easter-7-2020-monroe.md

May 24:The Seventh Sunday of Easter:

The Sunday after the Ascension – Monroe

Ascension was last Thursday

It was the day we scheduled to record this our community celebration of the 6th week of Easter. One day revolving and emerging as another day, each linked and urging us into the presence of God.

Psalm 19

Heaven is declaring God’s glory;
the sky is proclaiming his handiwork.
2 One day gushes the news to the next,
and one night informs another what needs to be known.

It is the Sunday between the feast of the Ascension and the feast of Pentecost. Ascension Day occuring on the 40th day of Easter. Pentecost occuring on the 50th day after Easter.

In another week, on Pentecost, we will observe a Week of weeks. That’s the magic of the 50 in the name of Pentecost.

The Christian festival of Pentecost is derived from the older and original Jewish feast of weeks. The week of weeks. In their case 50 days after Passover.

For me, this weaving of weavings of days and weeks, numbers and multiples of numbers, a feast deriving from the Exodus from Egypt woven and transformed into a feast of the Resurrection – for me – these are exciting and inviting messages and signs.

Today

Today we celebrate the presence of the Living God. Our masks don’t cause the Living God a moment’s pause.

Psalm 42

7 Deep calls to deep
at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
have gone over me.
8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.

Today we are here because Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead – today and tomorrow. Though we may be experiencing anxiety, or frustration, or fear, or excitement – This is the day the Lord has made.

The presence we mark today is sacred. Today is sacred. It is sacred because God has acted in it.

We live in a sacred time.

Standing on Holy Ground

Again this week I heard a particular song, repeated over and over. And it’s not just the music or the words that I heard repeated.

It’s the events, the moments, the places, the occasions – at which I have listened to the song and wept. The name of the song is Holy Ground. I read to you a few of the lines:

When I walked through the doors I sensed God’s presence
When I knew this was a place where love abounds
…
And we are standing in His presence on holy ground
…
For I know that there are angels all around
…
For we are standing in His presence on holy ground
…

I first heard the song in the 1990’s. It was introduced to me by a musician I didn’t think of as particularly holy or particularly charismatic.

But I knew that he had experienced the presence of the living God. And I thought of that this week, anticipating being here, recording this liturgy with a mask on, on a day which wasn’t the day we were observing, celebrating in a manner that we wouldn’t have chosen, marking the time as recorded in Luke’s gospel and Luke’s Acts of the Apostles when Jesus “was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.”

Mark an “absence”?

The church has utilized Luke’s texts in its observance of Ascension and the Pentecostal flames marking the arrival of the Holy Spirit. The end of Luke’s gospel reads: “He led them out as far as Bethany, where he lifted his hands and blessed them. As he blessed them, he left them and was taken up to heaven.”

In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, written by Luke, he describes with greater detail, a period of 40 days when Jesus appeared to his disciples. Then, “as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.”

For all of my life – and in fact for centuries and millenia – Ascensiontide commemorated a new kind of absence that began – according to Luke’s account – 40 days after the Resurrection.

I have preached about the new kind of absence that Ascension brought – with intention, of course, of proclaiming the new presence ushered in by the Holy Spirit.

Preaching on the absence becoming a presence. But not today.

It seemed to me that today, at this time, in this place, there isn’t room to preach on absence. We don’t proclaim the absence of Christ. We proclaim Christ is Risen. Alleluia.

Sacred / Profane

The time and place we live in can be experienced by some as an absence. Discourse in our country is being driven in the direction of freedom and liberty to do what we want. We rail against being prevented from this or that.

Quarantine is described as a privation, as a keeping apart.

Absence. Absence of the things we have grown to accustomed to. Absence of the fullness we want.

Sacred Presence

It seems to me that the gospel we preach is something different from the message of absence or lack that what we see and hear around us.

What we preach is the power and the life of the living God, all around us, especially in the challenging times, especially when we don’t feel it or see it.

As I pray here in this place I can look out at the absence around me. Pews are empty. I don’t see or hear the kind of feedback I am accustomed to in a gathering of Christians. I hear silence when I am accustomed to laughter and smiles, voices lifted up in song.

It’s tempting to focus on the absence. But I won’t do it.

We are standing on Holy Ground. It is in this silence that the living God rushes in. We preach not an absence but the fullness of God.

Presence of God

In both of his books, the author of Luke and Acts addresses someone named Theophilos. Perhaps that was a real person. Perhaps it is a kind of metaphor for all those who would come to know the presence of the living God. Literally, in the Greek, it means “Lover of God.”

The gospel is addressed to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear the living God in our midst. The gospel is addressed not to those who experience the absence but to those who bask in the presence of the living God.

If we are to perceive that “One day gushes the news to the next, and one night informs another what needs to be known” then we must listen and look closely.

When “Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your God’s cataracts” we must be ready to recognize the living God. It’s not about the deep and it’s not about the cataracts – it’s about the living God.

The Presence of God isn’t built on peacefulness and quiet. Peacefulness – shalom – is the product of the Presence.

The presence of God is not built on pleasant feelings. A feeling of gladness is the product of Presence.

Ascensiontide marks the anticipation of a fullness that awaits – but it’s not the fullness itself.

The Holy Spirit is the anticipation. It is the fullness. We wait in what may feel like an absence – for the presence of the Living God.

Notes

Lectionary for Sunday and also lectionary for Ascension

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

advent-1-2017

Homily Advent 1: St. Paul’s Opening I have used the prayer Song of Zechariah for a very long time as a part of my daily prayer. I had it memorized by the time I was 30. Maybe I was drawn to it because it was a song by a father. I recognize I have a special place in my heart for fathers. It was sung by John the Baptist’s father, a priest, at the time his parents took John to be circumcised. He had been struck dumb, you may remember, when he scoffed at the notion that they would have a child at their advanced age. When next he opened his mouth to speak, he named the child “John” and praised God in song. Towards the end of the song we hear: Benedictus Dominus ( Song of Zechariah ) You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way , To give his people knowledge of salvation * by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God * the dawn from on high shall break upon us, To shine on those who dwel...
Read more

proper-19-st-christophers.md

Homily: September 16, 2018. Proper 19 St. Christopher’s, Spartanburg, SC Opening Thank you for the invitation to celebrate the Eucharist with you this morning. The weather’s a little bit dicey – but on the whole … Spartanburg has been for us generally a place we pass through on our way to somewhere else, Asheville, Atlanta, even Ohio. But now I’ve been here twice to supply. It’s good to get to know the people who call Spartanburg home . I learned just this past week that one of the clergy I meet regularly with spent some formative time here back in the 1980’s, Sally Franklin. Scripture I’m preparing a talk to be given in October where I’m supposed to say something about what is distinctive about the Anglican communion – particularly with regard to Scripture, Tradition, and Sacraments. In my ministry it has been common place to hear from teachers of various kinds that the Episcopal Church takes Scripture very seriously. Our liturgy comes with a very heavy dose of Scripture re...
Read more

proper12-july-29.md

Homily: St. Paul’s July 29 Welcome & Thank you It’s certainly been a while since I was last here and it’s good to be back. Thank you to your rector for inviting me to be with you during her vacation time this summer. Mary Pat is unable to be here today because of surgery she had on her foot at the beginning of the summer. The surgery was relatively straightforward but the recovery is a slow-going process. Telling the story (Narrative) Have you been following the magnificent story we’ve been hearing in the first reading this summer? It’s the Great David, introduced by the steady hand of – well sometimes the not so stay or accurate hand of – Samuel . And, of course, God who provides the winning hand. I’m so grateful to the adjusted readings we get because of the Common Lectionary . We get to listen to continuous readings from the Old Testament in a way we weren’t before the last 15 years or so. We’re in the midst of the narrative about David. It turns out David is really imp...
Read more