Sunday, May 24, 2020

May 24, 2020 - Easter 7A



In the name of the Risen Lord. Amen.
            Have you ever received something and didn’t realize the treasure that it was? Maybe it was some sort of odd tool that you never thought you’d use, but it’s become your go-to. Perhaps there is someone you thought was only an acquaintance, but in a moment of great need, they became your hero. For me, it was a piece of advice. Many years ago, as I was hoping that a particular job search would open, a good friend said, “Robert, if you want something, ask for it.” At the time, it was simple advice, but, for me, it’s been an invaluable piece of wisdom. Sometimes we receive things and we just don’t understand how life-giving and important they are.

            In a small way, those examples of overlooked gifts give us a way of readings today’s Biblical texts. The Gospel text from John truly is a gift to us. It is the final prayer that Jesus prays before his Passion begins and we’re allowed to eavesdrop into this prayer between Jesus and his Father. With the use of the 3rd-person “thems” and “theys” we might not realize that Jesus is talking about us to God. As a spiritual practice this week, you might read through this prayer in John 17 and change out those words for “me” and “us” so that you’ll know that Jesus asks, on your behalf, for you to know God’s glory, for you to inherit eternal life, for you to be kept forever in God’s love.
            This reality of God’s care and keeping of us all is what we read about in 1 Peter. In this book, St. Peter is writing to a church in the midst of great suffering and persecution. While we can take great comfort and solace from this passage, we do need to be careful not to read the “fiery ordeal” about which Peter writes as being too similar to the pandemic that we are living through. When Peter speaks of the fiery ordeal, he’s not exaggerating or using hyperbole. Followers of Jesus were actively being persecuted by the empire and sometimes being thrown into literal fires. While this pandemic certainly is an “ordeal,” we are not suffering on account of our faith in Jesus. The last thing we need is to develop a martyr-complex anytime things don’t go our way. With that caveat being addressed, the same comfort that St. Peter offers to early Christians is offered to us.
            And before getting to the heart of these words of consolation and hope, it’s worth remembering who this letter is attributed to – St. Peter. This is the same Peter who denied Jesus three times on the night of his betrayal and the same Peter to whom Jesus came after the Resurrection and restored their relationship. Peter, first hand, knows the grace of God in his life. He’s been forgiven, restored, and assured of God’s love for him. And this forever changed him and he wants us all to know of the grace and comfort of Jesus. Thus, he writes, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.”
            Now, we’ve got to be very clear on this point – St. Peter is not saying that if we cast our anxiety on God or are absolutely resolute in our faith that everything will work out. That’s a heresy called the Prosperity Gospel and you can find it being peddled in churches all over the place. Jesus is not our personal assistant whose job is to take care of all of our problems for us. Notice that Peter doesn’t say, “cast your anxiety on him, because he’ll make it all better.” Nor are we told to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. No, we cast our anxieties on God’s graciousness because God cares for us. When we cast our worries on God we remind ourselves that we are never alone in those ordeals of life. This is what Jesus is all about – Emmanuel – God with us.
Sometimes we don’t realize just how great a gift it is to have God’s presence in our trials and temptations. In a world full of prowling lions of all shapes and sorts, having Jesus with us makes all the difference. And with Jesus on our side, it means that we don’t have to be tempted to be our own saviors. When Peter writes, “Resist the devil, steadfast in your faith,” he’s not telling us to do battle with the forces of evil – for one, Jesus already went toe to toe with them on the Cross. Secondly, if we try to resist evil on our own, we will certainly fall. Instead, the word that Peter uses here is where we get our word antithesis. So it’s not an exhortation to fight a losing battle against these prowling lions, but rather to stay resolute in the faith and not become like one of those lions. Don’t prowl on others. Don’t devour others. And by being steadfast and obedient to the faith, hope, and love of Jesus, we become aware of God who is standing with us. We just might miss God’s comfort though if we’ve acting like wild animals instead of the bearers of the Divine image that we are created to be.
The story from Luke is a great example of not recognizing this gift that has been received, which gives me great comfort to know that when I make mistakes, I’m in the company of the disciples. These followers of Jesus have heard his teaching, they’ve seen the healings, they’ve seen the Resurrected Jesus and had meals with him – and yet they still are barking up the wrong tree when it comes to salvation. They ask, “Is this the time you will restore the Kingdom to Israel?” They had so imagined that the Messiah would overthrow Rome and return the nation of Israel to glory that they struggle to see it any other way. Certainly, Jesus is going to do those things, just in very different ways. The Roman Empire would eventually adopt Christianity as its official religion in the 300s and the Messiah of Israel becomes the person that billions of non-Jews follow throughout the millennia. But that’s not how the disciples were expecting the gift to come, and they almost missed it.
Jesus isn’t here to lead a nationalist movement about political power. The Kingdom of God doesn’t come with a regime change, but with a very different kind of power. The power that Jesus gives us isn’t the power to control other or to be in charge; no, it’s the power that Jesus has in mind is the power of the Holy Spirit to make us witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”, which includes Salisbury. Our power is in witnessing to the new life of Jesus’ Resurrection, to the saving grace of his Crucifixion, to the transforming power of his love. Our power comes when we share with people the peace of Christ, when we serve those in need in his name, when we forgive others just as we have been forgiven, when we are generous just as God has abundantly blessed us. This is the gift we are given: the very Spirit of God dwelling within us so that we might be a witness to God’s grace and love.
But this isn’t always the gift we’ve been searching for. We quite like our comforts, our riches, our luxuries, our preferences. When Jesus tells his followers that they are his witnesses, the word is the Greek word martus – we are to be martyrs. Now, not all of us are going to be called to die by the sword for our faith. But the gift we’ve been given is worth dying for. And in many smaller ways, our faith leads us to die to self that we might rise with Christ. Prioritizing the needs of others over our own desires, being charitable with our time and money, and recognizing the God-given dignity of everyone, especially those with disagree with, all make demands on us. These are difficult things to do, but they make us witnesses to Jesus, they show us the way of abundant life that Jesus intends for us
Returning to John, Jesus tells us what is at the heart of this gift that we have been given. He says, “And this is eternal life, that they (and remember that means you and me) may know God.” Knowing God is the greatest gift of all. And it’s a gift that can never be taken away; it is ours for all eternity. Now, knowing God isn’t an intellectual sort of thing. It’s not knowing about God in a way that a plumber knows about pipes or a physician knows about the body. It’s knowing as in having a relationship – as in, do you know that person, could you ask them a question for me? And once we know God in this sense, we have eternal life. Eternal life is not the reward for knowing God, it is the result of knowing God. When we are in a relationship with the Lord of Life, we will be kept forever in his grace.
And, remember, eternal life doesn’t begin in the future. That’s not eternal. Eternal life is happening right now as we know God through Jesus. Knowing God puts us in the stream of the faithful throughout space and time, knowing God roots us in the peace of God that passes all understanding, knowing God trains us to trust that all shall be well. Sometimes eternal life is translated as “fullness of life,” and that is what Jesus gives us by putting us in a relationship with the only true God.
You may have noticed in John that Jesus talks a lot about glorifying the Father and the Son. Glorify simply means to show others the glory and grandeur of something. Jesus says that he will be glorified in us. That’s the wonderful gift that we’ve been given that we might easily overlook. In you and me, by the power of the Spirit, Jesus is witnessing to the glory of God. And because it happens in us, we get to participate in this glory. One of the greatest prayers in the Prayer Book prays, “O God of unchangeable power and eternal light… let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” That’s the gift that Jesus has given to us – that his glory, his redemption, his Spirit is given to us. In Jesus, we have come to know God, and knowing God is eternal life. And in this eternal and abundant life, we find the comfort of God’s presence always being with us as we face the ordeals of life and stand firm against evil.
Maybe that wouldn’t make any top 10 lists for reasons why people join a church or call themselves Christians, but that’s the gift that we’ve been given – that our lives become a witness to the glory of God. And what a gift it is!