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.
