[Propertalk] Part 1A - Sermon for THE SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (B)

[Joe Parrish]

Forwarded: Part 1a:



<> here's the first draft for Sunday. 

Bob 



THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY, OR
                          THE SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (B)
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 1:15-17, 21-26                                                                             17th MAY, 2015
1 JOHN 5:9-13                                                                                                                                PSALM 1
JOHN 17:6-19
 
            A train wreck with loss of life, many people injured and the main line on the busiest passenger line in the country torn apart. Apparently part of the cause, at least, lies in human hands.
 
            Another earthquake in Nepal, neatly bracketing Katmandu, equidistant on the east of the city as the first was on the west. Other than century-old building methods mixed with some modern structures, there was no human element, but more than one person has said, “I’ll never feel safe.”
 
            Just as in Philadelphia and Katmandu, people flock to hospitals in Albany and around the world to relieve pain, discover what’s making life so difficult, seeking answers and compassionate care. We all need this. There ARE no exceptions – ALLof us need comfort, assurance, a voice and an ear. But life isn’t tidy and neat. Our lives face disruption from all sorts of directions.
 
            Of course these may be temporary. We pray that they’re temporary, pray with the anguish of some of the psalmists. We pray that, one day – please God, let it be tomorrow! – we pray that we find relief and encouragement so that we can have at least the encouragement of this morning’s psalmist – not knowing what will happen, but clear that our life CAN and WILL be enriched by God if only we can find the support and help to walk that line of righteousness.
 
            Of course, none of the two and a half hundred on Amtrak 118 were engaged in wickedness, at least as far as I know. And yet their lives were put in jeopardy. And the people all around Nepal, even high up into the Himalayas, they too are shaken, not once, not twice, but through multiple aftershocks. Are they too alone? Are their lives out of control? To whom or where may they turn? Even those who seek to find and to help have to sift through rubble and hike over dangerously disrupted landscapes.
 
            Do you remember that early Sunday morning six weeks ago?     
 
            “He is not here!” were among the first words to greet the visitors to the tomb on the morning of the Resurrection. Of course, no one understood what they meant, not at the time. Nor did they really figure out what happened on the day we call Ascension Day – last Thursday in the church calendar.
 
            He’s not here. What on earth is happening? Of course He needs to be here. It was He who held things together and, somehow, made the arguments just a shade more civil and the pain and uncertainties almost tolerable. What’s to happen now?
 
            How different is that from where we stand in 2015? Where’s Jesus when we need Him?
 
            We get two pictures from the first and third readings from Scripture today, one describing before and the other after Easter Day.
 
            After the foot washing and the ritual meal, Jesus went to the Garden to pray, taking some of the dinner party with Him. He knew things were difficult. The tension must have been so think you could have cut it with a knife. You might be forgiven for thinking that Jesus would have spent hour after hour talking and thinking about Himself, running over what He’d tried to accomplish, trying to see whether or not He’d forgotten anything. You might be forgiven for thinking about Jesus asking for strength for Himself for the next twenty-four hours.
 
            But that’s not how it played out. He was thinking of the disciples, first the small, intimate group with whom He’d been working; then the broader assembly; finally for the world.
 
            He knew there was a train wreck coming. He could sense it. He could read people’s hearts and minds. So Jesus wanted to ensure that His friends would, somehow, discover that they were not alone.
 
            It’s an impossible task, for us, anyway. Initially we can’t quite comprehend the need for it.
 
            A passenger on Amtrak Regional 188 said that at first people looked up from their phones, their lap tops and their books. Then they started to look out of the windows. Only then, after the passage of what must have seemed like an eternity, he said, did they think about praying.
 
            Jesus had the right perspective. He began by interacting in service to others, then He prayed as hard as He could, wrestling with all sorts of requests to keep His friends together and on the right track.
 
            We know what happened, though. They flew every which way. Their thoughts hadn’t yet been focused on the necessity of being in constant contact with God, so, quite naturally, their grasp on God’s Name, their grasp of what it meant to be part of the family of God didn’t seem secure enough.


            That’s what Jesus knew. He Himself was aware of the power and love of God, but He wasn’t yet convinced that the disciples were there.
 

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