Welcome one and all - let’s do a little date check-in, because who really knows what day it is anymore, right? This is allegedly Sunday if you can believe what people tell you. Not only that, but it is also the seventh Sunday of Easter - did you know there was more than one? There are eight Sundays between Easter and Pentecost - this is Sunday seven. You want to talk conspiracies: Why only chocolate on the first Sunday? I’m just saying as we are reassessing everything in life chocolate every Sunday of Easter should probably be a thing.
It is also our eleventh weekend since words like “Unprecedented times, new normal, physical distancing, social distancing, and wash your hands ya filthy animal have become commonplace. So this is when we are in the world. I hope this finds you well, and if not, may you know that we are in this together and that you are not alone, even though we are apart.
If you are at all a sci-fi geek you know that May 4th is Star Wars Day, because “May the Fourth be with you” and all that. So on May 3rd, or Star Wars Eve, in this time of quarantine, our youngest suggested we do a movie marathon to end all marathons: Let’s watch ALL the star wars movies without stopping, And at first said No - but then - I don't know guys, I remembered our family vacation motto of “if it’s not a good moment it’s a good memory” and we said yes to this very bad idea and at 3:30 pm on Star Wars Eve, May 3rd we started watching and didn’t stop till 26.5 hours later on May the 4th when all 11 movies plus one new Clone wars episode had been watched. Quarantine does not always make you smarter. And it so happens at our house around 4 am on May the 4th, the fools that were still awake started episode four which is The original movie called: Star Wars: A New Hope.
Leading up to this movie story, the Rebels and the Jedi (who are, stay with me, the good guys in this story) have spent years - well, five movies, fighting the increasingly evil Empire. Earlier, Their hopes hung on one prophesied Jedi, Anakin Skywalker, to right the universe and bring balance to the force, but. Spoiler alert: (and this is also where all bible analogies also fall apart) Anakin has become one of the bad guys and the good guys are on the run with the surviving Jedi masters in exile. Things look grim and now, this story opens with the Star Wars universe searching for a New Hope. So this - is a sermon about finding New Hope, especially when things don’t go as planned.
And if this is going to be a sermon about hope, I guess I better define what I mean - because the word hope is a bit like the word awesome and it can mean different things to different people. The hope I’m talking about today is NOT a flimsy thing. It’s not like what my kids hope for every night after dinner: ice cream and more TV time. It’s more than a wish, or fluffy optimism. Real hope is hard. It’s a belief that sits right up next to the pain of unmet desires- of all we don’t know but all that we want resolved. Hope is not “whatever man” with a cute dress on- It requires grit and patience and risk and unknowing. Hope stands on the shoulders of faith and is a tenacious belief, regardless of what is happening in the moment, that the moral arc of the world bends towards the peace and justice of heaven. That’s hope. We need that kind of hope. That’s what I mean when I talk about hope.
In Act 1:6 (NRSV) we begin:
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7
Context: These are Jewish men - for centuries they’ve passed down stories and interpreted scripture and believed that the Messiah would come for the people of Israel and rule and reign (as they understood ruling and reigning). They believed He would have power and dominion and they would finally be on top - God’s chosen people will be the winners. This is the historical narrative, the lens they view life with, that they were born with. We all have a lens. This is theirs.
Jesus has been crucified, buried and then resurrected and he’s appeared and disappeared to his gang in a few different ways. He’s human, but he’s not always recognizable to them at first and he can apparate from one place to the next. So he’s the same but different. Maybe the guys are feeling like: Ok - we get it, this is the new you, I can accept that, this is your new way, I can dig that, Cool, cool, cool. I mean, the whole Messiah thing was kind of dashed when you died, to be honest, Jesus, but we’re back to plan A now that you’re alive and kicking,right Jesus? NOW the time you set up your kingdom, you have been victorious now so shall we. We get it now! Enter the voice of the narrator: The disciples still do not get it now.
7- He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
The conversation kind of reminds me of the first post-resurrection conversation Jesus had with Mary -not a rebuke but a gentle reminder when he says: “don’t cling to me” - he’s saying: don’t get caught up in your projections, attachments or limitations of who and how I am. Here, Jesus reminds his disciples that God holds the details but he IS inviting them into something better, bigger, and more expansive than politics that support their religious laws. This is about the power of a kingdom on earth that reveals the nature of heaven. A kingdom that is other-centered, self-giving and radically forgiving; a kingdom of love.
There’s a few words we might need to reclaim or reconstruct. The first is kingdom: when we hear the word kingdom we can easily think like the disciples did: ultimate power, dominance, servants, allegiance, bigger, better, pomp and circumstance. I’m fond of the word: kin-dom, coined long ago by a Fransciscan nun. The kin-dom is people that know they come from God, are ruled by the love of God and belong to God and one another as kindreds, a radical, world changing family system, this kin-dom. Not a kingdom of dominance but a kin-dom of empowerment for all people including the least of these. That is a new hope Jesus has come to reveal.
Jesus is saying to his disciples once more with feeling: if you are hoping for Political salvation, Economic dominance, Us over them scenarios, - to quote Star Wars: these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Jesus reminds them that God is about to release a new power through the Holy Spirit to each person and experiencing this self-emptying power will change your life, and your politics, and your economics and it will absolutely disrupt your illusions of us vs them.
The second redefinition is around this idea of Christ emptying himself. When we say Jesus emptied himself we are not saying he became less God. What I want to instead think is this: he emptied himself of the history of disconnected humanity’s projection of what power meant. Dominance, subjection, other-control, violence. Those have never been and never will be the power of the kin-dom. In laying down those false projections he showed us what it is to become truly full and revealing everything God placed in the potential and possibility of humanity made in God’s image. Jesus showed us how to be more human, not how he became less God.
When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
And this is the moment. This is the moment when the disciples need to decide. Will they hold on to how they THOUGHT it would be, how they THOUGHT it would look, they way restoration was “SUPPOSED” to be? Or will they expand their hearts, empty themselves of their egoic understanding of power, rule and reign and embrace the kin-dom of God?
It is hard to let go of hopes plus attachments. That’s the work that Mary, or the disciples needed to do to embrace what Jesus was saying. They had to lose their attachments, and so do we. Attachments are the details, the how and why and way we expect things to happen to make bad things better or good dreams greater. So if faith and hope are the path that leads to life -then attachments can create ditches: On one side, we’ve got brutal reality. Living by brutal reality alone will leave you in despair when relationships don’t unfold as planned, when we experience loss, sickness, pain. Brutal reality alone breaks us when we see the systemic racism and broken economic systems and that all of them perpetuate death and injustice. This ditch will keep you from praying for things like healing, or letting God prophesy a new dream or way of being into our communities because of how hard and broken the past has been. If that’s where you’re living - you need a new hope. We need a new hope, don’t we?
On the other side we have Beautiful Possibility. If we are stuck there we can get so fixated on finding the sunny side we lose all sense of what’s real. In this ditch we go hard after Jesus we’re gonna see nothing but breakthrough we are gonna pray through till it comes, because glory to glory and strength to strength I can FEEL it in my Spirit-man. YOu know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Can you feel it in your spirit, man? We cry out endlessly for God to rescue us in this way or that way. When we fixate on getting that beautiful possibility to happen we get caught always chasing but never catching the future God-goodness. We create an experience of a stingy God that demands spiritual gymnastics and cries of MORE, MORE! MORE! before he will come through for us. When we are stuck in beautiful possibility alone we fail to see God right now in our pain, in our difficulty, inviting us into a slow and gentle process that takes all the pain we are willing to move through and spins it into the golden threads of redemption and transformation. Beautiful possibility alone will not save us. We need a new hope.
In both ditches we end up living with disappointments because we attached meaning to the way things were or are “supposed” to turn out, instead of resting in the one who walks the path with us. I’m convinced the path to real hope that is alive and new and doesn’t break us is only found in the tension of brutal reality and beautiful possibility. Not stuck in the past, or hoping for the future, but in the present, in fact - in the presence of a good God who sees us and is with us, right now.
Sometimes the most hopeful thing we can do is have little funerals for our projections and attachments. Thanks to Rob Bell for the metaphor, boy is it helpful. I think I could preach a whole sermon on that: letting go so we can keep going and walk the path with hope. We need a new hope. And so do the disciples - And to their credit - the disciples seem to do that.
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. 13 When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.
I’m taking a course and one of my teachers, Rev. Rene August has taught me to ask this question of scripture: Where is the movement of power?
Here, The story starts out with those Jewish men that had influence and connection with Jesus and a narrative that told them hope looked like Jesus becoming a ruler for them on earth. But look what happens: it ends with those men, plus women. And the women are together praying and waiting for God’s next good thing - they’re together in practice and spirit. Of course it’s not the first time it ever happened because Jesus had been centering marginalized voices since forever, but it’s significant the change from the beginning to end of this section. The disciples emptied themselves of their power and privilege and made room for more voices, and they invite us to grab the baton and do the same, don’t they? They threw the net wider. If you are looking for what God is doing then and now - look for the movement of power.
I thought about the movement of power when Jesus spoke of leaving so that he could give the disciples and us the Holy Spirit.
Have you ever noticed, It seems like Jesus believes he isn’t empty enough. Leave it to God to have kindom power that looks like loss and emptying to our egos but is in fact a pathway to fullness. After literally pouring out his life to consume death he says, I can do one better: If I go, I can pour out my Spirit on ALL people. ALL. Jesus is the way, he is the path of hope between those two ditches. And he is not satisfied, not empty enough, until ALL are empowered. That is the movement of the kindom and that gives me hope.
I’ve thought about the movement of power when those when men in white said “Jesus will come in the same way you saw him go into heaven.”
I was taught to interpret that “he’ll come back in the way he came” like this: he floated up, and one day, when you least expect it, the trump will sound and he’ll float down. And THEN he’ll kick butt and set up his kingdom where ALL SHALL BOW! Oh egos. We want to interpret Jesus back into dominance so badly, don’t we? I’m happy to reconstruct that narrative, if we think that’s THE WAY of the kingdom enter again the Narrator: this is not the way.)
If we think that waiting around for thousands and thousands of years for Jesus to return and make things right is good news, I don’t know, man. I think we can do better. We can be like Jesus, like the disciples and look to empty ourselves for the sake of others. In big ways and small ways. It all counts in the kindom! Maybe, today, we can’t see the literal body of Christ showing up and showing us the way, but make no mistake God has not left the building, ever, not even for one second. Jesus Christ is no longer visible as a single person, but rather visible in every person who lives, moves and has their being in the way,the truth and the life of Jesus.
What if Colossians 1:27 really is true and it’s Christ in us (not Christ one day)that is the hope of glory?
What if holding onto hope does not mean demanding that our rights, our freedoms and our gatherings get to resume on our timeline. When did Jesus ever do that? What if getting back to normal is the least hopeful thing we could do right now?
What if Jesus returns and rises in the way he left as every frontline worker, researcher, politician and service provider does their best to bring health and treatments and policies and goods and services to our nations in the best way they know how? Can we see Jesus there? What if Jesus returns in the way that he left in every person physically and socially distancing, donning masks and wiping carts down to help flatten the curve and protect the most vulnerable of our population. What if God is Christ is rising among us in people decorating their cars and reminding grads, grownups and kids on their birthdays that they are worthy of parade, and we will not stop celebrating you, even though we can’t be together. What if Jesus returns and rises among us, as cars line the path to the cemetery and people stand car by car in honour guard to say to bereaved families - we see you, we grieve with you, you are not forgotten. What if Jesus returns everytime we educate ourselves or partner with organizations that are committed to ending modern day slavery, systemic racism and economic injustice? What if God in Christ rises every time we recognize our privilege and make room for more voices, more places, more spaces at the table. Jesus is returning again and again in the acts of goodness, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, joy and love at the hands of God’s human children. We cannot see him but we can tell when the Spirit of Christ has saturated the atmosphere. Whatever it is, however it is we participate in this liberation of all creation, in this miracle of life in the kindom of God Jesus is returning and we cannot stop it no matter what is happening in the world. That is the new hope. The question is: Will we have eyes to see it? Ears to hear the whispers of the new day? Will we put our hands and hearts to participate in this way like the disciples and the women did? Will we let our attachments go so that we can experience the new hope, right here, right now?
I think we will. I think we are. Look at us, gathering together in this crazy way. We are participating in the return of Jesus over and over again just by doing the work to reveal your God-given beloved self. I look at all of you here today and I know Jesus is rising among us, you are what the Good News looks like. Christ in you, in us, together, is the greatest hope we have.
So as we close, I want to invite us to just take a deep breath. And maybe you want to ask yourself in the presence of God, of the ever-returning Savior, where do I have hope plus attachments? Let me tell you, Ive had a few doozies to let go of this week. This is the work. Ask the love that liberates:Where can I let go? Where is the movement of power happening in and around me? Whatever it is, can I invite you to thank that attachment for all it tried to do and then relieve it of duty, give it a little funeral and let it go. If you’ve been in a ditch - no worries, just reach out and find the hands of the risen Christ pulling you back into that spacious tension between the brutal and the beautiful. Finally, I would invite you to open your hands to receive a new hope. Hope can be held with an open hand, there is enough for all of us. that’s good news. How does Christ return in and through you today. In this season? May Christ have mercy on us and may Christ be mercy through us.
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