Power From on High (Easter 7A)

Hans Süss von Kulmbach, The Ascension of Christ, 1513 

“Power from On High”
Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year A)

 May 24, 2020
Homily given at 10 a.m. live-streamed

Ante-Communion and Benediction
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D. 
a recording of this service 

 Acts 1:6-14; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; John 17:1-11; Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36

God, take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

Thursday was Ascension, the feast commemorating when the resurrected Jesus left the disciples, going into heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father.  The Book of Acts places it after the 40 day ministry of the resurrected Lord and ten days before Pentecost, which we celebrate next Sunday.  In chapter 24 of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus on the evening of the day of his resurrection says this:  “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in [my] 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.”

The 10 day period between Ascension and Pentecost is the archetypical time of waiting in Scripture:  “Stay where you are, shelter in place, until power comes from on high. Be patient!  Power will come!”  

There has been a lot of discussion in the last week about “reopening” churches.  But let’s be clear—the Church never shut down.  We merely limited access to the buildings as a public health measure, in a desire to do unto others as we would have them do for us, and to protect the health and safety of our most vulnerable members.  As we and the Bishop develop considered and cautious plans to gradually make the buildings available again—safely, and without undue risk—we must be patient. 

The whole issue has raised questions about what the Church actually is, and what its relationship to the larger world is.   As in many other areas of this pandemic, marginal behavior and thinking that barely got us by before seem to have been blown apart.  I offer here a few comments about what church is. 

1) Church is not the buildings or access to them.  The Church has remained active throughout all this, if anything, at enhanced levels of pastoral care and interconnection.   I have wondered in the last weeks why some people who rarely join with us under normal circumstances are so over-wrought at the prospect of the Church buildings being closed.  I think that we often coast along with the impression of community and intimacy physical gathering gives us.  We see people we barely know, ask a few niceties, and think that we have connected in a deep way.  Note: the people who have been most active in reaching out by phone, mail, or electronic means are the ones who have felt the least forlorn and isolated. 

2) Church is not a refuge from the world, where the most important thing is how we interiorly feel about matters.   N.T. Wright notes that the Church is a bridgehead into the occupied territory that is the world:  when it is being church best, it is an ensign, a signal, and an overwhelming force for breaking down the bad in the world and boosting the good.  It is not just a sign of the in-breaking of the Reign of God Jesus proclaimed, it is this in-breaking’s embodiment.  In traditional theology, this is the Church Militant, the Church carrying out Jesus’ call to make disciples of all people. 

3) Church is not just those we see and touch; nor is it just those who show up and park themselves in the pews.  The Church includes the blessed dead.  Deacon Meredith and I have been impressed again and again in the last weeks, as we recite, read, and preach in front of the little red camera light, that the empty pews are actually full of the unseen, not just the digitally present, but also beloved sisters and brothers we have known in this place who have since died and gone on to glory.  In traditional theology, this is the Church Triumphant.
 
4) The Church is not a social club, or a voluntary association of like interests.  One of the most unfortunate effects of modernity has been a reduction of faith and religion in most peoples’ minds to merely what you do in your private time.  On the one side, faith has become something not worthy of the public sphere; on the other, it has been reduced to sloganeering and emotion-mongering for some in the public sphere to manipulate others and boost their tribe.  As much as on-line services encourage the feeling that we are not a congregation but an audience, not the body of Christ in the World, but just an on-line gathering of quirky like-minded people who pursue a shared arcane hobby, this is not Church.  But Church is the united prayer, mutual loving service, and the common hope of followers of Jesus, whether we remain physically separated or not.    This is the Mystical Church, the Servant Church, the Body of Christ. 

Just as those disciples in the 10 day gap between Ascension and Pentecost were at loose ends, and impatient, we need to follow Jesus’ counsel:  stay put and wait for power from on high!   Again, those most living in the Spirit through all of this are the ones who seem least the troubled and vexed by it.  

We should, I think, take this period of physical separation as an exile of sorts.  It is not an exile imposed by wicked agents of the State—remember—we closed our building before the State imposed the rules.  And it most definitely is not an exile to be relieved by some populist savior or the Feds.  We will find re-entry into our spaces in accordance with our values and the direction of our ecclesiastical leaders, in ways that minimize the risk to the most vulnerable, not because some among us simply are exhausted and inconvenienced by the whole mess. 

Rather, this exile has been given the Church as a blessing by the God whose body the Church is.  It is, after all, a way of showing our love and concern for the least of these, our family members.  As the Israelites in Babylon ironically sang, “How can I sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”  We’re learning to sing God’s love even when we cannot touch each other.  Soon, when we gather again, perhaps, we will have to learn to sing God’s love without a great deal of physical singing at all, since the open mouths and lungs that produce the beauty of holiness also, unhappily, have been shown to effectively spread this contagion.  

But the song of the Hebrew Slaves in Babylon, captured so well by Verdi in Nabucco, I think, captures how our love of the church in a time of exile still allows us to sing God’s love:

Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate;
Va, ti posa sui clivi, sui colli,
Ove olezzano tepide e molli
L'aure dolci del suolo natal!
Del Giordano le rive saluta,
Di Sionne le torri atterrate...
Oh, mia patria sì bella e perduta!

Oh, membranza sì cara e fatal!

Go, thoughts, on golden wings;
Go, settle upon the slopes and hills,
where warm and soft and fragrant are
the breezes of our sweet native land!
Greet the banks of the Jordan,
the towers of Zion ...
Oh my country so beautiful and lost!
Oh memory so dear yet full of grief!

Jesus does not need buildings for his work to go forward. He needs us.  If we are asked, “Where is God in the pandemic?” I hope we can answer, “In the helpers, the caregivers, and those who are sacrificing for the good of others.”  I hope we can affirm, “God is in the love shown by those who give up what they love, even what they love most, to help others.”  I hope we can say, “God is in us and our putting aside our own wishes so we can do what’s right to help others.”  

Of course, our buildings serve as ensigns and symbols in most people’s minds that the Kingdom of God is up and running.  It is important to return from our exile as soon as we can without causing great danger or harm. 

But in this, we need the blessing and power of the spirit: power from on high.  Let us pray for and pursue this, even as we wait in patience.     

In the name of Christ,  Amen