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May 28, 2006

Anne Jensen - May 28th, 2006

Anne Jensen - Trinity Parish
Easter 7B John 17:15-26

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts...

This is the only time I have ever begun a sermon with a quote from William Shakespeare. A friend of mine is the rector of St. Paul’s in Fairfield, CT. He was a college professor of Elizabethan English before he was ordained, and he frequently uses Shakespeare. In fact, certain of his parishioners suspect that he uses Shakespeare MORE than he uses Holy Scripture. That’s not really true, and Ben is a fine priest, well-versed in the Bible.

As Christians we are part of a great narrative. That narrative is a tapestry with many threads: the Old and New Testaments are the warp and woof of this magnificent tapestry woven by our Creator. Into that we weave the traditions of the church…both the historical church and modern church. Each of us has a thread of a unique color and texture. We have a place in the design of this tapestry. We have a role to play in the world.

One aspect of the world is that there are seasons…we divide time in correspondence with that great narrative; we sanctify time to give it meaning, just as we sanctify this space to make it holy. We come and we go from this space, and our common life is woven into holy narrative.

So here we are at the end of the Easter season. Thursday was Ascension Day, the day that marks the end of Jesus’ appearances on earth. Jesus knew before his death that the disciples would have to carry on without his earthly presence.

In today’s gospel we have the privilege of hearing Jesus’ private conversation with God about this time…when he will no longer be with his disciples.

He prays to the One he knows as Father for their protection, “so that they may be one, as we are one.” He continues with a remarkable understanding of who he is and who his followers will be. Jesus knows he is going to the Father and he passionately wants those who remain behind to hold together, secure in the word of God and protected by God. He says, “They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

Both word and world are loaded words in John’s gospel. Remember this is the gospel that begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” From the point of the Resurrection onward, we cannot miss that the disciples were steeped not only in the teachings of Jesus, word with a lower case w, but in the experience of being with Jesus, who is revealed as the Word with a capital W. This has made them different from those who have not shared in this experience…difference leads to be being odd in the eyes of the world, and therefore being at risk. The world, from the beginning of this gospel has been at odds with Jesus and his mission. The way the world works is antithetical to the vision of the Kingdom of God, or to use John’s language, eternal life. Jesus, who loves them and knows their hearts, tells God, “They do not belong to the world…” No, these are the people whom God gave to Jesus, and now, Jesus is asking for their protection and sanctification, because Jesus has sent them into the world just as God sent him.

Let us look at just two parts of this gospel for now. This first is the part about not belonging to the world. The traditional way Christians have said this is that we are “in the world but not of it.”

Would most of you say you don’t belong to the world? Most of us would describe ourselves to a stranger in many ways that would indicate belonging: our family ties, our citizenship in a nation, our residence in a town, our membership in various organizations to which we say “we belong.”

What Jesus is getting at here is the question of ownership. Do the world and its values own you? Are you enslaved to the values and structure, the principalities and powers of this world, or are you free to go against them if you think they are going against God? Think about that in terms of your relationship to your family, your peers, your work, the country or any other civic or recreational organization to which you “belong.” Where is the ultimate allegiance of your heart, and how do you show that allegiance in the way you live your life?

Does anybody hate you because you are a Christian? Do you feel threatened regularly by the world, not just in general, but because you are a Christian? If you do not, then do you suppose it is because the whole world, or even just American society, now agrees with all that Jesus said, and lives by it? Or is it because many Christians have come to belong so much to the world that nothing about our beliefs, lifestyles, economic choices, or anything else is in any way against the prevailing values of our society? Are we truly today “in the world but not of it?” Each of us has to answer that for ourselves. I saw a bumper sticker in the parking lot that says, “If you are not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”

The second thing that Jesus says is that even if we truly do not belong to the world, we are not to be removed from it. Jesus sends us into that world to which we do not belong in order to transform it.

This is so critical for us to understand as modern-day disciples. Jesus does not call us all to retire to single-cell monasteries in the desert to forget the world around us. Jesus calls us to live and speak and witness to our beliefs in the middle of the world. Our life of faith is not to be lived separately from the rest of our lives.

I think American Christians have a particularly difficult time with this because we wrap it up somehow with the Constitutional separation of Church and State. I think that concept has migrated into peoples’ heads and become a rule that the life of faith happens only in church on Sunday, and that is should be kept out of the rest of our lives. From a young age we are taught not to talk about religion or politics. How boring that would be if we really followed it!

Really, we are called to be bi-vocational: we are called to be people in the world for God’s sake and to be God’s people for the sake of the world.

Jesus said, “I have sent them into the world.” He sends us into the world to be witnesses to him. This means that as Christians we are called to make choices in our lives reflecting our faith even when we may be in conflict with the state or any other organization. The hope expressed by Jesus in later verses in chapter 17 is that the world might come to know God’s love through the work of the disciples and so be transformed into the world God planned from the beginning.

The world is like Shakespeare’s stage. It is a place of action, where God’s narrative is worked out. Jesus was praying for us as much as he was for those first disciples…praying for our protection, for our joy, for our completeness in him, for our being witnesses to him. His mission was to the poor, whatever form that poverty takes: illness, infirmity, loneliness, being without money for groceries or rent, bereavement or anything else that causes us pain or anxiety. I am especially mindful this Memorial Day weekend how many more people will be remembering family members and friends who have given their lives in service to their country. My heart aches for them, as I know God’s heart does. Another place God’s people are hurting is Indonesia. They have again suffered horribly from natural disaster with more than 3000 dead and more than 200,000 homesless. Jesus would send us to them.

We are incorporated into the tapestry of God’s great narrative: First through our own life situation, when we discover our own poverty and need for Jesus’ healing presence, and second, through our ministries to each other and the world in his name. The richness of the tapestry is the richness of God’s self. Our threads are but a small part of the whole, yet they give the narrative color and form. Each of us makes a difference.

I recently came across a story about a little village in Italy, one that suffered terribly during World War II. The pride and joy of this village had been a statue of Christ, which stood in the church garden. During the fighting, the statue had been shattered by grenades. After the battle, the priest rallied the people to look for the remains of the statue. Eventually most of the figure was pieced together: head, body, arms, and legs. But no matter how hard they searched, the people couldn’t find the hands. They went to the priest in despair; they had failed to restore the beloved statue. What could they do? “Brothers and sisters,” replied the priest, “you are Christ’s hands.”