SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 

Acts 15:1-2, 22-29 | Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23 | John 14:23-29 

Grant, Almighty God, that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy, which we keep in honor of the risen Lord, and that what we relive in remembrance we may hold to in what we do.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever, amen.

We’re obviously continuing the journey of listening to the story, the story of what happened to a very small group of people who were the first to be touched and filled with an awareness of the God who has always been there but never fully revealed before the time that Jesus entered into the world and manifested who he is — who he is.  And the God that is revealed is so radically different from the God of the Old Testament in certain ways, even though the God of the Old Testament reveals slowly and becomes more and more like the God that is revealed through Jesus, but nothing prepared them for what was about to happen.  And that was they would see their God not as a God that had to be served but as a God who serves them — serves them.  If Jesus is God and God is in Jesus, and that’s exactly what Jesus said, then when you see Jesus on the cross, that is God manifesting himself doing what he’s always wanted to do for you and for me but could never reveal it to us, because we weren’t ready to receive it or ingest it or even believe it.  The God of the universe, the God that has created everything comes down and goes through a painful situation.  Now granted, God the Father is not going to be in pain, but the image that Jesus, humanity, took on the pain, and Jesus revealed, through the pain of Jesus, the suffering that he wanted to end for human beings, because there’s a kind of way in which, if we don’t understand who God is, we’re being destroyed, crucified, if that’s a word, just meaning executed by our shame and our guilt.  We live in a horrible world if we cannot open our hearts and fathom the beauty of this God. 

So here we are back to the story.  So let’s look at this particular incident.  This is like a wonderful mini-series on whatever, on Hulu or something.  So here we are now.  There’s an interesting thing happening.  First of all, just a comment about the opening prayer: church is such a valuable thing.  When I say church now, I mean a group of believing, committed Christians who know God and know the Spirit and know Jesus, and what we do in communities, as churches, is we relive in remembrance these stories.  Isn’t that interesting?  We relive in remembrance these stories.  Why couldn’t we have taken these stories and just wrote out a nice manual and describe exactly what it is we’re supposed to do?  Well, actually we’ve done that, but why wouldn’t that be enough?  Why do we have to go back and react, reenact the crucifixion every year, and why do we have to reenact the resurrection?  Why?  Because this religion that you and I are called to believe in is all about a relationship that creates an experience that creates a transformation. 

There’s a line from John’s gospel.  It’s not in this particular set of readings, but it’s when one of the disciples is looking at Jesus and saying, “Why don’t you tell the world about this?  Why don’t you preach to the world?” Because they were so obviously aware that Jesus had, especially after his death in the post-resurrection experiences, he was working just with this tiny group of followers, and I guess they were saying, “Why don’t you broaden your audience?”  And I love the answer that Jesus implies, because he goes on to imply that no, this religion is not going to grow and change because of some major movement, a major announcement to the world about what is real and what is true.  No, it’s going to happen one-to-one through a kind of contagious nature of joy, acknowledgment that we’re loved, a freedom that we’ve experienced.  When people are filled with that, they are the ambassador of this story, and they are the ones who become the teachers.  I don't know if you’ve ever read any kind of detailed, theological description of the mysteries of the faith.  And I read them, and they are complicated, and they make lots of referrals to Latin documents and ancient teachings and all that.  And it’s very, very intellectual, and it doesn’t move me.  But let me sit with someone who lived in fear and shame, whose life was torn about because they were constantly addicted to destructive things, and all of a sudden, their faces are filled with light, and they’re telling me that they realized something about God.  And that is he is a lover, and he ministers to us.  And their life is changed, and I’m changed. 

So let’s look at the stories that we have in this particular set of readings, because it’s one of the most important readings, I think, about the way the church functions, this first reading from the Acts.  I don't know what it would have felt like to be a very devoted temple follower.  They believed in everything the temple represented, even though it was filled with corruption, and probably they knew that on some level.  But they bypassed that, because they realized that this is the place where God dwells.  And people can blind themselves to the lack of integrity of those who work in religious institutions sometimes just out of a desire not to think that that’s even possible, but basically, these people who are following the temple are watching this thing happen.  They’ve been told that the Messiah that they were thinking, “Maybe that was the one,” actually is the one that throws them into a kind of very confused state.  “Do I — what am I supposed to do with this man Jesus?”  He was very well-known in Jerusalem, let’s face it.  So they were confused, but basically they’re sitting there wondering, “Who are these Christian people?”  They didn’t have the name Christian really, but, “Who are these followers of Jesus?”  And so they began to be upset with him, because it was clear that the people that were in charge of these new Christians and the people that they respected, that were teaching, in particular Paul, because he was a Pharisee — he was one of them.  To have one of your own turning toward this one that was the enemy and saying, “He’s the best thing that ever happened,” is really debilitating for the temple ego.  But nevertheless, what you see so clearly is that they’re realizing that this figure, Jesus, is somebody.  So they’re being converted to this, and they’re going to say, “Well, all right.  If you’re going to become the Christian, then you’ve got to put on the same things we did.  You’ve got to follow the Mosaic law, because that’s what we had to do, and you have to do it.”  And it’s so interesting that one of the things about the Mosaic law, it was not a neutral kind of little decision to make, and that was you had to be circumcised. So they want all the Christian male, all the followers of Jesus to be circumcised, and it upset them.  And it was not just that, but then they wanted them to follow the rules and the laws and the dietary laws.  And so this is the thing that’s so interesting.  There’s this gathering of the leadership of the church, as young as it was.  This is called the Council of Jerusalem, and they debated this.  And they said, “Look, we’re not going to lay burdens on people anymore.  That’s what we left when we left the temple.  So we’re not going to do that.”  So they just prayed about it, and certainly God said, “No, this is what I’m freeing people from, the burden of the law, the burden of responsibility, of having to perform, perform, perform.”  And so they were basically — the decision of the church was, “No, we’re not going to do this to people.”  But what I love about that, it is the beginning of a new image of how the church functions, how religion functions.  The temple demanded so much from people in order for them to even feel that they were potentially capable of some favor from God, which could easily be taken away by the temple, because they could be judged as not deserving. And then you have this Jesus figure who was so radically different. 

And so we have the temple again is described in the second reading as not a building but something in the midst of the people, and what it is, it is beautiful.  It is translucent.  It is filled with light.  It is based in the experience of the 12 tribes of Israel.  That’s the Old Testament.  It was based in this wonderful figure Jesus and the disciples.  It’s founded in that experience, and so we see in the transition presented to us over and over again a new earth, a new heaven, as we talked about last week. 

Now let’s go to the last major thing I want to talk about, and that is in the gospel.  What are we learning?  We’re learning about the way this new way of life evolves in a human being and what is engaged in it.  I love in the image of the story that we have to ponder, there is this idea that there is this shift from the old to the new and that, in this coming of something new, there is a new dynamic relationship between divinity and humanity.  And the simplest way to start it is to say over and over again, so clearly what people have discovered, as I said at the beginning of the homily, is this is a God who ministers, who is a doctor, who wants to heal.  All of his miracles are so beautifully designed around making a person whole, and then the one miracle zone, I’m going to call it — and the miracle topic he dealt with was the one I love the most, and that is getting rid of evil spirits, negative spirits, self-hatred, self-doubt, loathing, shame, things that rob you of life.  And so we see this new, new, new religion, this new temple, and then how is it going to be conveyed to people?  Well, it’s clear in this reading from John.  He’s saying, “Well, first of all, you have to understand that the core topic of this new religion is God.”  He is the focus, and who is he?  How do we describe him?  He’s truth.  He’s reality.  He is who you are, why you are here, what the world is for, how it functions.  All of that is this wonderful, extraordinary experience of this divine, creative, loving being that’s created this whole world.  He is at the heart of all Christian religions, to take and believe in and to take him into your life, and he fills you with this thing called truth.  And what is Jesus there for?  Jesus is the communicator, because he’s mostly the moderator.  If you want to explain to someone how to do something, one of the things that I  — I can read it.  I can read instructions, but they never work.  No, show me.  Show me what it’s like, and that’s who Jesus is.  “I’m showing you the Father.”  So this image of this incredible, powerful force being someone who would literally worry about our broken bodies, worry about the spirits that infect us with negativity, worrying about whether or not we’re free and fully alive, that’s the God — that’s Jesus’ role, to say, “This is who God is.” 

But then comes the advocate, the new character, and the advocate came in the form of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is going to teach everybody.  And this is what’s so fascinating about this.  How can I describe to you how the role of the Holy Spirit is to teach you and open your heart and mind to all that is true and all that is wonderful and free you from shame and anger and fear and all those things?  All I can tell you is the Holy Spirit is the presence, the indwelling presence of this incredible figure, God, and an advocate is someone who is on your side.  You are innocent of anything that you have been told to become.  You are innocent of the things you’ve done that have been in the wrong direction, not because you didn’t do it.  You’re innocent, because you have been made innocent by the blood of Christ.  So everybody that turns to God and the Spirit in saying, “Teach me.  Help me,” the advocate, the one on your side, he comes in, and he fights your battles with you against those forces that are evil, that are around in the world, that are wanting to pull you down.  No, he’s there to argue the case that you are a beautiful human loved by God and freed from the shame of anything you’ve done in the past.  You’re acquitted, and that’s the gift of the advocate, the Holy Spirit.    

Father, your presence is so rich and so powerful, and it can only be described in words that can’t really fathom it.  But it’s so interesting that you’re not just God.  You’re God the Father.  You’re God the Son.  You’re God the Holy Spirit.  And it’s interesting for me to think that you have given these images to us, because each one carries something that’s so essential, that you are truth, that you are love, and that you’re on our side.  Help us never to lose an awareness of the fullness of who you are, and let this ministry bless hearts everywhere with this awareness.  And we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.