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7th Sunday in EasterActs 16:16-34 & John 17:20-26May 16, 2010 |
7Easter2010 Acts 16:16-34 & John 17:20-26 May 16, 2010
How would you spend your time if you knew it was your last night with ones whom you share a passionate purpose? When my dear friend Jan was in Hospice and knew her days were limited, her children set her up on CarePages, an internet support system. What delighted her as much as anything was hearing how her students were living out the passions they had shared with her during her college teaching career. CarePages were a creative way of allowing her to have ongoing conversations – even from miles away.
In today’s Gospel Jesus knows his time is limited and on the last night of his earthly life Jesus chooses (certainly not CarePages), but he chooses conversation and a meal with his disciples. He eats with them; washes their feet; gives them a new commandment to love each other as he loves them; and he answers questions.
“Where is he going? Why can’t they go with him?” He gives the best answers he can, and then, as the night grows darker, Jesus does in John’s Gospel what he does on his last night in all of the Gospels. He prays. When he prays in Matthew, Mark and Luke, he prays alone. Peter, James and John are with him, but at a distance – hardly awake. But in John, the disciples are all there, very much awake. And a huge kind of shift happens as the evening draws on.
Professor Mary Hinkle Shore of Luther Seminary offers a helpful insight when she notes that earlier in the evening Jesus gave out information – what was about to happen; that the disciples could not go with him; that the Spirit, the Paraclete, would come to them. But by the end of the evening Jesus turns from information to intercession; from information to prayer. As my ER sermon title says, Wow! Christ prays for our ministry.
Jesus’ final words to his disciples aren’t instructions on evangelism. He doesn’t get one last sermon in or one final teaching. He doesn’t cheer them on or beg them to not let his community fall apart. Instead, Jesus prays. He prays out loud for all to hear. And his prayer echoes through the ages – all the way to us.
How do you feel when you know someone is praying for you? I’ve asked some people. They feel honored, humbled, supported, vulnerable. Some say they don’t always believe it. They wonder if people who say they will pray for them really do, or do they just say that? In the Annual Report of our Bishop Mark Holmerud he states his appreciation for those who are praying for him. And, he says, particularly those who tell him they are. It’s one thing to be prayed for, but it’s something else to know and trust you are. Reg and I know many of you hold us and FLC in prayer and what a blessing that is and we too thank you! It matters a lot!
In today’s Acts 16 reading Paul and Silas have been arrested, beaten and thrown in prison for doing their ministry the best way they know how. Their best efforts land them in prison and verse 25 tells us their response: “About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them.” That has got to be one of the most amazing verses in the book of Acts! “They were praying and singing to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”
Paul and Silas were beaten and shackled, prevented from doing the good work they wanted to do. They would have had good reason to rail at God. Where was God when they were being beaten? Why didn’t God protect them? Were they not doing what God wanted them to do? How human it would have been to ask such questions and to beat their fists against that prison wall. And there may well have been days when their anger was expressed. Anger sometimes needs expression. There were days when Jesus expressed his anger. But anger wasn’t expressed on this day in that prison cell. Instead of railing, Paul and Silas prayed and sang to God, and their neighbors listened. The neighboring prisoners were found eavesdropping.
Paul and Silas had learned more from Jesus than information. Information wouldn’t have freed them to stay put in that prison when the shackles fell from their feet. Information wouldn’t have brought that level of freedom. But intercession did – the intercession of Jesus towards them and from them back to God. Jesus’ prayer that they would find oneness in loving their neighbor as he loved them found a home in their hearts – even when the neighbor was their jailer. That kind of love needs prayer.
As a community, we have a special opportunity today to let Jesus’ prayer for us take shape in our prayer for each other. We will be commissioning two who are being sent to serve God’s love in Uganda. Marge and Steve do not want a lot of attention drawn to them. They see what we are called to do here as important as the work we are called to do in Uganda. They see us called to embody God’s justice and mercy, compassion and hope – wherever we are.
But we’re going to draw just a little attention to them because a powerful witness comes through their willingness to let us commission them for their work. Their commissioning becomes an opportunity for us to be commissioned as well for the work we do here -- w hich is really following through on Jesus’ prayer. How we live our lives in our real world of family, school, work, church, and community witnesses to Jesus’ prayer for oneness and love.
As we commit ourselves to pray for Steve and Marge through the five years of their service in Uganda, we also know that they will be praying for us even as we are called to daily pray for each other. And who knows what will happen on the other side of prayer! Prayer didn’t keep Jesus from the cross. Prayer didn’t make life smooth for Paul and Silas, or keep them out of prison, but prayer did remind them all of a love more powerful than any earthquake ever will be.
The real power evidenced in today’s reading from Acts 16 isn’t the strength of the earthquake. The earthquake shook the foundations of the prison and broke the shackles off their feet – but Paul and Silas didn’t run away. They could have run. Nothing was holding them, but they didn’t and that is the power of this story. They may even look pretty stupid here. The earthquake shook them free, why don’t they run? There was nothing to hold them – nothing, except love.
By that time, at least Paul had had enough life experience to know that when prisoners escape, the jailers are killed. This jailer knew that and would rather just get it over with and kill himself than be killed as jailers were killed. And he draws the sword is just about to take his life. But Paul shouts in a loud voice “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” Paul’s concern is for the jailer.
That is the real earthquake – the real shaking of the foundations! God had set them free to love their neighbor, even an un-chosen neighbor. That kind of freedom comes from God – freedom to love not just ones who love us back and do us good, but to love as Christ loves – which sometimes is tough and challenging love.
What counts in the end is knowing ourselves as so loved and valued that we are set free to love with the life-affirming love that comes from God. We can’t will that kind of love, or manufacture it. It’s a love that has to be received. And that’s why we gather in worship. That’s why we pray. That’s why we come to the font of mercy and the table of grace. Christ’s love is freely given that it might transform us so we can make a difference in the world. When we trust God’s love for us, it overflows in freedom to love our neighbor – whether the neighbor is houses away or countries away. It’s the same love. And it’s rarely easy or without great cost.
On Jesus’ last night he did very simple things. He ate with his disciples, washed their feet, told them to love each other, listened to their questions and prayed for them and all the world. This eating, washing, conversing, loving and praying goes on. And how good it is to know that the risen living Christ prays for us!
On any given day may we remember this above all else – that Christ prays also for our ministry – for the word we share about God’s amazing love. Christ prays that God’s vision of oneness and love would spread throughout the world – embodied and modeled and sacrificially lived through for us! It is Christ’s continual intercession that frees us to love as Christ loves – like Paul and Silas did – sometimes in the most unlikely places and uncommon circumstances. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1st Cor. 13).
Thanks be to God!
+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson, to the glory of God
Faith Lutheran Church, Chico, CA