This is the last Sunday of our Easter season. Christ has risen. Christ has reassured us. Christ has now ascended into heaven. Next Sunday we will celebrate the arrival of the gift that Christ promised us – the coming to us of the Holy Spirit (our advocate, counselor, helper, and comforter) at Pentecost, remembered in our tradition as the ‘birth of the church.’
As we prepare to celebrate the arrival of this promised gift and the bursting forth of new life in it, today’s lessons underscore that despite Jesus no longer being visible to us in bodily form, Christ dwells in/with us through this Spirit; and that beyond any apparent set-backs in our temporal existence, we’ve been eternally redeemed through the crucifixion and resurrection.
Today, our lessons both have us looking back at where we’ve been as well as looking forward to what has been promised. The Spirit calls to be aware that living and loving with Christ can put us at odds with dominant culture around us and lead to our suffering (as it has for our ancestors)… “OUR” – we’re also called to live and love in unity as one beloved body… and body that doesn’t so much need to be re-united by our own efforts, but a blessed collective that needs to wake up to the truth that we’re already inter-connected, inter-dependent by our very created nature. Ultimately we are ‘one’ just as God, Christ, and the Spirit are one.
LOOKING BACK
The Psalmist (Psalm 68:1-10. 33-36) reminds us that God brought our ancestors out of bondage in Egypt and saved them from their enemies. We’re told that people who deny or turn-away from God are left in parched places – thirsting, hungry, embittered. But that people who worship and praise God will be provided: protection, shelter, freedom, provisions and nourishment, refreshment, strength and power. God intends that we participate in the building of our relationships into a healthy, unified family.
In our reading from the Gospel according to John (John 17:1-11), we travel back to that last supper that Jesus, in earthly form, shared with his closest disciples (on what we now remember as Maundy Thursday). They were celebrating in that moment all that was happening… but Jesus was already looking ahead to what was to come. Offering instructions, guidance, and encouragement he says the words we heard today that are sometimes referred to as his “high priestly prayer” or his “prayer of consecration.”
Looking back, he says he has done what he was sent to do and that all of this work and witness points back to God with glory (reputation/brightness/greatness/honor). He has demonstrated humility and merciful compassion toward them and others, commanding them to continue loving each other as he has loved them (more than merely loving their neighbors as themselves), and he has promised to send them an Advocate (Holy Spirit).
Looking ahead, he knows that they will experience moments of weakness – that despite their praise and conviction in this joyful intimate setting, they will soon scatter and abandon him out of fear. Despite this, as we heard last week, he assures them that he will never abandon them or leave them orphaned. Looking ahead, he knows that they will suffer and be persecuted because of their expressed faith in his good news… but he also knows that great joy is in store for them ultimately. Several verses before what we heard today, Jesus uses the metaphor of labor and birth, “…your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she is in pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world” (John 16:20-21).
Looking ahead, Jesus sees in their new birth, fully restored through his resurrection as one family with God. He then prays (a prayer found only in John) to God on their behalf, and on behalf of all future believers (us), asking that God guard/protect them/us, consecrate/sanctify them/us in the truth of the Word (John 17:17) and restore them/us as one family, in shared purpose and love.
Moving forward in time, we heard excerpts from one of Peter’s reassurances (1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11) to the early church that had been birthed through the coming of the Holy Spirit after Jesus’ ascension. Peter, the rough-n-ready fisherman formerly known as Simon, is now writing to his fellow believers in Asia Minor (area of Turkey today), many of whom are former pagans and non-Jews, often living as unwelcome exiles / aliens in a socially/politically hostile environment. These early believers were initially stigmatized for having separated from their tribes and families in order to gather themselves as believers in Christ. For this, they were ridiculed and harassed by former friends and family, suffering mostly social rejection and harsh verbal abuse which later would turn into more physical persecution. The persecution of these early Christians wasn’t because of what they believed, per se, but because how they lived / what they did that was an affront to the systems of social order of the time. These social outcasts practiced solidarity through mutual-support, shared charity, and acts of liberating the oppressed rather than actively participating in the more popular systems of social hierarchy based on material wealth, status, and control through domination and exploitation. They were out-of-sync, to say the least, with the culture around them. For living and loving as Christ did, they suffered.
In our context today, this might initially be hard for most of us to relate to, here in a society in which we’re not overtly or physically persecuted for our faith (except perhaps mockery at in some social circles). However, if you’ve ever opted of our predominant social patterns and gone against societal norms to advocate sharing of wealth, justice for the oppressed, or expressing love for the despised, you begin to experience and know more personally the suffering that Peter is addressing. And, certainly in some parts of our modern world today, to live and love as a Christian is an even risky affair – E.g., www.persecution.com is a website that claims to track and report on the contemporary persecution of Christians.
Back then, Jesus and Peter foresaw that living and loving each other as God intends – doing what is right, if you will – often will put you at odds with the systems and structures around you that are more self-centered and power-hoarding. They reassured our ancestors, and continue to reassure us, that when we find ourselves suffering because of our expression of Christian faith through charitable, merciful love for others, we are sharing/participating in communion with Christ’s suffering and are joining with all faithful Christians, as one body that suffers, endures, and is redeemed. How we respond in our unity as a Christian family to these “fiery ordeals” reveals our collective faith and glorifies God.
To endure the birthing pains of a new creation / a newly unified family in Christ, Peter gives the early believers, and us, these instructions: humble yourself before God (it’s not all about you and you’re not ultimately in control); cast your anxiety upon God (don’t spend your energy worrying – surrender and trust in our Lord); discipline yourself and remain alert (don’t live passively and unaware / inattentive to our interconnectedness); and resist the devil’s temptation of convincing yourself that you’re isolated or alone in your faith, or that the only end in life is your personal happiness.
LOOKING FORWARD
We are not alone – not alone in our suffering, not having to endure things solely on our own, etc… “you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering” (1 Peter 5:9)
You are a part of ‘us.’ We have work and witness to do together which might well cause us suffering; but we have been called ultimately to eternal glory in Christ, through which God restores, supports, strengthens, and establishes us.
SUFFERING: What is the work we have to do – the work that might cause us to suffer for a little while? See what we have promised to do, with God’s help, as related in our Baptismal Covenant (paraphrasing what is found on pp. 304-305 in our Book of Common Prayer):
· Believing and having faith in God, his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit;
· Continuing to teach, fellowship, share meals, and prayer together in Christ’s name;
· Persevere in resisting evil and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord;
· Proclaim through what we say and do the good news of Christ, essentially loving each other as He loves us;
· Striving for justice and peace among ALL people, respecting the dignity of every human being as beloved creations of God and members ultimately of God’s one family.
UNITY: We come to know God through our relationship with Christ. Others come to know God through our relationship with them. And we all are in relationship through the Spirit. We are intimately interconnected, us with each other, and us with God, Son, and Spirit – “all mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them…. Protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:10-11) a holy family sharing new creation, eternal sustenance, and perpetual liberation and redemption.
Jesus says, as paraphrased in The Message, “I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakeable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.” (John 16:33).
AMEN
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