You might be tempted to think that I just can’t get enough of my own clever alliterations with words! But in fact those titles help me focus on a truth brought home by this moment in the church year. (And, by the way, this is a continuation of that sermon, not a repeat.)
The truth those titles focus on flies in the face of conventional wisdom, as God’s truths often do. We say, “You can’t eat your cake and have it too!” And if it is cake we’re really talking about, that’s fine and good.
But if it is God’s love we’re talking about, then that saying can lead us down the wrong path. The truth about God’s love is we can only have it by giving it away.
This is in rather stark contrast to many of the good things the world has to offer. We work hard to earn the money to have a good life, from chocolate and ice cream, to a nice dinner at a restaurant from time to time, to retirement and travel.
Especially in a society such as ours, in which economic growth depends on our purchasing goods and services, we learn to understand “good things” as things we can possess. And then something happens that drives home the illusory nature of possession. The economy nosedives. Hurricanes, tornadoes and floods demonstrate their power.
We get so confused at times that we think we possess the people God has put in our lives: our children, our spouses, our friends. And then life happens. Children grow up and leave. Friends and family die. We must let go. We discover that love and relationship cannot be put in a jar and stored, like pints of mayhaw jelly lined up on the pantry shelf, to be pulled out and enjoyed during the off season.
“To love” is a verb! It is a way of being in the world that is a lot like breathing: half taking in and half letting go, taking in, letting go. We breathe in God’s love for us, and breathe it out in our love for one another. We breathe in our love for one another, and breathe it back to God.
This truth, that we must give away God’s love in order to have it, is brought home by this last Sunday of Easter. Throughout Eastertide, we have heard Jesus over and over attempt to prepare his disciples for the fact that he must soon leave them… again.
Remember, he left them seemingly for good on Good Friday, only to return in resurrected body three days later. But even as they were struggling to adjust to his appearing and disappearing at will, entering and leaving rooms without using the doors, popping up to cook breakfast on the beach, looking not quite like the Jesus they knew… yet undeniably him…
Even as they were struggling to grasp this new reality, he was preparing them for something else. Two Sundays ago, he reminded them that he was going where they could not go, at least not yet. Last Sunday he said, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” What a contradiction in terms!
And then, he goes. Just like that—and seemingly without warning—he lifts up his hands, prays for them and blesses them, and rises into the clouds.
How mystified they must have been! The Gospel accounts say they “gazed” into heaven. Older translations say, “Their eyes were fixed.” In other words, they stared after him.
And now here we are in that same pregnant pause. Jesus of the resurrected body is gone. The words of his magnificent prayer for us ring in our ears. We are those who “believe…through their word,” that is the word preached and written first by those disciples, the word that has continued to be spoken down through the centuries.
We are those who have received his glory, so that we may be completely one as he and the Father are one. So that we may know the Father’s love as Jesus the Christ knew the Father’s love, and so that we may share that love with the world, which does not know the Father’s love.
How mystified we still are at this good thing from God that can only be had by giving it away. Love in relationship with God and the people of our lives has its being in moment by moment and day by day interactions. We must live it rather than try to possess it.
But we have an advantage the disciples did not have at that moment of watching Jesus leave them--again. We know about Pentecost; they had yet to experience it.
We know that by letting go of Jesus the resurrected body, they—and we—receive him in a whole knew way. They did not yet know.
Yes, Jesus had tried to tell them that too. “I will go away, and I will come to you,” he had said. The Father will send a comforter, he had said. And he had breathed on them. Yet they did not know.
They had to let him go, to watch him go. And then, when they began to share the love he had for them and the Father had for them through him, he came again on that glorious Pentecost day
And he comes again, over and over, whenever and wherever believers invite him.
Because we are doing Morning Prayer today, we skipped the Epistle reading. It is the closing verses of the Revelation to John, and I want to read it now because it ends with a prayer. Most obviously, this prayer is for the final coming of Jesus the Christ. But it is a prayer we can pray at any time, and it is perfectly suited to this breathless moment between the Ascension of our Lord and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Here's the reading:
“At the end of the visions I, John, heard these words:
‘See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.
It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star." (Revelation 22: 12-14, NRSV)
And now here is the prayer:
"The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.” (Revelation 22: 16-17, NRSV)
AMEN.
