Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year B, May 17, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of holiness, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may and cost what it will.

If I asked you to think of an important holiday that always falls on a Thursday, what would you say? (Maybe you would think first of Thanksgiving.) What if I asked you to name two important holidays that always fall on Thursdays? (Thanksgiving and since we’re in church, maybe someone would think of Maundy Thursday in Holy Week.) Do you know where I’m going with this? I wonder how many of you would have thought of Ascension Day — always a Thursday forty days after Easter Sunday. Did any of you take the day off this past Thursday to observe Ascension Day with your friends and family?

In the English version of Ground Hog Day, if it is sunny on Ascension Day, it’s said that there will be a warm summer, but if it rains on Ascension Day, the harvest will be bad and farm animals will get sick. The Swedish custom for Ascension Day is to go into the woods before sunrise to listen to the birds. If a cuckoo is heard from the east or west, it’s good luck. In Germany, Ascension Day is also Vatertag (Father’s Day). In Greece, people stay up at night staring at the sky. It’s said that if you are pure in heart, you will see a light ascending into the heavens. Theologian Katerina Whitley says that reminds her of the poignant depiction of Christians in Lloyd Douglass’ book, The Robe, always looking to the distance, waiting and longing for Jesus’ imminent return.[1] One of the treasures that I found in my desk when I came to Emmanuel seven years ago is a little button – like a campaign button – with a Jesus-like face and the letters BRB (Be Right Back).

Although Ascension Day is a Principal Feast Day in the Episcopal Church, my guess is that it’s perhaps a little embarrassing for most progressive Christians to commemorate a day when, according to the writer of Luke and Acts, a full forty days after he was raised from the dead, Jesus opened their minds to the scriptures, gave his final commission and blessing, was lifted up off of the ground, and a cloud took him out of his disciples’ sight. But honestly, it’s no stranger than many of our other foundational mythologies – whether sacred or secular. I mean we teach children tales of Indigenous People and Colonizers sitting down to a happy meal of roast turkey and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie, and I won’t mention our even more magical secular tales because I don’t want to be the Grinch who stole Christmas!

Our readings for the 7^th Sunday in Easter make an assumption that we all know that we are in the octave (eight days) following the Ascension. The Risen Lord is gone and we are commemorating the waiting period for the arrival of the Holy Spirit or Inspiration on Pentecost. The main thing that happened in the ten days after the Ascension, according to Acts, is that the apostles went joyfully back to Jerusalem, and decided that they were one short of a full complement because of Judas’ defection. In the verses omitted from our first reading, Acts tells of Judas buying a field with the money he got for betraying Jesus. But once settled on his new property, Judas’ body swelled up “and burst open in the middle and all of his bowels gushed out.” (I kid you not.) It’s not Matthew’s version in which Judas repented, returned the money and the priests bought property with that money. Both agree that the property became known as the Field of Blood, but are in conflict about just how the field got its name. The other Gospel writers don’t address it.

It’s an amazing story about the selection process for Judas’ replacement. Peter suggested to a gathering of about 120 that one of the group must become a witness with the other eleven to Jesus’ resurrection. So the group proposed two men: Matthias and Joseph (who was also known as either Barsabbas or Justus). Then they prayed that God would show them God’s preference for a replacement apostle by casting lots. This was back in the day before discernment committees and ordination processes with examining chaplains and Commissions on Ministry and Standing Committees of Dioceses. Now you might wonder if two were proposed, why couldn’t they just take them both – you know, have a baker’s dozen of apostles. Surely there was more than enough work to do. What’s sobering is that the Greek word for witness is the same word for martyr. It means one who testifies to truth no matter what – come when it may and cost what it will, even if the cost is one’s life. My guess is that’s why it was better to cast lots than to take both Joseph and Matthias. It was better to cast lots than to vote, because as my friend the Reverend Nancy Taylor taught me, voting does violence in community.

The First Letter of John might sound harsh to our ears, but the passage read today is from the end of the letter or sermon, and it assumes that you remember that the whole letter defines God as Love and says that if you say you love God but do not love your neighbor, you either do not know what you’re talking about or you are lying. The fundamental commandment is to love one another. That is what Jesus revealed with his entire being. Having eternal life is knowing God. God is Love. Eternal life is knowing Love. True testimony about the Son of God is testimony about Love. Believing is beloving. Truly living is loving according to the writer of the First Letter of John.

The testimony of a different John is the source of our Gospel reading this morning. Since there is no Ascension story in that Gospel, the passage we have is from Jesus’ long speech and prayer on the night before he was crucified. Jesus’ “farewell discourse” takes up about a fifth of the whole Gospel of John. Clearly this is literature written long after Jesus’ death, but in the historical present (or even future) voice, Jesus prays for his followers anticipating their struggles after he is gone. It’s dreamy language – reminds me of the effect when I was little and attended churches in which an extremely long pastoral prayer was typically offered by the minister. Daydream believer language is what I call this.

There are some focus points in this passage, though, and they’re signaled by a word in Greek (hina) that indicates that what comes next is a clause stating the purpose or the goal or the desired result. In English we need two words to translate hina: “so that.” In this passage, I want to focus your attention on the four “so that’s.” Our bulletin copy doesn’t include verse numbers, so I’ll tell you where they fall on the page in case you want to follow along: in your bulletin on page 5, the third line from the bottom: “so that they may be one as we are one” (God is One). The next is the last line on that page: “so that the scripture might be fulfilled.” The third is in the second line on page 6: “so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.” And the fourth is in the last line of this Gospel portion: “so that they also may be sanctified in truth.” (Sanctified means set apart for a holy purpose.)

These are the goal statements, clauses that indicate the purpose or desired results of Jesus’ work, of the community’s responses to his work: so that they may be one; so that the scripture might be fulfilled (that is, the hungry fed with good things, prisoners freed, unhoused sheltered, strangers welcomed, swords beaten into farming tools – you know the drill); so that Jesus’ joy is made complete in them; so that they may be designated for a holy purpose in truth.

These goal statements are written, like any goal statements, with the future in mind. Maybe this is stating the obvious, but what Jesus isn’t praying is anything about “so that their armies can be most powerful” or “so that they may join me in heaven.” Jesus prays that his followers are sanctified in the truth that the peace of God is a liberating and loving force that trumps – indeed transforms — violence and even death. This is in stark contrast to the kind of peace – the Pax Romana — declared by Caesar that relies on oppressive force and meets violence with violence. Violence is never a just or good or loving response to violence. It diminishes the humanity of the perpetrators, whether it is imposed illegally or legally. Legally sanctioned violence in response to violence bankrupts our common life, our commonwealth, both financially and morally.

I want to remind us all that Jesus’ goals are trustworthy. Jesus’ commission is reliable. We are the heirs who have inherited the vision and the work of enacting love any which way we can – in little ways, in big ways, clumsily sometimes, skillfully sometimes — in ways that get quick results and in ways that we may never know. So let us train our eyes and open our minds and tune our hearts. Bishops Gates and Harris wrote Friday in their statement following the announcement of the jury’s sentence in the Tsarnaev case, “As a community of faith, let us rededicate ourselves to peace in every context…Let us be instruments of …[God’s] peace.”

They included the prayer attributed to St. Francis, and I want to add this from St. Francis‘12^th century contemporary, Aelred of Rievaulx, who wrote this prayer:

“Good Jesus the water of your teaching flows in silence. Your gospel is not poured into our ears by an eloquent tongue, but is breathed into our hearts by your sweet spirit. Your voice never strains nor shouts. You do not force us to hear you. You ask only that we open our heart to you, and in tranquility your love enters our soul.” [2]

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