May 16, 2010
The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year C)
Acts 16:16-34; Psalm 97; Revelation 22:11-14, 16-17, 20-21;
John 17:2026
Last Thursday evening at 7:30, two members of our choir, three parishioners, and I joined portions of choirs, clergy and parishioners from three other Episcopal churches, who are part of our Deanery, for our annual celebration of the Ascension. The music was lovely, of course, as it always is, but it never ceases to amaze me that as a church we do not take this major feast day in the church too seriously. Unlike Christmas or Easter we do not have a merchandising strategy or cultural stories of “ascension days past” to call us to even think much about it, no cattle lowing, mangers or shepherds, and certainly no bunnies hopping around with colored eggs! In fact, even with my rather oddly creative imagination, I can’t quite imagine how to market Ascension Day – perhaps feet dangling from every ceiling? Or cloud posters with feet sticking out of them? Food for the day could be meringues? Or blue sky blueberry pie! Or perhaps the annual celebration would culminate with everyone getting a pedicure? National pedicure day! I am sure the beauticians and nail techs of the world would rejoice in that thought! But given how difficult it is to get people to do foot washing for Maundy Thursday, that might not be such a good idea anyway!
Who knows how to “market” ascension? How to create a feast and tradition around it? Certainly it does not seem to capture the imagination of very many folks.
And this Sunday – we are stuck between that non-celebration of what is in the eyes of the church a major feast day, Ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost, which we will celebrate with great vigor and much excitement next Sunday. Colorful flames will be whooshed around our sanctuary, hopefully in a way that delights and surprises you. And we will all wear red and celebrate with our Rite 13 youth, and rejoice in the birthday of the church as well as the coming of the Spirit.
But today, today when Jesus is already ascended and we are waiting for the Spirit, liturgically speaking, today, we have lessons about Paul not escaping from jail when he could have, and because he didn’t leads to a baptism of a whole family. Then we have the gospel story of Jesus praying to his father, his Abba, that all will “be one as he and the father are one” (prayed in the hearing of the disciples, of course, so we get to hear it too)!
And today in 2010 at Church of the Good Shepherd, after hearing these lessons, we are going to baptize Anika Katheryn Buono, a much awaited, desired, beloved child of her parents and of this congregation. She will be baptized as the jailer and his family were baptized, only some two thousand years later! I always marvel, as I have often mentioned, when the lessons of the day fit nicely into the reality we are dealing with in our life together or world circumstances. And this week it is no different, evidence, I believe, of the Spirit at work, even if we don’t celebrate its coming until next week!
Jesus wants us all to be one, as he and the father are one. Does that mean we are all to be of one mind? One heart? One belief? Are we to be uniform and concise, even dogmatic, in that uniformity? Are we to conform to a single idea, theology, church, teaching, etc., with no latitude for interpretation or difference?
Hardly! I have not been in a gathering of any size where there was a common mind, where such true conformity was possible or ever really valued for that matter. It seems to me that what Jesus was talking about in this deeply felt prayer was not getting a whole group of people, his followers, to be on the same page as much as he wanted them in the same spiritual place, together, as one body, many parts, many opinions, many gifts. We have evidence of this multifaceted and diverse understanding of how communities are to be, not only from Jesus, but from the early church stories Paul has written of. Indeed we know them from our own experience.
Christian unity never was about Christian conformity. It’s about being united by faith, not dogma. In our particular branch of the Christian faith, the Episcopal branch, we like to say we are united around the table, the Eucharist. We say that what makes us one, as the father and son are one, is the sharing of the Eucharist. And as I look out at you from this place I realize we come to this table a pretty diverse group, diverse in opinion, diverse in piety practices, diverse in politics, diverse in hopes and desires for this community, diverse in which baseball team we root for, diverse in even rooting for any team! We are not of one mind on anything, absolutely not anything it would seem. Yet, good people, we are one, as the father and son are one. We are one because of whose we are, because of the One each of us claims to belong to. We are one because we are able to gather at the table, and in that gathering together, diverse and divided on so many things, yet we are able to confirm that each of us is a beloved child of God. And in that we are one!
We are one body, one people, because that is what Jesus made us in this prayer we hear him pray in the gospel from John.
And today we are bringing Anika into that oneness. And what I love about this baptism uniquely and in particular is that, while we are using Episcopal Prayer Book liturgy, Anika’s mother is a Lutheran pastor, her father is Roman Catholic, and her godfather is a UCC pastor. And we as Episcopalians are promising to do all in our power to support her in her life in Christ, just as each of those gathered here for her baptism, but who are not a regular part of our community, will also promise. That is the very unity I believe Jesus prayed that his disciples, and us by extension, would live into, not that we would all go to the same church or down the same path or even all stay living in the same place, but that we be one in Spirit, as the Father and Son are One in Spirit.
And now, by what we all do together here this morning, Anika too will belong to that oneness. That unity we bring her into this morning is certainly not organizational or institutional, not dogmatic or even tied to this place or this time. We have good evidence of that diversity among us. Certainly we bring her into a spiritual unity born not of what the church creates, but of what the Spirit working in us and through us bears witness to.
Unity, as Jesus prayed it, is not stagnant, encased in a glass show case, or bound in a leather book jacket. It does not grow stale or gather dust. No! True Unity is a living reality that is cultivated and used in relationships that expand and breathe, bend and move. Conformity, most certainly, does not bend. It is brittle and breaks easily, but unity keeps bending and expanding and growing. Unity is created out of love. Love always expands, is always creative and life giving. Love always makes room for more. Conformity diminishes and shatters. Conformity excludes. Unity, born of Love, includes, forgives, transforms, moves forward. That is the prayer Jesus had for his followers.
It is that love that under girds our unity, that makes us one, and such oneness would not be possible if Jesus were still walking around among us. The Ascension is a major feast day of the church because it is the only way such oneness, such unity, such relationship of love could be possible. We are part of creating and honoring that oneness because we all have equal access to Christ. And we would not if Jesus was bound to a specific time and place in history. Jesus has ascended, and even as we sit here this morning, we have evidence that the Spirit is not only coming but is already among us in the unity Christ prayed for and we are privileged to be part of. Today, may each of us take from this place something of that oneness born of God’s love, something that helps us bend, expand, create and give life in Christ’s name to others, especially Anika, may her life be filled with such unity creating love.
Amen.
The Reverend Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd