A sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, the Sunday after the Ascension, at the Church of the Epiphany, Euclid. This sermon draws on elements of the homily I delivered on Ascension Day at Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland
Even those of us who didn’t grow up memorizing Bible verses know by heart John 3:16. For God so loved the world …
When Jesus prays for his disciples, when Jesus prays for us, who will become his disciples generations later, when Jesus prays he casts the world as a dangerous place, even an ugly place in its tendency toward hate; and yet still, he sends his disciples into the world, just as Jesus himself was sent into the world, that all who know him and see God’s love in him might know the life that is eternal. That they may know the joy that God takes in the world, the joy that Jesus knew in this world, despite everything.
Despite everything. It is tempting to look upon the state of the world and see only the negative aspects that present themselves to us only too readily. We see too much of war and of division, of sin and of despair. We see too much of death.
Some of you see and take notice of the board that stands in the hallway, tallying the deaths from gun violence this year alone, in this country alone, not even including deaths from suicide, since those data are squirrelly of late. Some of you probably prefer to look away. We all hate to see the numbers rise, whatever we think of the stories behind them. This week, we know at least one story behind the rise in the number of children who died. One of those numbers lived down the road from here, a toddler of two years old who found a loaded gun.
And now, of course, we know of one of the adults, too, who was killed last night just along our street.
Sometimes we wish that Jesus had prayed to take his disciples out of this world. But, “God is not elsewhere”,[i] as I heard in the words of Esther de Waal at a retreat this week. God is not elsewhere.
Jesus is praying these words right before he gets up from the table and heads out into the Garden where he will be arrested, put on trial, and crucified. We hear them days after the Feast of the Ascension, when the disciples watched with wonder as the Risen Christ was taken from their sight once more, and lifted up to heaven. And what we hear is how much God loves this world.
The Ascension is not the anniversary of Jesus leaving us, but the confirmation that he is God with us, Emmanuel. Ascension completes that perfect cycle of incarnation and glory. It confirms that the heavens are not so removed from the cares of God’s children that they cannot be heard. Jesus shows us that God is not immune to the cares and sorrows of this world, nor helpless against them, despite the evidence of the Cross, and our ongoing wars and sin, the mess that the world is in. No matter, it is not God-forsaken. They saw him die, yet he is living. They saw him leave, yet he is very near to us. They heal in his name, cast out demons, raise the dead. For God so loved the world …
In his prayer, Jesus asks God to sanctify his disciples, to sanctify us, in the truth, and he is the truth, and the way, and the life. Jesus asks God, then, to steep us in his life, so that God’s love for the world might seep into our souls. And he asks God to send us, to send his disciples into the world, that the world might know that love. Because God knows, the world needs it badly.
To sanctify and to send. We talked on Tuesday night at Bible study about how this is the ordination of Christ’s disciples, of us as Christ’s disciples. We are sanctified, and we are sent into the world to proclaim the good news of God in Christ, to seek and serve Christ in all people, to respect the dignity of every human being, to continue in the fellowship and the prayers as disciples of the living and loving Lord Jesus Christ. All of us, not only those we call and collar as ordained, but every one of us for whom Jesus has prayed is sanctified and sent, steeped in his life so that it might seep into our souls and bring to the world the love for it in which God delights.
I didn’t know what to do with that news when it came out, about the child, so I did what I could. I prayed, and I reached out to those I know to have been involved in serving that family and that scene, the first responders who had to swallow their own feelings in order to be present to others in that moment. I told them how much I felt for them, and that they are in our prayers. We will continue in the work that has been given us to do to offer an avenue to remove unsafe guns from unsafe homes and hands, but in this moment, all that we could do was offer our love.
After the Ascension, Luke writes that the disciples went down from the mountain praising God and singing, filled with joy and thanksgiving. There would still be crosses lining the roadsides outside Jerusalem, bandits on the steep road down to Jericho, but the disciples were not discouraged by the state of the world, because Jesus had sanctified them, and sent them into it with the determination of love and the challenge of joy.
Alistair McGrath describes in “I Believe”, through “the Acts of the Apostles, Luke tells us that the disciples left the mountain of the ascension and plunged themselves headlong into the needs of the world for which Christ died. They preached and healed; they proclaimed the good news to all by word and deed.”[ii] Doesn’t that sound familiar?
They embraced and embodied the learning that Jesus is no longer confined to a single time and place but has shown us the love of God that is not confined nor constrained, that it is present and available in the exercise of love, humility, in every act of mercy made to everyone made in the image of God. Ubi caritas, ibi Deus est: where there is love, there is God.
God is in the tears. Christ is in the tender hands that wipe away the water and the blood. The Holy Spirit is in the prayers that hold the broken-hearted, in sighs too deep for words. God is in the aid vehicles and the ambulances. Christ is in the homes of the hostages, occupying the empty seat. To paraphrase the Revd Dr Munther Isaac of Bethlehem, God is under the rubble of our world, and has overcome it.[iii]
And yes, God is in the joy, too, the love that makes the heart sing. God is not elsewhere, for so God loves the world.
And so we are in it, ordained, sanctified and sent, to steep the world in the love of Christ, to let his love seep into its soul. And as we go about that business of mercy, Jesus is still praying for us, thanks be to God.
[i] Esther de Waal, Seeking God: The Way of St Benedict (Canterbury Press, 1999), 49, via Google Books
[ii] Alister McGrath, “I Believe”: Exploring the Apostles’ Creed (InterVarsity Press, 1991), 74
[iii] “God is under the rubble” is the title of a sermon by the Revd Dr Isaac Munther, pastor of the ELCA Christmas Church in Bethlehem. https://sojo.net/articles/god-under-rubble-gaza