Easter 6
John 14:15-21
May 29, 2011
A few weeks ago, my kids were thinking ahead to future holidays and Memorial Day came up. Sophie asked what it was all about. And so I said something vague about how it is a time to remember people who had died. Dylan, our wanna-be rock star, got excited. “You mean, like Nirvana?” (thinking of Curt Cobain). “Uh… not quite like that,” I said. “He wasn’t really someone to remember as a role model, was he?” And I segue-wayed into a discussion about how drugs are bad and can kill you. Sophie wasn’t impressed with that topic of conversation and got back to Memorial Day. “So who are we supposed to remember? People like your mom? Or like Jesus?” Holden stepped in to set the record straight about this weekend’s national holiday. “Memorial Day is a time when we remember peoplevwho have died in wars,” he said.
When he said it, my head went straight to World Wars I and II and Vietnam. Long past wars that affected different generations than my own. I hope that I will not offend anyone here when I admit that the subject matter of Memorial Day felt so removed to me that I hadn’t ever thought about the day as much more than a chance to have a picnic or a bar-b-cue and get an extra day off school or work.
It was only when I thought longer about it that it occurred to me that every day new names are being added to the far-too-long list of people included in the subject matter of Memorial Day. I started wondering about the intended parameters of the day. Is it simply a time to think about the past? A time to remember in gratefulness the incredible service of those people that have fought and died for our country?
Or should it be more than that, too? Should Memorial Day also be a time to make meaning in the present? A time to think about the qualities we admire in the soldiers that have died in wars and hopefully replicate them – things like bravery, selflessness, dedication, and conviction? A time to think about how deep and lasting is this ultimate sacrifice that so many have made and to remind ourselves to take seriously when and how and why we put people into harms’ way? A time to recognize that the same folks that are overseas right now fighting might be among those that we remember on Memorial Days in the future?
It got me thinking about how (and why) we remember things. And about how we make present meaning out of things that have happened in the past.
Which seems particularly relevant to what we do together in this place. Every week we come here and read scripture – pieces of a sacred story written thousands of years ago by people that lived in a completely different time and place and culture than our own. Sometimes we love the stories we hear and can joyfully and agreeably proclaim “The Word of the Lord! Thanks be to God!” And sometimes we can only roll our eyes and clench our teeth and ask “The Word of the Lord? Thanks be to God?” Sometimes the stories comfort us and sometimes they challenge us. And sometimes they might seem completely irrelevant. But no matter what, they are the Word of God – and a chance to encounter the living Word that comes among us and breathes through us. They aren’t written for some long-dead audience and used as a history lesson. They are written for US. Written so that we might believe, so that we might be inspired, so that we might learn to Live.
It’s the same with Communion. Every week our Eucharistic prayer walks us through the history of God’s relationship with people, and Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Sometimes the words seem far away and repetitive, and the bread and wine just seem like bread and wine. And sometimes we are able to offer ourselves to God and to know that the bread and wine are somehow more than what they appear. But no matter what, the bread and wine are spiritual food that are meant to strengthen and empower us to love and serve God and our neighbor.
There is so much history, so much past, about what we do in this place. But if we leave it there, if we relegate it to something that existed only back then, we’d be in our Memorial Day as bar-b-que mode. We’d be missing the point.
There was a well-known priest in this Diocese named Churchill Gibson that used to talk about the very important difference between nostalgia and what he called “holy remembering.” Nostalgia freezes us in the past, thinking and re-thinking what has already been. But holy remembering makes what was past part of our present. Holy remembering lets us see and hear and know the seeing, hearing, knowing and living God right here and now.
For example, when we say, in this Easter season, “Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!”, we don’t just mean that the Lord just risen back on that first Easter morning. The Lord is risen right now, today! That’s what makes it worthy of that triumphant Alleluia!
And in John’s Gospel this morning, we get a glimpse of what makes holy remembering possible. Jesus promises the disciples that even though he won’t be with them in the same way anymore, he will still abide with them forever as the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit. All they have to do is love.
Sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? But it’s misleading. Because that love that Jesus commands them to embrace isn’t some abstract philosophical concept or even a feeling of spiritual certainty. It is the same active reality that Jesus revealed in his life. Love is feeding the hungry, touching lepers, healing the sick, treating outcasts as worthy, protesting against anything that devalues another person. Not an easy undertaking at all. But definitely worthwhile. Because Jesus promised that when the disciples did these things, when they loved as Jesus loved, the Holy Spirit would abide with them and be revealed to the world. And that promise wasn’t just for Jesus’ disciples back in the 1st century; it’s for his disciples right now in the 21st century too. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will be in and among all those who love as he loved.
I think one reason I am so enchanted with our Godly Play stories with the younger kids is that the promise that we are included in the story is so often made explicit. The children are invited into the old, old stories as they wonder. “I wonder where you are in this story? What part of the story is about you?” “I wonder if you have ever come close to something like this?” But it isn’t just the kids that need to hear that they are part of the story. I need to hear that, too! Don’t we all need that promise that the story is about us, too? We aren’t just recipients or inheritors of our religious faith – we are also smack dab in the middle of it. And we are ancestors in faith to the people who come after us. Ours is a living faith, because ours is a living God.
There’s a piece of the Godly Play room that we haven’t introduced yet, but I look forward to adding it next year. The lesson is called “The Part That Hasn’t Been Written Yet.” There isn’t actually a story that goes with it. There is just a blank book, a beautiful special blank book, that is left out on a stand with pens and markers nearby. And if a child asks about the book, the adults simply say something like, “This is the part that hasn’t been written yet. We’ve heard so many stories about the journey of the people of God and how they came close to God and God came close to them. What will you write in the book? How will you add to the story of God and God’s people?”
How will you add to the story of God and God’s people? Amen.
John 14:15-21
May 29, 2011
A few weeks ago, my kids were thinking ahead to future holidays and Memorial Day came up. Sophie asked what it was all about. And so I said something vague about how it is a time to remember people who had died. Dylan, our wanna-be rock star, got excited. “You mean, like Nirvana?” (thinking of Curt Cobain). “Uh… not quite like that,” I said. “He wasn’t really someone to remember as a role model, was he?” And I segue-wayed into a discussion about how drugs are bad and can kill you. Sophie wasn’t impressed with that topic of conversation and got back to Memorial Day. “So who are we supposed to remember? People like your mom? Or like Jesus?” Holden stepped in to set the record straight about this weekend’s national holiday. “Memorial Day is a time when we remember peoplevwho have died in wars,” he said.
When he said it, my head went straight to World Wars I and II and Vietnam. Long past wars that affected different generations than my own. I hope that I will not offend anyone here when I admit that the subject matter of Memorial Day felt so removed to me that I hadn’t ever thought about the day as much more than a chance to have a picnic or a bar-b-cue and get an extra day off school or work.
It was only when I thought longer about it that it occurred to me that every day new names are being added to the far-too-long list of people included in the subject matter of Memorial Day. I started wondering about the intended parameters of the day. Is it simply a time to think about the past? A time to remember in gratefulness the incredible service of those people that have fought and died for our country?
Or should it be more than that, too? Should Memorial Day also be a time to make meaning in the present? A time to think about the qualities we admire in the soldiers that have died in wars and hopefully replicate them – things like bravery, selflessness, dedication, and conviction? A time to think about how deep and lasting is this ultimate sacrifice that so many have made and to remind ourselves to take seriously when and how and why we put people into harms’ way? A time to recognize that the same folks that are overseas right now fighting might be among those that we remember on Memorial Days in the future?
It got me thinking about how (and why) we remember things. And about how we make present meaning out of things that have happened in the past.
Which seems particularly relevant to what we do together in this place. Every week we come here and read scripture – pieces of a sacred story written thousands of years ago by people that lived in a completely different time and place and culture than our own. Sometimes we love the stories we hear and can joyfully and agreeably proclaim “The Word of the Lord! Thanks be to God!” And sometimes we can only roll our eyes and clench our teeth and ask “The Word of the Lord? Thanks be to God?” Sometimes the stories comfort us and sometimes they challenge us. And sometimes they might seem completely irrelevant. But no matter what, they are the Word of God – and a chance to encounter the living Word that comes among us and breathes through us. They aren’t written for some long-dead audience and used as a history lesson. They are written for US. Written so that we might believe, so that we might be inspired, so that we might learn to Live.
It’s the same with Communion. Every week our Eucharistic prayer walks us through the history of God’s relationship with people, and Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Sometimes the words seem far away and repetitive, and the bread and wine just seem like bread and wine. And sometimes we are able to offer ourselves to God and to know that the bread and wine are somehow more than what they appear. But no matter what, the bread and wine are spiritual food that are meant to strengthen and empower us to love and serve God and our neighbor.
There is so much history, so much past, about what we do in this place. But if we leave it there, if we relegate it to something that existed only back then, we’d be in our Memorial Day as bar-b-que mode. We’d be missing the point.
There was a well-known priest in this Diocese named Churchill Gibson that used to talk about the very important difference between nostalgia and what he called “holy remembering.” Nostalgia freezes us in the past, thinking and re-thinking what has already been. But holy remembering makes what was past part of our present. Holy remembering lets us see and hear and know the seeing, hearing, knowing and living God right here and now.
For example, when we say, in this Easter season, “Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!”, we don’t just mean that the Lord just risen back on that first Easter morning. The Lord is risen right now, today! That’s what makes it worthy of that triumphant Alleluia!
And in John’s Gospel this morning, we get a glimpse of what makes holy remembering possible. Jesus promises the disciples that even though he won’t be with them in the same way anymore, he will still abide with them forever as the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit. All they have to do is love.
Sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? But it’s misleading. Because that love that Jesus commands them to embrace isn’t some abstract philosophical concept or even a feeling of spiritual certainty. It is the same active reality that Jesus revealed in his life. Love is feeding the hungry, touching lepers, healing the sick, treating outcasts as worthy, protesting against anything that devalues another person. Not an easy undertaking at all. But definitely worthwhile. Because Jesus promised that when the disciples did these things, when they loved as Jesus loved, the Holy Spirit would abide with them and be revealed to the world. And that promise wasn’t just for Jesus’ disciples back in the 1st century; it’s for his disciples right now in the 21st century too. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will be in and among all those who love as he loved.
I think one reason I am so enchanted with our Godly Play stories with the younger kids is that the promise that we are included in the story is so often made explicit. The children are invited into the old, old stories as they wonder. “I wonder where you are in this story? What part of the story is about you?” “I wonder if you have ever come close to something like this?” But it isn’t just the kids that need to hear that they are part of the story. I need to hear that, too! Don’t we all need that promise that the story is about us, too? We aren’t just recipients or inheritors of our religious faith – we are also smack dab in the middle of it. And we are ancestors in faith to the people who come after us. Ours is a living faith, because ours is a living God.
There’s a piece of the Godly Play room that we haven’t introduced yet, but I look forward to adding it next year. The lesson is called “The Part That Hasn’t Been Written Yet.” There isn’t actually a story that goes with it. There is just a blank book, a beautiful special blank book, that is left out on a stand with pens and markers nearby. And if a child asks about the book, the adults simply say something like, “This is the part that hasn’t been written yet. We’ve heard so many stories about the journey of the people of God and how they came close to God and God came close to them. What will you write in the book? How will you add to the story of God and God’s people?”
How will you add to the story of God and God’s people? Amen.
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