EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER – 08 MAY 2005

ST PAUL ABQ NM – The Rev. Patricia L. Holman

Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36; 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11; John 17:1-11

“Power to Live”

Just like the school year, the liturgical church year is about to shift gears.  The 50 days of the Easter season are about over – next weekend we celebrate the Day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured out upon the disciples and they received the power to go out to all nations bearing witness to God’s grace in Christ.  Christ has ascended – not into the clouds to be far away but to the head of our table to be our host, the head of our family to establish the indelible DNA we all receive in Baptism.  We are the ones now who must embody the love of Christ for the world.  We now have the power to live.  It is a power born of prayer, a power made manifest in sharing, a unifying power enhanced by diversity.

The power of someone praying for us WITH us can be simply awesome.  I experience that privilege two weeks ago during Youth Sunday worship when dozens of folks came to the “prayer station.” I myself was an adult before I experienced that power.  Imagine the disciples feeling that awesomeness of that gift as they overheard Jesus praying for them.  “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”  It wasn’t a prayer Jesus offered based on their request.  I suspect given the emotional intensity of the circumstances – Jesus was headed to the cross – I would imagine they weren’t quite sure what was going on.  They believe in the words Jesus had given them, they followed and taught and trusted and healed, they learned and squabbled and doubted and led.  If Jesus had asked them how he should pray for them, they wouldn’t have said anything about unity, certainly not the mystical unity to which Jesus referred.  But here it is – protect them, that they may be one.  Protect them – from the prowling lions of despair and self-centeredness, of territorialism and elitism, of apathy and ignorance?  Yes, protect them that they might take risks for your sake. 

This week we concluded our Thursday Bible study of the book of Acts.  The conversation was quite lively, ultimately centering on the challenges of proclaiming the Gospel in the days of the early church and in our day.  The word “activist” came up several times, mostly in the context of political liberalism.  That got me to thinking: is activism the province strictly of “liberal” types?  I looked up the word: one who engages in vigorous action, often using force for political ends.  Well, that isn’t limited to liberals in our day and time.  What if we redeemed the term “activist” to refer to those who, called by the Gospel, take risks for Jesus’ sake trusting that God will indeed protect them?  That’d be a fairly radical way to live, as activists for Jesus’ sake.  We do have the power …

It is a power made manifest in sharing.  Imagine the picture of Jesus ascending into heaven.  The Book of Acts tells us Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took Jesus out of the disciples’ sight.  But then two men in white robes (angels, don’t you know) appeared and challenged them, “Why are you looking up to heaven?  He’ll be back.  You get to work.”  Sharing the sufferings of others for the sake of Christ is the job description they’re given.  It’s one that needs no updating – it’s our job description as well.  This sharing, this koinonia, is the same root word as that used for those periods God has set for the in-breaking of his reign.  The way to unity comes not through protracted negotiations of doctrinal wording nor lengthy meetings debating denominational polity.  It comes through prayer and humility, through discipline and suffering, not for our own purposes but that Christ be made known. 

This past weekend the 27 people going to visit our companion synods in Madagascar met together in Denver.  Talk about sharing – rice, stories, hopes, fears, rice, water, sleeping space, watery rice, laughter, and more rice.  The idea was to give us a glimpse of the circumstances we’ll share with our sisters and brothers in the Malagasy church for the three weeks we are their guests.  I came away with a clear sense that this trip in June will give me so much more than I bring to it.  That reality became most clear for me when we talked about what we personally could bring to share with the people: Pens? Clothing? Shoes? No, our leader Pastor Jim Gonia said.  We are bringing ourselves, with open hands.  We are coming to share not our things but ourselves, and to receive the gift of their stories and their witness.  We are arriving as koinonia partners.  I think we will be overwhelmed

Overwhelmed, not just by the challenge of pit toilets and the lack of electricity in the villages, not just by the challenge of conversing in a tongue most of us have never heard spoken, not just by the challenge of living out of one 30” travel bag for three weeks.  No, we’ll be challenged by the depth and breath and beauty of a culture and people so different from us that it will be radically disorienting.  But that’s the way God works, that’s the unity for which Jesus prays.  A unity that is realized when we open ourselves to being radically disoriented, to the reality of the loving, painful struggle that shines in the face of Jesus … that shines in the lives of fellow Christians who long not for our sympathy or money but for our ears and eyes and hearts … that shines in the faces of Palestinian Christian parents whose children were “accidentally killed by Israeli soldiers” who refuse to let the bitterness destroy them but rather tell their stories as a witness for peace …  that shines in the lives of those who are our partners right here in the Rocky Mountain Synod. 

Two weeks from today the 2005 assembly of our synod will be over.  Behind us will be hours of dialog and voting on a variety of matters related to the business of being the ELCA on this territory.  Pre-assembly resolutions give us a hint of how diverse those dialogs will be.  There are resolutions to make hunger “statis confessionis” – a matter central to our faith (like was done with apartheid in the late 1980s) – and to move advocacy for public policy to a more central place in the lives of our congregations.   More diverse and likely more divisive are the resolutions carefully crafted and signed by good people of strong faith regarding changes to ELCA policy that span the spectrum of how homosexuality should be understood in light of scripture and Christian tradition.  I always look forward to these times of assembly with clergy and lay voting members from around this five state synod.  Not because I love conflict --  I would rather just worship and share stories and bring back new ideas for ministry.   But I cherish these times because I trust in the power of Jesus’ prayer for the church, in the power of your prayers for the church as well.  I have hope that even in the midst of our conflicts, our disagreements, our diverse ways of hearing and living the gospel, that somehow the power of Jesus’ prayer will lead us to a deeper awareness of the mystery of being human, a deeper awareness of the awesome mystery of God’s grace in Christ Jesus.  That somehow in the midst of this gathering we will be reminded that Christian faithfulness is not identified with theological correctness, nor with being on the correct side in the culture wars over sexuality, war and peace, the right to live or the right to die, but that our unity rests in following Christ, in “the complex business of loving in a messy world where it’s always more costly than we’d imagine” [D. Miller, THE LUTHERAN, May 2005, p.58].  The RMS meets in assembly in Ft. Collins, CO, May 19-21 – please pray for us.

My mother has raised six children and now awaits the birth of grandchild number seven. In spite of the fact we have the same parents biologically we children are a pretty varied bunch politically, theologically, socially, geographically and vocationally.  The one thing we all have in common though is a commitment to “stay together.”  It’s the only thing Mom, who was an only child, has ever asked of us.  That “prayer of her heart” as I like to call it, along with the wonderful sense of humor we inherited from our parents, creates space for our differences … So far so good.

The love of God creates space for all the world’s differences.  We can glimpse this unity in diversity in the beauty of a healthy blended family or neighborhood community, in the shared pride among the hundreds of families gathered for a university or high school graduation, in our worship this morning as we welcome new members to the partnership here at St. Paul.  A bit later in worship we will confess our faith together using the words of the Apostles’ Creed.  I invite you to stop with me during the third article, when we confess our trust in the power of the Spirit, when we affirm together: I believe in the holy, catholic Church.”  Pause and name aloud those countries where you know our sisters and brothers are working to make Christ known.  Perhaps in Africa, Asia or Europe.  Perhaps right here on our borders.  Name aloud those places where the Church universal works in the power of the Spirit to be the body, that in naming aloud our own awareness of the diversity of the Church even now is heightened and the eyes of our hearts opened to that diversity.

The beauty of that diversity is like the image of a braided stream, “a type of river in which multiple strands of water come together [for a time] and divide again, criss-crossing in a beautiful braided pattern that sparkles and shifts across the broad streambed [B. Rossing].”  The church is like a river, flowing through the heart of God, and together we can find ways to live in unity that aim not to merge everyone into one huge channel, but rather ways that affirm the wonderful variety of individual strands as they criss-cross and sparkle across the deep and wide spectrum of God’s river of life. 

We do have the power.  Let it flow.