Seventh Sunday of Easter Sermon

Last Thursday was the Feast of the Ascension, which commemorates the story we just heard read from the book of Acts – that moment in the life of Jesus when his earthly ministry ends and he ascends and returns to heaven.

Because it happened forty days after Easter, and because Easter is always on a Sunday, the Feast of the Ascension always lands on a Thursday, which means, it almost always gets overlooked. This year our choir (with St. Luke’s choir) led a beautiful evensong service for the Ascension. And some of you were here. Not many.

And this isn’t a rebuke. Culturally, both in and out of the church, the Ascension doesn’t hold much value for people. And, I suspect if you are like I am, at a very elemental level, we simply don’t like the Ascension story much because it’s the story of Jesus leaving us.

As a child, every other Sunday evening, I would watch the taillights of my birth mother’s car drive around the corner and disappear, signaling again the end of our weekend visit – that the next two weeks would be spent without her.

And the Ascension has something of that feel to me. The center of our faith, Jesus, is leaving us – leaving us to muddle on without him.

It’s not exactly the same. None of us has ever known a Jesus in the flesh. Jesus has always been, for us, someone believed in (or tried to believe in) and prayed to and thought about. But he’s never been in our embrace, never spoken to us with words unmediated by the Bible or presumptuous preachers.

And yet, in reading the Bible, in seeking a relationship with Jesus, we would certainly like to have him in the flesh – to have the opportunity to sit at his feet, to hear his voice, unmediated, uncorrupted. We are humans in the flesh, after all. How else do we know to relate, except “in the flesh.”

So it’s reasonable for us to have a less than enthusiastic feeling towards the Ascension. And yet, this is the story we’ve got. This is the life we’re living. This is the faith we’re asked to believe.

And in our faith, as in this story, we are told: “You are not left alone. You are not orphaned. ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.’”

Unfortunately, if we’re honest, this is, for many, of little comfort. Knowing the “living presence” of God through the Holy Spirit feels no different than knowing Jesus. Both can be less about a living, tangible relationship and more about an ascribed theology: We’ve been told that Jesus is the son of God and we can recite the outline of his life through the Nicene Creed. We’ve been told that the Holy Spirit is with us and that – in baptism – we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

But again, if we’re honest, there can be a vast distinction between “belief” in the Holy Spirit and “relationship” with the Holy Spirit. “Belief” can be pretty squishy – what we really believe verses what we’re trying our best to believe. And often, we can’t tell the difference between the two until we’ve actually grown into a deeper level of faith and can look back at an earlier stage and admit, “Oh, yeah, that was way more aspirational than it was real.” I have a prayer journal from when I was 19 or so and it’s painful for me to read.

But it shouldn’t be! There’s no shame in this. Faith has got to start somewhere. And, unless you’ve got a “Road to Damascus” miracle story as the origin of your faith, there really is no option except to begin where you are, with the beliefs you’ve taught, and then to move forward, step by step: learning the faith through study, through scripture, through relationships with others, through thinking intelligently; worshiping together in church and in private; serving and loving your neighbors with the belief that in so doing, you are joining God in God’s perpetual mission to restore what is broken and to bring forth new life.

And along the way, as we seek to deepen our faith and belief, what we’re also seeking is the growth of an actual relationship with God, one known –  not just in our head – but in our very being. This is the place of deep faith. It is the known union of our lives with that life from which we are made: God in us and we in God.

It is akin to a marriage that begins with aspirations and promises of being a husband, of being a wife. But the substance of that union is only proven by time – to become less about dreams and promises, and more about what is now known deep in your souls. Not every marriage gets there. Some fail. Many plateau at some level of familiarity and stability that’s good enough. But some actually do get to that deeper place of profound union.

So it is in our relationships with God. Some relationships fail. Many plateau at some level of familiarity and stability that’s good enough. But some actually do get to that place of profound union.

Which brings us back to that moment on the Mount of Olives, right before Jesus’ ascension, when he tells his disciples, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth.” And then, having seen him depart, the disciples return to Jerusalem, to the Upper Room where they were staying, and they began to pray…in earnest.

And that, I think, is the invitation for us as well.

There is much that is “on us” – the choices we make, the way we live, how we relate with one another, “we choose love.” And there is dignity in that – that our choices do matter, that we matter, that we belong in this world, with a calling and duty to live well in this world. After all, the way we live is absolutely an essential part of our faith.

And … faith is asking for more, for an empowerment of God’s Spirit from beyond us, that is more than we can conjure up on our own, that is an experience of knowing God in us, enlivening us – not just for our own spiritual satisfaction – but as partners with God bringing forth the good news of the gospel for this world.

And we are now in this place. We’re in this place liturgically, within the ten days between the Ascension on Thursday and Pentecost next Sunday, when we will recall the Spirit coming with power upon the disciples in the Upper Room. But more importantly, we are in this place in our lives and world. The church and our country are in desperate need of a fresh empowerment of the Holy Spirit – to know and experience the living presence of “God with us.” We need more than religious traditions. We need more than doctrine about God. And we need more than the power of our own good intentions. We need the Spirit to come in power.

I don’t know what that means, in any specific way, any more than those first disciples knew what to expect. But, like the disciples, I believe we need to pray: in this church, in this time, in our spirits – to pray with a new and determined spirit of supplication: “Here we are, God. Empower us, to be your witnesses, for the good of this world.” Our good intentions can only take us so far before we burn out. So, we need to show up, in prayer, with the desire and hope that God will meet us there.

Next Sunday, our Pentecost service will begin with a sustained time of prayer, that our liturgy would be – not just a theatrical remembrance of something that happened long ago – but an occasion for us to join those disciples in prayer with the hope that God’s Spirit would do a fresh work through us in this time and place.

So I invite you, between now and then, to begin such a prayerful yearning for the Spirit. I don’t have a plan to offer you. There’s no sign-up sheet in the back. Perhaps someone will want to organize something. (You’re welcome to! And I mean it.) But the point is this: praying matters. It is we showing up and being honest before God with our desires for more of God. And it is the recognition that God alone is God and we need God to empower us in ways we could never manufacture on our own.

I remember years ago, my three-year old niece was frustrated with something her older sister was doing. (I forget what it was.) And she looked at me, the adult in the room, and – with one hand on her hip and the other pointed at the offender – said, “Do something!” For God’s sake man, act like a grown up and solve this ridiculousness.

And, you know, it’s okay – it’s more than okay – if in times such as these, our prayers have something of that spirit: “God, do something. We’re here. We want to be your church empowered to love this world redemptively in your name. We want the world to know that love has overcome hatred, that resurrection has overcome death, that forgiveness has overcome every sin. We’re here, God, but we need you to show up in a fresh way.” So, I invite you, this week, to pray for such a work of the Spirit.

And, as we do so, our prayers are rooted in the profound belief that God’s character is as Jesus taught us: “I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” This is the first lesson our children learn in the atrium – the first teaching they receive. When one sheep is missing, the Good Shepherd goes, and seeks it out, and calls it by name, and brings it home. There is no sheep, not one – no matter how far lost in the wilderness they may be – whom the shepherd does not claim, whom the shepherd does not love.

It is fitting, today, that we should dedicate this new “I am the Good Shepherd” window. And it is fitting that beneath the window we have this new votive candle cabinet (that we’ll dedicate later in the summer) in which each candle becomes a visible sign of our invisible prayers.

For as we enter this week in anticipation of Pentecost, praying for the Spirit, we are praying to God to empower us to love this world with the compassion and tenderness of our God, our Good Shepherd. Amen.