May 24, 2020 - Seventh Sunday of Easter

Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 24, 2020

Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:8-20; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

Adapted for print from transcription.

Well, good morning Shepherd of the Hills. Just a few shout outs before we look at this weekend's readings for this seventh Sunday of our Easter season. It is Memorial day weekend, so this weekend we specifically remember all those who have gone before us and serving their country.

Also, congratulations to the class of 2020. Specifically, congratulations to all of those in our Shepherd Family who are celebrating their graduation; Matteo Carrara, Kristopher Curtis, Mae Hart, Roman Garibay, Camila Mercado, Jada Randall, and Eileen Spahle. Class of 2020, Congrats!

Last week, I mentioned the rules of St. Benedict and St. Pachomius, and I wanted to expand on that a little bit, just to let you know that some people write Rules of Life for themselves today. So take a look at Friday's e-Pistle. It's just a little writeup on what a Rule of Life is exactly, and how you might adopt your own personal rule of life for today.

Also, we are with our Muslim friends in spirit this week as their Ramadan season of fasting comes to a conclusion. Now for Christians, on our Christian calendar, Thursday was Ascension Thursday, and this Sunday, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, we hear in our first reading, that Tyler Rice so beautifully proclaimed, from the book of Acts. We've been hearing from the book of Acts for this whole Easter season, and finally today we hear from Acts chapter one; kind of a reverse hearing. So what we have today are these disciples, Jesus's disciples, this early Christian community who were trying to make their way and ask big questions like, “who are we now that Jesus isn't with us?”

So who are we as disciples? Who are we as a Christian community in this context today? So big picture for today. I've always loved this first story and Acts, this story. There's this glimpse of Ascension and what we have are the disciples asking Jesus, “will you restore the kingdom?"

So they, like us, often don't get it. And we see throughout scripture that the disciples didn't get it either. The disciples continually came full circle and reverted back to this idea that Jesus was bringing about a political kingdom or political campaign, maybe a war or that Jesus was this great general or that Jesus was bringing about this new kingdom of Israel, where the reality is, is that we as disciples today, we get a glimpse of what Jesus was really trying to bring about. And that is a kindom, which we so often talk about and refer to on Sundays. But what we have today are the disciples maybe still not getting it and asking the question of Jesus, when will you restore the kingdom?

“When will you restore the kingdom?” I struggle with this reading and find it a bit unusual. We see that Jesus then ascends and the disciples stand there and they're looking up. And we have these two messengers that you heard about in today's first reading, and these two messengers asked this question, “why do you stand looking towards heaven?”

Well of course they're going to stand looking towards heaven because Jesus just went to heaven. Now, it is important when we hear questions like this or stories like this and scripture to remember and to remind ourselves that ancient cosmology was a bit different than ours. So standing, looking up, you know, ancient cosmology said that heaven was up, and this idea of hell was down.

And so a question that we're left with today that I think is really important for us in this time of lockdown as we find ourselves in this upper room of sorts. As we find ourselves together virtually here as Christian community and whatever time you find yourself watching this message, the question that we ask is, what do we look to?

Are we looking up towards heaven? And, and maybe another way to translate that today would be, are we looking towards goodness? Are we looking towards forgiveness? Are we being more loving, more forgiving people? So we have these messengers asking men of Galilee, “why do you stand looking up?” Well, of course they're going to be looking up, as I said, as we hear the story.

But what happens is that they stop. We're reminded in this reading. The thing that I was drawn back to over and over and over again as I prayed with this first reading this week is this idea of stopping and praying or praying and waiting. You know, we, so often like these disciples, are asking ourselves, “when will things get back to normal?”

“When will things be the way they were, prior to COVID-19?” So we're kind of drawn into the story. “When will you restore the kingdom?” “When will our life be restored?” And we have these two messengers. “Why do you stand looking up?” And then at the end of the reading, we see that we are called into praying and waiting.

We are called into being mindful during this time of lockdown. I mentioned last week with these these ‘Rules of Life’ that some of you may have wondered, what the heck is he talking about? You know, we can pull out these ancient practices from our ancient Christian tradition, and they appear as new practices. So the modern mindfulness movement has really been, I don't want to say co-opted, but many of these modern mindfulness practices and movements and culture have been taken from communities of faith.

What we hear, what we're being invited to in this first reading, as the first Christian community was being called to invited to, was to stop and pray. In other words, to use this time wisely. And then of course the one verse that really stands out for me in our second reading, read today by Dawn Rice, is this idea of ‘cast all of your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.’
Now, what's important about that is a reminder that, when we say to cast our fears on Christ, to cast our fears on Jesus, as we brought up in today's children's sermon, all of the members of the household, all of the members of this community of faith, it's something much bigger than this idea of the historical Jesus from a specific time and place. We’re to be reminded today that what we're really talking about is the Christ of faith and the Christ of faith is not bound to any time or space.

We remind ourselves that we are the body of Christ. So the beautiful thing, then as now, and maybe really important for us to hear today as we hear this message from first Peter, is that we are to cast our anxiety on him. Because he cares for us. This is a reminder, brothers and sisters, that we are to care for each other, especially during this time where we experienced physical distancing, to cast our fears and our anxieties onto each other.

So it sounds a little strange, but this is our opportunity to pull out that church directory, to get on that smart phone and open that church directory and look through those faces. This is something that I do each each day. I go through that, a smartphone app, and I look at all of your beautiful faces and I wait and in my prayer time, I pray for each of you as I swipe through those beautiful pictures, your beautiful faces. This isn't just my job as as pastor, this is our job because we are the body of Christ. So we're casting our anxieties, we're casting our fears on each other because it is through the community, the body of Christ that we experience hope that we really can cast out this fear, cast out this anxiety because we are here for one another.

Each Thursday, as I had mentioned last week, we have resumed our Lectio Divina series. And Lectio Divina is an ancient way of praying with the scripture. And so what happens on that Zoom call on Thursdays is we read through that gospel three times, and each time I invite those that call in to reflect on a word or a phrase that sticks out to you or sticks in your craw. And this Thursday we only had two folks on that call, but Judy and Diane were there. And I am thankful for that. And as I've mentioned before, if you want me to be a better preacher, come to Lectio Divina because Lectio Divina really helps me have a better sense of not only our hopes, but our struggles as we hear those scriptures throughout the week, and helps me better understand what questions you might be asking about each week's gospel reading.

So that leaves us with this gospel, John's gospel; a continuation. Jesus continues to talk, but what's important about this week as he's no longer teaching. They call this the high priestly prayer of Jesus. And in this prayer today, Jesus is praying for his disciples. Now, what's important that I should have reminded our Lectio Divina folks to kind of set the tone; there's a lot going on in today's gospel and it is a mouthful and what happens at Lectio Divina? We read that reading three times and we reflect on it, but this Sunday's reading is so long and so convoluted. Sometimes you really have to put a lot of mental effort into where is this going.

What is this about, this high priestly prayer of Jesus? Jesus was praying for the community. One of the things that came up in our discussion about this gospel was that we struggle with this gospel because it seems that it's very narrow.

It seems that it's going exclusive. Versus inclusive. So it seems that it's going against this idea that we have of the Jesus that we talk about, but in the previous chapters, what we see, if we take ourselves back to John 3, is that Jesus loved the whole world, the whole world. And then in the chapters just before this, we see that Jesus is kneeling down with his disciples. He's removing his outer robe. He's kneeling down. We were taken back to Holy Thursday where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and shares in this meal that's instituted and, maybe more important, we're reminded of the greatest commandment; to love one another. To love one another.

This prayer that we hear today, although it is difficult to understand, is Jesus's prayer for us as the church today, not only to love one another, but a reminder that Jesus is praying this prayer of the ecumenical movement. Our motto for the United Church of Christ is of course from John 17-21, which are the verses after those which we heard today. At the end of today's reading, we hear Jesus pray, giving us a glimpse of that same quote, “that we may all be one.” And so, brothers and sisters, in our baptisms, we are one. We are the body of Christ. It's also important to know that just after this priestly prayer of Jesus, the disciples are sent out and they're scattered. So this is coming from the gospel of John, and the gospel of John was probably authored somewhere in 100 of the Common Era, and this is written to a Christian community or from a Christian community that's now struggling.

Jesus has gone, they've been pushed out of everything they knew in terms of religious life. Into whatever it is that they are becoming as a community of Christ. And we're reminded at the end of today's gospel, the direction that we're called to is towards oneness. So as we hear from politicians and those that would like to divide us as humanity today, our gospel today reminds us that as Christians, we are called towards inclusion. We are called towards oneness. We are called to see the entirety of our human family as family. It's also worth pointing out - now, I said I wouldn't do this to my Lectio Divina group, but I really do love that in our Christian tradition, we as Christians are referred to as disciples.

And I think what Jesus is really getting at here is he's taking us beyond even our Christian tradition this morning. So if we really take into effect this idea of our still-speaking God, we can even expand the meaning of today's gospel and see that we are called to what? To follow Jesus. I brought up in our Lectio Divina discussion that within our Christian tradition, we're referred to as disciples.

Within the Hindu tradition, they're referred as devotees. And within the Buddhist tradition, they often talk about their tradition as a practice. So friends, these are perennial truths. What Jesus is talking about here isn't necessarily even a religion. What he's talking about is a practice.

These are the depths that we are mining in our tradition today. How are we doing with this? How are we doing with our practice? How are we doing with our devotion to kind of pull up some of this perennial wisdom? How are we doing as disciples of Christ in this movement towards wholeness?

Friends, I miss you so much. Know that I pray for you constantly. Know that we have many opportunities throughout the week to connect face to face and actually talk, and know, more than anything, know that if you don't have the video technology, you can call a phone number and join us. Hopefully you'll be able to join us.

If you're watching this on Sunday morning, I hope to see you during our Sunday morning Zoom coffee fellowship at 11 o'clock just following this service. Friends, have a wonderful week. Know that I'm praying for you, that I miss you so much and next week, remember to wear red as you join us from your couch or wherever it is that you join us from, because it will be Pentecost.

Just a forewarning that we're going to invite you to wear red and to post pictures of yourself wearing red for Pentecost on our Facebooks. So get ready! See you next week.