April 27, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Acts 17: 22-31 + Psalm 66 + 1 Peter 3: 13:22 + John 14:15-21
The point here is not: “Jesus is going to God and when they die, the disciples will go to God and be reunited to him.” The point here is: once he has died as is no longer physically present among them, he will not be gone. He will be present to them in and through the Spirit in the depth of their own beings. They are not being encouraged to hope for life after death. They are being instructed and led into a consciousness change, a serious, important, life-giving, hope giving change that will lead them to become aware of spiritual presence without physical manifestation. It that sounds goofy to you or sounds like proposing a séance, then good, because if it leads you think more deeply, question more profoundly, and desire more passionately, then you are beginning to think outside of this world; and that is a good thing. We must not be content with or settle down this world. In the larger context of this Chapter, Jesus is at prayer with the Father about taking us out of this world. This world does not think about nor conceive of the Spirit. Our difficulty is that we are “of this world”, and Jesus says that this world does not know of the reality of the Spirit.
This world is alienated from the spiritual partially because it is addicted to the sense knowledge. When the physical sights and sounds of people are not present to us, we assume, as “worldly beings,” they are gone. Jesus would have us question that assumption. That was the problem revealed in the story of Thomas the Apostle. He only wanted knowledge that came from touching. When you begin to step out of this world, you begin to understand that while death might separate us from loved ones, in another and more ultimate sense it deepens our spiritual union with them.
When we try to ponder this, our minds block because we get stuck in this world, and too much of our time, our consciousness, and our energy is spent on this world. When we stop long enough to get the bigger picture, a life time in this world is not much compared to eternity, and this is the point at which we find the disciples. They right at the turning point, the change point when they are being invited to experience the world of the Spirit instead of a brief brush with the world of the flesh (to use Paul’s language) they hesitate, and Jesus steps in to call them onward. There is a wonderful piece of wisdom in a 1998 movie: “Hope Floats”. Dumped on a TV talk show by her husband of several years, Birdee Pruitt, returned to her hometown along with her daughter Berniece. Only with difficulty did she adjust to a new life without her husband and to a life again under her mother’s roof, among friends and acquaintances in the town of Smithville, Texas. Eventually, peace and acceptance and then new love come into her life. One day after the death of her mother, she passes on a bit of wisdom she learned from her mother to her daughter, Berniece. “Momma says that beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up. And it will.
The disciples are in the middle in John 14, and so are we. This is the “hope time”, and it is sustained and realized by our ability to experience the Spirit, by our connection to or our “Communion” with a presence that is not of this world. Our breakthrough can come when we understand how this Spirit works and how this spirit is expressed and experienced. What Jesus instructs in Chapter 14 of John’s Gospel is that the Spirit, the on going and real presence of Jesus who is still with us is known when His work is continued and his mission is advanced. When we forgive one another, Jesus is here. When the hungry are fed one at a time or by the thousands, Jesus is here. When those passed by on the road of life area picked up and provided for, Jesus is here. When we do things, we never thought we could, Jesus is here. We simply need to remember these things, to believe His Word, to act on his command.
There are two unmistakable signs of the Spirit’s presence. The Spirit calls us to the Church. If any thing we do, or any choice we make leads us away from communion, leads us to interact with fewer and fewer of God’s people in worship, in learning, in sacraments then it is a bad choice and ultimately blocks the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit calls us to wholeness, to integrity, to Joy. To put it simply, if our lives are empty and we feel that something is missing, then something is. The life of grace is not always a life of pleasure and comfort, simply because real love is always about sacrifice. But when followed honestly and faithfully, it will feel right because it is. These are middle days for us. We are Easter People living with Hope. “It is not good for man to be alone.” says the author of Genesis. But these are good days, so we must not be alone.