full well that even beyond the normal challenge of child-rearing we are invited a whole host of issues into the middle of our lives.  We stick with our spouse when it seems like things are worse, not better, poorer, not richer, in sickness, and not in health, finding ways to love and be present when going away would seem so much easier.  We take the time to listen to another person when spilling out our own problems would make us feel better or when turning up the TV and ignoring everyone else would be so much less work.  We make a commitment to those in need, giving time and money generously to others when we have plenty of ways to use those resources for ourselves.  We pray for other people, pouring out our hearts to bring them before the throne of God when we have so many other things we could be doing.  Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, as we live out Jesus commandment to us, we come to find that we have, in fact, laid down our lives for those we have come to love ever more deeply, just as Jesus laid down his live for us.

Jesus gives us three additional insights into this love that he has shared with us and commands us to share with others.  First, he says that we are his friends.  We aren’t his servants anymore, but we are his friends because we know what he is about.  He has shared with us his purpose and mission.  He has commissioned us to participate.  We are not blindly obeying a set of commandments we don’t understand.  We lay down our lives for others because we have experienced Jesus lay down his life for us.  We have a role to play in deciding how and where we lay down our lives because as Jesus’ friends, we have a role to play in how this plan of God unfolds.  We are obedient, but we are also given the great privilege of having some input in how we spread the love of God.

Second, Jesus says we have not chosen him, but he has chosen us.  Being here today was not our idea.  We are here because Jesus picked us.  He chose us by loving us as the Father loved him.  He specifically chose us so that our lives would bear good fruit.  We can love other because he first loved us, and since we have been loved first, we are selected by Jesus’ divine choice to go and make a difference in the world.

Finally, Jesus says, the Father will give whatever we ask in his name.  This asking is not unconditional.  We can’t just ask in Jesus’ name to get a pony and expect it to appear.  I mean, maybe you’ll get a donkey or something on Palm Sunday that way, but Jesus isn’t promising a divine vending machine. Instead, he is saying that because we have been selected to bear fruit – because he chose us as his friends to be part of the mission and ministry that the Father gave him – when we are praying to be able to bear fruit, God will give us what we need to do so.  At least part of what this means is that we can ask for the strength and courage and wisdom to lay down our lives in love for our friends, and God will sustain us.  Jesus is encouraging us to ask for whatever is necessary for us to live out Jesus’ commandment to love one another, however difficult.  We are invited to pray big prayers for great love and lasting fruit. When we ask, Jesus assures us that the Father is waiting to answer those prayers.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.  Jesus loves us with the same passionate, intimate, sacrificial and life-giving love that the Father has for him.  He invites us into that passionate, intimate, sacrificial and life-giving love, so that we can share that love with others. The cost of that love is laying down our life for our friends.  The power of abiding in that love, however, is fullness of joy for us and the lasting fruit of Jesus’ love for those whom we love.  Jesus has chosen us, and he has promised that we can ask for whatever we need. Let us live into the fullness of that wondrous love.