Liturgy or Life?

Isaiah 6:1-8

Trinity Sunday

May 27, 2018

William G. Carter

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.

And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. We sang those words last week, as new elders and deacons began their terms of service. It’s a favorite hymn, to be sure. Whenever we sing it, it is certain to get a positive response. The tune is singable, the words are heart-felt. If you look around, somebody is probably wiping away a tear or two. Here I am, Lord.

When you heard the scripture text, you probably noticed some of the words of that song are lifted right out of our Bible. Isaiah of Jerusalem remembers the voice of God calling him to his life’s work. God is looking for the right person to speak up, the right person to speak out, the right person to address the people of Judah in troubling times. Who is going to be? Who will speak up for God? And Isaiah declares, “Here I am, Lord.”  

That’s about all most of us know about the prophet Isaiah: he responds affirmatively to God’s Voice. That, of course, is the punchline of the story. It’s right up there with God speaking to Moses out of a burning bush, “Go to Pharoah, tell him to let my people go.” Or Jesus, walking along the shore of the sea of Galilee and calling out to some fishermen, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”

The plot of each story goes the same way. God says, “I need to get something done.” The heroic Bible character says, “OK, I will do it.” The rest of us cheer, breathe a sigh of relief, and figure “mission accomplished.” Somebody out there is doing what God needs to get done. In other words, it’s not really a story for the rest of us; it’s about some specialist who said “yes” to the Lord a long, long time ago.

Now if you were listening to this story, you heard a lot more going on in this story. In the end, the ancient prophet says, “OK, God, sign me up.” But that’s merely the conclusion, and a provisional conclusion at that. The story becomes a lot more interesting the deeper we dig in.

So here are three things to notice: the seraphs, the unclean lips, the burning coal.

First, the seraph. On Thursday morning, one of our office volunteers was proofreading the worship bulletin before it was printed. I walked through to grab a donut, she looked up, and said, “What’s a seraph?” What? “A seraph – the Bible passage says there were seraphs. What are they?” I said, “I don’t know; I don’t think I’ve ever met one, but they are kind of a super angel.” She looked at me with a most curious gaze.

And I said, “The bigger question is, what are they doing in the Temple?” And then she looked really confused.

The seraphs, or as they are sometimes called “seraphim,” are only mentioned here as angelic beings. They have three pairs of wings: to fly, to cover themselves in modesty, and to cover their faces in reverence. There are texts outside the Bible that speak about different orders of angels, although the Bible itself doesn’t spend a lot of energy getting distracted by angels. Suffice it to say, the seraphim are the ones closest to God.

This satisfied our Thursday volunteer, but I pressed the other question: what are they doing in the Temple? And that’s a trick question. It has to do with King Uzziah, who is mentioned rather quickly and dismissed.

King Uzziah began as a wonderful king. Given the sorry list of Israel’s terrible kings, he showed a lot of promise.  Uzziah ruled for 52 years. He chased out the Philistines, defended the borders, and built up the economy. In the words of the Bible’s greatest compliment, “he learned the fear of the Lord.” (2 Chronicles 26:5).

That is, until he got a little big for his britches. Uzziah believed that, since he was the king, and things were going well, that he would also act as if he was a priest. He grabbed the incense pot, started smoking up a little frankincense, and made his way to the high altar. It was a desecration, an abomination, a really bad move. Uzziah was stopped in his tracks by the high priest and eighty other priests, all described as “men of valor.”

An argument broke out. Uzziah figured he was the king, and kings can do whatever they want. The priests said, “Oh no, no, no.” And just when Uzziah started getting huffy, leprosy broke out all over his face. They hustled him out of the temple, now doubly desecrated. He had to live by himself in seclusion. He could still call himself the king, but nobody was going to go near him or pay any further attention to him. He had leprosy til the day he died, and all the moralists said, “That’s what you get when you get too big for your britches…in the temple.”

Meanwhile, the Temple was still desecrated – and in the year Uzziah died, God showed up. It was big. Really big. Even the seraphim were there. Nobody had ever seen one, I figure, but Isaiah knew what a seraph was when he saw one. Their voices were thunderous: HOLY, HOLY, HOLY. The foundations are shaking, the house is filled with smoke.

And what are the seraphim doing there, in a desecrated Temple? They are announcing the holiness of God, even there, especially there. There is no distinction between sacred and secular, because God is there – so it’s sacred.

Just let that sink in. Wherever God is present, it is HOLY, HOLY, HOLY. Wherever… the implications are staggering. Someone puts it this way

One of the bad habits we pick up early in our lives is separating things and people into secular and sacred. We assume the secular is what we are more or less in charge of: our jobs, our entertainment, our government, our social relations. The sacred is what God is charge o: worship and the Bible, heaven and hell, church and prayers. We then contrive to set aside a sacred place of God, designed, we say, to honor God but really intended to keep God in his place, leaving us free to have the final say about everything else that goes on.

Prophets will have none of this. They contend that everything, absolutely everything, takes place on sacred ground. God has something to say about every aspect of our lives: the way we feel and act in the so-called privacy of our hoes, the way we make our money and the way we spend it, the politics we embrace, the ways we fight, the catastrophes we endure, the people we hurt, and the people we help. Nothing is hidden from the scrutiny of God. Nothing is exempt from the rule of God. Nothing escapes the purposes of God. Holy, holy, holy.[1]

So Isaiah says, “Woe is me! I have unclean lips. I live among people of unclean lips.” In the presence of a Holy God, the only God there is, we are toast. (That’s my translation.)

What he is missing, of course, is the same thing he sees - the seraphs are in the same room with him, the same filthy room. God is there, too, a pure Holy God in the midst of a desecrated Temple. His first, only, response is, “There isn’t room here for the likes of me, and the likes of us.” We are people of “unclean lips.”

Again it’s an interesting Bible phrase, appearing only here in this text. Even though it’s an ancient phrase, you can probably surmise what it means. It has something to do with lips, but it reveals something else.

There is a retired high school English teacher who wrote a letter to the President about gun violence in the schools. She received a form letter back from the White House. The grammar was atrocious. There were redundancies, incorrect capitalization, lack of clarity in the reasoning. So she corrected the letter in purple ink and send it back.

USA Today reported the story on a slow news day.[2] You might not think that a retired teacher correcting a letter written at a fourth grade level would be a big deal, but you should see the online comments and the criticisms of her act: they are a mile long. Her critics take issue with her and call her “stupid,” and then they start calling one another “stupid” as well. Alas, we live among a people of “unclean lips.”

You see, “unclean lips” reveal a filthy heart. That’s the sense of the Biblical phrase. In one of the Psalms, there is a complaint lodged against a person with dirty heart and lips: “Your tongue is like a sharp razor, you worker of treachery. You love evil more than good and lying more than speaking the truth. You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue!” (Psalm 52:2-4)

In the presence of a Holy God, what does Isaiah know? He is surrounded by people of impure speech, destructive insults, lying impulses, and forked tongues. Unclean lips, indeed.

That brings us to the great “nevertheless.” The Bible repeatedly offers God’s great “nevertheless.” God is announced in the Temple by the seraphim, Isaiah knows he and the people are broken and unworthy, so God decides to bridge the gap. In a highly symbolic act, one of the seraphs flies to the altar of the Temple, picks up a burning coal with a pair of tongs, and touches the prophet’s unclean lips.

Then the pronouncement is given: Your guilt is chased away. Your sin is over and done. The God who is already present in the desecrated temple is able to reach all the desecrated people. There is mercy and forgiveness for all who can accept it. And for all who can accept it, there is work to do.

It’s a terrific text, a huge story. And it brings to mind the conversation that I have from time to time. Maybe I run into someone at the ice cream store and they apologize that they haven’t been in worship. They see me in line ordering Rocky Road and not in this room. These days, I smile, tell them it’s good to see them, ask them how they are doing. 

Maybe if the conversation opens up, I might even ask, “So where is Holy Ground for you?” Then I will listen for a while. How would you answer that question? Where is Holy Ground?

The Bible says it this way: “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (Psalm 24:1). And it says, “Where can I flee your presence, O Lord?” (Psalm 139:7-12). Wherever I go, you are already there. The conclusion: all ground is Holy Ground.

• God come in clarity and judgment when an out-of-touch king thinks he is something more than he is.
• God comes as pure and perfect light, revealing our cracks and imperfections in the light of great mercy.
• God steps through the distance that separates us from the Holiness, declaring we are forgiven and free.
• And God gives us something to do, always gives us something to do, because holiness is not something to be bottled like perfume so we can spritz a little bit of it here and there; holiness is something to be lived – out in the world as well as in the Temple. Holiness is the clear and abiding sense that God is here, with us and among us, and that we are part of God’s purposes for the world.

So enjoy this Sabbath as a gift. Do something that restores life to your soul and gives life to the people around you.  And for God’s sake, for God’s holy sake, bring some glory to the God who has given you everything, always remembering that the ground beneath your feet is holy ground.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Eugene Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire (Colorado Springs: Waterbrook, 2017) p. 117

[2] USA Today, “Teacher corrects White House letter with ‘many silly mistakes,’ 26 May 2018 (online at https://usat.ly/2sakbA3)

A Glimpse of the Last Day

Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost

May 20, 2018
William G. Carter

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

In the midst of a lot of wind and fire, a new community was formed. That is the miracle of Pentecost. Beginning with the Jews who gathered from “every nation under heaven” – or at least, every nation known in the Mediterranean world, God’s Spirit blows open the windows of a fearful church. The lungs of a multitude are filled with the Holy Spirit. Bold testimonies about Jesus are preached. Everybody hears the message in their own language, and they all discover that they belong together in Christ.

That’s the miracle of Pentecost. A new inclusive community is formed. Everybody belongs.

Know what we need? Another Pentecost.

In the small town where I began my ministry, there were two Lutheran churches. They were two blocks apart. Now, I know there are a lot of Lutherans in the Lehigh Valley. The Germans are pretty dense down there. But two blocks apart?

And they told me the story: the first Lutheran church was founded in 1851. It took them a year to get moving, but by July 4, 1952, they put a cornerstone on a plot of land that they purchased for $300. The Rev. Jeremiah Schindel preached a dedication sermon on Christmas Day, and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church was begun.

By 1868, the church was in trouble. The worship services were spoken in German, and some wanted to worship in English. For a while, they solved the problem by have a German service in the morning and an English service in the evening. The church council, consisting of two old German guys, decided it wasn’t worth the effort, so they cancelled the English service... and a faction departed to create an English-speaking congregation two blocks away.

In time, the German-speaking congregation switched to English-speaking services, but did the two congregations apologize and recombine? Of course not. We need another Pentecost.

Is this exclusive to the Lutherans? No. For a while, my wife played the organ for a Presbyterian congregation that was worshipping in a Roman Catholic sanctuary. Located on a street named after an American League umpire, it was one of three Catholic churches located on corners of the same block. One was Irish, another was Italian, and the third was made up of leftovers (i.e. neither Irish nor Italian).

On the fourth corner is a Russian Orthodox church, and around the block is a Ukrainian Catholic church. All of them wanted a priest who would speak exclusively to them. It took a bishop with the subtlety of a bulldozer to get any of them to work together, and he paid a harsh price to get it down.  We need another Pentecost.

And it’s not exclusive to Lutherans and Catholics. In 2003, in the very next room, a retiring Presbyterian minister met with a committee to discuss the congregation he was leaving. It began as a Welsh congregation, but the neighborhood had changed. There’s a Mexican grocery on one corner, a soul food kitchen on another. Down the street, a Polish funeral home sits near an Italian restaurant.

The minister was troubled. As he was preparing to retire, he reported a faction in his congregation wanted to hold the line and resist all these newcomers. One of his elders proposed that they only allow new members into their church if they spoke Welsh or had a Welsh last name. The motion did not pass, but the sentiment did not go away. In time, the church sold the building rather than reach out to their new neighbors. I think we need another Pentecost.

On the first Pentecost, Luke says there was every nation under heaven. They had gathered for a religious festival fifty days after Passover (hence the name “Pentecost”), and instead got a multilingual sermon about Jesus raised from the dead. Everybody understood it. The Holy Spirit brought voice and understanding. An inclusive community was formed. It was a miracle of God.

It can happen. God willing, the wind can blow, and it can happen.

In 1906, a one-eyed preacher named William Seymour was invited to preach for a series of revival services on Azusa Street, in a run-down part of Los Angeles. The newspaper called the building a “tumble down shack,” but Rev. Seymour kept preaching and the Holy Spirit came down. Within a few months, a couple dozen people grew to crowds of 1500 a week, all crammed into that tumble-down shack.

The remarkable thing is not that there were signs, wonders, and miraculous healings – but that the crowd was so diverse: women, men, children, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, rich, poor, educated and illiterate. This was at the height of Jim Crow discrimination laws, and yet the races were “mingling” for Christian worship. Women “got the Spirit” and stood up on tables to preach. They didn’t wait for the Pope or the Presbyterians to give them approval, either. The Holy Spirit said, “Preach the Gospel,” and they preached. A new community was formed.

It’s an appealing memory, don’t you think? In our time, we could use more of this sort of thing.

In historian Jon Meachum’s latest book, The Soul of America, he reminds us of what he calls “a universal American inconsistency” – we uphold life and liberty for some and hold back others deemed unworthy. If you know about the immigration waves that have come through our region for the past 150 years, you know that yesterday’s immigrants were always beating up on the immigrants that arrived today.

The truth of the Gospel is that every human life matters. Every one. If you tuned into yesterday’s royal wedding, you may have been blessed to hear that marvelous sermon by Archbishop George Curry. He spoke the truth, the Pentecost truth, that love is the way to live, that it is the only way.

Imagine this tired old world where love is the way. … When love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry ever again. When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook. When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the Earth will be a sanctuary. When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside, to study war no more. When love is the way, there's plenty good room for all of God's children because when love is the way, we actually treat each other well, like we are actually family. When love is the way, we know that God is the source of us all and we are brothers and sisters, children of God. My brothers and sisters, that's a new heaven, a new Earth, a new world, a new human family. (https://bit.ly/2IYIXwG) 

I’m ready for another Pentecost. How about you? Because this new heaven, this new earth, this new human family is where everything is headed in the glory of God. Pentecost is the first glimpse of what God wants for the world through Jesus Christ our Lord. And it can happen, if we get out of the way and let love become the way.

Last June, my wife and I were invited to spend a weekend in Placitas Presbyterian Church in northern New Mexico. The pastor was gone on a sabbatical and they were desperate for a preacher, so we went. The congregation is a bit smaller than this one, about a half hour north of Albuquerque. The people have a great gift of hospitality, provided a comfortable bed and a lot of tacos.

When we arrived at the church, they said, “By the way…” (Usually that means, “Uh oh, what did we get ourselves into?”)  They said, “By the way, the service is bilingual. It’s in two languages, Spanish and English.” Did that mean the service was twice as long? Oh, no. They did the hard work of blending everything, speaking both languages, singing both languages, welcoming both, and making room for all.

As we drove away, Jamie said, “There was something magical about that place.” I blurted out, “The Holy Spirit was there.” She looked at me funny, like she often does, as if to say, “You’re talking preacher-ese again.” I said, “God was there, with all of us. That’s difficult to quantify by easy to tell. Everybody was welcome. Even us.” The Gospel was for everybody. That’s Pentecost.

This afternoon, I’m preaching at a new minister’s installation. Another desperate church, I’m afraid. It is the Presbyterian Church of Lamington, New Jersey. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because the church is a quarter mile from the gate of Trump National Golf Course. Right after the presidential election, Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence worshiped there, with a half hour advance notice from the Secret Service. My friend Carlos is just starting as the new pastor.

So I said to him, “How’s that going to work out for you?” He said, “It’s a remarkable church. It’s purple. There are red voters and blue voters. Many have deeply held convictions on either side, but they get along with another. They believe the Gospel is a lot bigger, a lot more inclusive, than one opinion or one political position. We want to be a church for all people.”

What can we say? It’s Pentecost. And on Pentecost, God sent the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, to push and shove the church beyond its own boundaries, because the Gospel is for everybody. Isn’t that what we want?

We ordain our elders to led us to be a church for everybody. We ordain our deacons to help us care for all people, regardless of who they are or what burdens they carry. For the truth is clear: when God breathes the Spirit on us, when God puts the Gospel in the air for everybody to hear it, there are no longer insiders or outsiders; in the grace of Jesus Christ, everybody belongs… because today is Pentecost, when the love of God is poured out on a crowd so much larger than we ever imagined.

And if we lean in real close, we will hear God say, “This is what I intended from the beginning.”

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

Up

Luke 24:44-53

Ascension / Easter 7

May 13, 2018

William G. Carter

Then Jesus said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

One summer night some years ago, I watched a hot air balloon launch at Lackawanna State Park. My kids were a good bit younger and a friend called to tip us off. “They are going to love seeing this,” she said. We all enjoyed it.

We arrived just in time to hear the thunderous sound of hot air filling up those enormous balloons. The balloons began to inflate and rise. The passenger baskets turned upright and the lines grew tight. Pretty soon somebody shouted, “He’s off.” We watched as the man in the basket began to rise into the sky. It was a thrilling sight!

I’m not afraid of heights, but I do like to have a solid floor beneath my feet. So I was only a little envious to see the man in the basket go higher and higher. It was enticing. He was leaving all his cares down here on the ground, lifting above our distress, going up and up. I would guess he was at least three hundred feet beyond reproach. Soon he was up even further. It was an amazing, dazzling, almost other-worldly sight.

Some people were discussing this passage at the very end of the Gospel of Luke. They knew about the Easter story; everybody knows about Easter. But they had not realized the story goes on a bit more. Jesus goes up into the sky. “He was carried up into heaven,” says Luke. He ascended into the sky.

One of the ladies in the discussion group said, “I can’t blame him.” Why do you say that? She said, “He got out of here as soon as he could.” The group giggled, but she pushed here point. “Oh, I’ll bet Jesus was in a hurry to get back up into heaven,” she said. “After all, don’t forget how they treated him when he was here.”

Going up – is this an escape? I remember James T. Kirk, captain of the star ship Enterprise. How many times did he say, “Beam me up, Scotty, there’s no intelligent life down here.” The lady in that group made it sound as if Jesus was talking the same way to God in heaven: “Get me out of here.”

I had never thought of the Ascension quite that way. We say the line from the Apostles’ Creed almost every week: “he ascended into heaven.” Is that intended to suggest an escape from the mud, the muck, and the evil here on the ground?

In 1830, a young girl named Margaret McDonald had a vision. Or a dream. Or some kind of something. She was attending a healing service, and suddenly pictured a two-stage return of Christ from heaven. First, he will come secretly to snatch away all his believers, and then later he will come to judge whoever had been left behind. She described the scenario to John Nelson Darby, a British preacher.

Darby was a bit of sensationalist. He took the idea and began to develop it. He would preach it, and then preach it some more. Soon the idea began to develop into many stages, which he called “dispensations.” He began to categorize different historical eras: this happened, and that happened, and then finally this is going to happen. He described the whole thing as if it was a scientific system, an unfolding account of the End Times.

To support it, he plucked a single verse from one of Paul’s letters. Not just any letter, but First Thessalonians, probably the earliest composed document of what would later become the New Testament. In chapter four of that letter, Paul was writing to comfort the believers, who expected Jesus to return at any moment, just as he said he would. When Jesus comes, all the believers will be “caught up in the air to meet the Lord.” (1 Thess. 4:13).

Darby called this “the rapture.” Nobody had ever said anything about this in 1800 years of Christian history. Darby invented it and declared it to be true. And at heart, here’s what it is: an escape plan.[1] When everything falls apart, the Christians get out for free, but only the true Christians, you understand. So Darby and all his kind have come up with one test after another, to learn who the true Christians are. I guess if you pass their test, string together the same verses plucked out of context, and arrive with the same conclusion, then you can escape the world and spend eternity with all the people who agree with you.

These are notions that have infected the American church and split it into splinters. These ideas have invaded our politics and twisted our policies on the Middle East. They have given birth to unholy conspiracy theories and plundered the soil of God’s good earth. “We might as well strip mine the mountain tops of West Virginia and make some money now,” say some, “because Jesus is coming to snatch us away to fly up to heaven.”

Maybe you’ve heard about that sort of thing, or maybe you find the notion appealing. Just take note: a rapture like that is never mentioned in the Bible. Never! It is not mentioned in the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Westminster Confession, or any of the other historic summaries of the faith, for two very good reasons: First, John Nelson Darby invented the “rapture” in 1830. Second, people who love Jesus and follow him are never looking for an escape hatch, or a hot air balloon to be lifted above difficulty. Why? Because they believe in the Ascension.

So what is this Ascension stuff really all about, anyway? I think it’s about three things.

First, it means that Jesus is not here. He is risen from the dead, and now he is risen to the Father. He is gone from the earth. He doesn’t live here anymore. He lives in complete unity with the Creator. And he did not return to the Father as an escape, because when he was here, he was really here. Jesus lived a completely human life: he worked in a Nazareth wood shop, he fell asleep in the back of a fishing boat, and he ate a lot of fish.

Jesus preached the truth, he healed the broken and the broken-hearted, he took nails in his wrists and feet and was mistreated like all of God’s prophets. Killing him was the great human mistake, says Luke. Raising him from the dead was God’s work of justice: it confirmed that everything Jesus did was right and true. And now, he is lifted to the highest place of authority. He sits with God the Father; he is not here.

Second, it means that Jesus is free to come back as often as he wants. There are stories of the Risen Christ appearing on earth. The scholar Raymond Brown says those appearances are always “from heaven.” Jesus keeps returning again and again and again. And the purpose is clear: just as heaven and earth were united in the person of Jesus Christ, heaven and earth have been reconciled in the death and resurrection of Jesus. They have been brought together, and it’s not our place to separate what God has brought together.

It is possible to discover the Holy in the every day. That is what it means. Christ is not here, but he keeps returning here. That’s what we mean by “the Holy Spirit.” Jesus tells his friends to stay in Jerusalem “until they are clothed in power from on high.” (24:49). To state it another way, God will come – the Risen Christ will come – in a way to stay with all who love Jesus, who return to him after pushing him away, who receive his forgiveness. The same Jesus who walked among us on two feet now rules over all of us. He is not done with us; neither is he “done” with the world.

So (1) Jesus is not “here” anymore, not in the way we once knew him, and (2) he is free as Lord to come among us in the power of his Spirit, that means, third, that there is work for us to do. In his physical absence, we are his hands and feet on earth. We speak his word with our tongues. We heal others in his mercy through our kindness. We continue his first century work in our twenty-first century world.

We don’t escape the world; we enter it more deeply.

So there are mothers to cherish and women to lift up in dignity; that’s a good part of our work. The Jesus we meet in the Gospel of Luke is One who honors women as equals in the human race. He converses with them when the men of his time refused. He tells stories of women as heroines (15:7-10). He speaks of God as a Mother Hen who wishes to gather all her chicks (13:34).

He goes to the woman who is so bent over she can only look at her sandals and lifts her up so she can look around in God-given dignity (13:10-17). He welcomes the women who support his work out of their own pocketbooks (8:1-3). And on Easter morning, Jesus goes first to the women to show them he is again alive (24:1-12).

My friends, if we celebrate Mother’s Day by honoring the women in our lives, it’s a good beginning of the work Christ gives us to continue. As he honored women as equals and children of God, we continue that work when we let them know they are cherished.

There is no “escape” allowed, not for those who love Jesus, not for those who honor those whom he honored. We are the living witnesses of what he did, what he had begun, what he can continue through the likes of us. And that’s why we are here today, and last week, and next week…because we are part of an ongoing work called the Gospel. God has put us in this place, at this point in human history, to continue the Gospel right here, in the places where we live and work. The Christ who is above us promises the power for us to make the Gospel real here and now.

Years ago, when I was in Sunday School, one of our teachers gave us a true and false quiz after Easter. True or false: Jesus was raised from the grave. True or false: Jesus is alive again. True or false: Jesus lives with God in heaven.

Then this question: true or false, after Jesus went up into heaven, after Jesus went out of sight, his friends didn’t have to go to church anymore. That was, and still is, an intriguing question. I’ve noticed some people slip away from the sanctuary after the Easter hymns are over. So I answered “True,” because I was a kid, and I wanted it to be true.

The teacher said, “Billy, read the last sentence in the Gospel of Luke.” And I read: “They worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.” There is no escape from the Lord who went up, no escape from the travails of Jerusalem, no escape from the things that promise great joy. Jesus is not here, he will come back regularly at any time, and in the meantime, there is work for us to do.

See you next Sunday.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] See, for instance, Barbara R. Rossing, The Rapture Exposed (New York: Basic Books, 2004) pp. 19-46.