SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Prayer of the Day: Bountiful God, you gather your people into your realm, and you promise us food from your tree of life. Nourish us with your word, that empowered by your Spirit we may love one another and the world you have made, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
“….the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.” John 14:26.
In Sunday’s lesson Jesus delivers a final address to his disciples before his arrest and execution. The clear implication of his promise that the Holy Spirit will teach his disciples everything is that they do not know everything yet. They will spend a lifetime struggling to understand the meaning of what they are about to witness. That is the story of the church. Like the disciples, we frequently get Jesus wrong. Like some of Jesus opponents, we “search the scriptures” thinking that following its doctrines, teachings and rituals will lead us to salvation. We have often used the Bible as a weapon to shame, blame and exclude the sheep Jesus would bring into his fold. We forget that the command to love God and the neighbor is the one through which the law and the prophets must always be interpreted. That is why we need the Holy Spirit. The Spirit teaches us what we have failed to learn and reminds us of the important things we tend to forget.
If everything we needed to know were clearly expressed in the Bible, there would be no need for the Holy Spirit. The church could simply remain on autopilot until the end of time. But the Bible is not that sort of book. Like a complex ecosystem, it is a rich and varied literary work woven together from the preaching, storytelling, prayers, visions and reflections of people living under all manner of different cultural, political and religious circumstances. Just as complex and varied as the scriptures are the ever changing circumstances in which human beings find themselves as we travel through time from one generation to the next. Yet the church believes that, throughout our human journey, God continues to speak to us through these ancient texts. The Spirit of God still surprises us with new insights into our modern world seen through the lens of scripture as it is preached and lived by disciples of Jesus in each new era.
Not everyone is comfortable with a church on the move. A lot of us would like a solid institution with fixed rituals and unchanging doctrines. There are times, I admit, when I long for the church of my childhood. There are days when I would love to take shelter in a place that is immune from change, filled with static icons and permeated with familiar hymns. I frequently crave a place that is peaceful, safe and predictable. Unfortunately for me, and for everyone else looking for peace, safety and predictability, the church is not such a place. The Book of Acts shows us a church that is constantly growing, changing and being transformed. Perhaps the title “Acts of the Apostles” is a misnomer. The book might better be entitled “Acts of the Holy Spirit.” Rather than leading the church, the apostles seem to be frantically trying to keep up with the Holy Spirt who has her own ideas about what the church is and where it is going.
I can sympathize with the many people who have said to me over the last decade in response to our enlarged understanding of human sexuality, our increased focus on issues of justice and peace and the diversification of our hymns and liturgy, “Pastor, I feel as though my church has left me behind.” I get that. But here is the thing. This is not “my” church. It is the church of Jesus Christ. I have no right to tell Jesus to keep the church where it is or make it over to my liking. The church does not exist to serve my needs. It exists to witness in word and deed to God’s gentle reign of justice and peace addressed to our planet and inaugurated by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. To do that for a world that is forever evolving and changing, the church must be flexible, open to transformation and ready for renewal.
Of course, there are risks involved with change. As I said, the church frequently gets Jesus wrong. I hardly need to catalogue all the instances in which the church has distorted, misrepresented and suppressed the gospel of Jesus Christ. “Though with a scornful wonder, this world sees her oppressed; with schisms rent asunder and heresy’s distressed” as the popular hymn goes.[1] The virus of heresy is an ever present danger to a living body like the church. Yet it is important to recognize that heresy is not transmitted exclusively by novelty. Most often, I believe, heresy consists in traditional teachings and understandings that have been retained long after time, knowledge and deeper reflection have proven them to be erroneous. Last Sunday’s lesson from Acts revealed to us how Saint Peter’s view of God’s salvation as limited to Israel had to be abandoned to accommodate the new found faith of the gentile, Cornelius, and the outpouring of God’s Spirit on his household. Similarly, I believe that, through the faithfulness and persistent witness of LGBTQ+ folk, the church is beginning to recognize that our teachings on human sexuality have distorted the gospel and placed a stumbling block in the way of people hearing the call of Jesus and the pull of the Holy Spirit into the communion of saints.
In our creeds, we confess belief in the holy catholic church. On its face, that seems odd. It is obvious why faith is required to believe that God created heaven and earth, that Jesus was incarnate and born of the virgin Mary and that God raised him from death. But you hardly need faith to believe in the church. You can love the church or hate it, but you cannot deny that it exists. There is more, however, to the creedal declaration than that the church exists. We also confess that it is “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” Viewing the church in all its schismatic permutations and institutional corruption, you would never guess that the Holy Spirit is at work in this mess striving to unite the disciples of Jesus into one Body. It is not always evident through the church’s witness that the depth of God’s love for the world is revealed in the cross of Christ or that God’s determination to redeem it is demonstrated in Christ’s resurrection. But faith maintains that the Spirit is indeed at work in this very messy, very sinful and very divided church to accomplish God’s redemptive purpose for the world. That is why the old hymn continues, “Yet she on earth has union with God, the Three in One, and mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won.”[i]
The church in which I grew up was not the same as the church of the New Testament. The church of today is not the same as the church in which I grew up. I fully expect that the church of tomorrow will not be the same as the church we know today. I cannot predict what the church of the future will look like. I am confident, however, that the Spirit will continue to be in the church, sometimes encouraging it, sometimes rebuking it, sometimes calling it back from error, sometimes enlightening it with new insights and always keeping it tethered to its Lord and the reign of God for which he lived, died, rose again and continues to live.
Here is a poem about the continuity of the church owing to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The Communion of Saints
In the darkness of the nave,
riding out the temporal wave,
God at rest but never sleeping
on its course this ship is keeping.
Windows screening out the day
illustrate the hidden way
from which streams through dark of night
rivers of eternal light.
Holy silence, solemn chime
joins eternity with time.
Saints in joyous heavenly mirth
greet those still awaiting birth.
With them mortal voices raise
their poor, but faithful songs of praise.
Source: Anonymous
[1] “The Church’s is One Foundation,” Evangelical Lutheran Worship Hymn # 654(c. 2006 by Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; pub. by Augsburg Fortress) Lyrics by Sammuel J. Stone; music by Sammuel S. Wesley.
[i] Ibid.
Peter's Outer Cape Portico 