Stay in Jerusalem: Not the easiest thing to do (Sun, May 29, 2022)

 Reading:  Luke 24:44-53

 

In the stories of the resurrection in The Gospel of Luke, when the risen Jesus appears to the disciples, the disciples are lost in incomprehension. 

 

On the afternoon of the day the tomb was discovered empty, two disciples who are walking to Emmaus are talking about all that has happened, Jesus joins them on the way, and they do not even recognize him until he joins them for an evening meal, and he breaks the bread for them. Then, later, after they rush back to Jerusalem to tell the others what they have seen and Jesus appears in the room with them all, instead of welcoming him as risen, they imagine it’s only a ghost they are seeing.

 

In both stories, Jesus chides them for their unbelief, and assures them that his death and resurrection, and their continued life and mission in the world are all part of the good working of God. 

 

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.  He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.  I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them.  While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.  Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.  And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

 

Reflection

 

Sometimes the best place to be is beyond having everything under control.  It’s not the easiest place, and not somewhere you’d want to be all the time.  But sometimes the holiest and most life-changing, soul-transforming place you can be, is where things fall apart, you’re not in control, and you know it.

 

“Stay in the city,” Jesus said.  “There you will be clothed with power from above, and the good news of new life will be known and proclaimed by you, beginning in Jerusalem.”

 

 

Would anyone but the risen Jesus have been able to convince the disciples to go back to Jerusalem, and to wait there for their new beginning?

 

In Galilee, things had gone pretty well.  Up in that northern province – home where they had family and friends, and life was familiar, things with Jesus had gone fairly well.  Following him, they had taken some first baby steps towards a new way of being, and things had gone fairly well.  With him teaching and healing the people, feeding and forgiving those in need, together they had sown little gardens of new life and love, and gathered scattered communities of healing and hope.  They felt a certain confidence.

 

Jerusalem, though, was where it all fell apart.  Within days of arriving in the city and setting up shop in the Temple – to do there what they had done in Galilee, Jesus was quickly and easily arrested, put on trial and put to death.  He was hung on a cross outside the city with other criminals.  And the movement he began and that they were part of, was hung out to dry on the hill of Golgotha.

 

And now, with the disciples still reeling from his death, the risen Jesus – Jesus raised by God from the dead, tells them “Go back to the city.  Stay in Jerusalem.  It is there you will be clothed with power from above.  And The Way of new life will be proclaimed by you.  Beginning in Jerusalem.”

 

 

Have we – have you, have I – ever known and ever been in a place like that?  In a Jerusalem of things falling apart, and of knowing you are not in control?

 

It comes to all of us in times of loss, bereavement and grief.  Not every time someone dies; some losses we take in stride fairly well.  But then there are other times, when it seems like the world falls apart, nothing is manageable, and you just ache for not being able to make it better.  You know you can’t go back to what was.  But neither do you know how to go ahead, or if you even can.  All you know is the loss, the loneliness, the longing and regret, the guilt and remorse, the anger and the sadness – none of which you are in control of, or have answers for.

 

A hard place to be – but sometimes, too, the most holy and the most soul-transforming of places.

 

In my own time of grief – I’m still only a little more than half-way through the year of firsts since Japhia’s passing, I already can’t count the number of you and of others who have proven to be, and who have taken the time to be ministers of grace to me, precisely because you’ve been through it yourself.  Having made this unwanted, unwelcome journey in your own life, you have come to know the presence and the power of God in ways that make you now able to show a new depth of compassion and care, a new level of understanding and empathy, and a new breadth of patient and hopeful faith.  And what you give to me, helps raise up – yes, raise up, as in “resurrect” the hope that I, too, will grow by this and through this into a fuller human being and a truer child and servant of God.

 

It’s not an easy place to be – this Jerusalem where things fall apart, and you know you’re not in control.  But sometimes there’s no place more holy to have to be in, and to have to wait.

 

 

Great sorrow and loss of other kinds can also bring us here.  The onset of age and life-changing weakness.  Disability and loss of livelihood – loss of control of one’s daily life and life functions.  Maybe an accident that leaves you impaired and far less in control – far less a self-sufficient person than you were before.

 

Or it could something even bigger than personal tragedy that lands you or others in dark Jerusalem.  Cycles and systems of poverty and economic injustice.  Structures of racism, ageism and other kinds of prejudice.  A tragic and senseless shooting in a school.  Or political upheaval like revolution, tyranny, war, or invasion and the horrors, atrocities and devastation of life that come with it.

 

Sometimes we just grow tired of it – weary of all the bad news.  We’re tempted to tune it out.  Stop watching.  Start doing something else more enjoyable, more pleasantly engaging, more happily distracting.   Go back to Galilee.

 

And we need that.  We need to keep our balance.  But part of that balance is also to be willing to meet, and to hear Jesus – the Jesus risen by God from death and to new life, telling us to go back to the city, to stay in Jerusalem, to let ourselves feel what’s fallen apart, and wait … wait … wait to be clothed with the power of God, the power of The Way, the power of a holy spirit greater than us, engaging us and our lives as it broods and breathes over and into the world as it is.  A Spirit that draws us into broadened connection with others around us, deeper feelings of interdependence, greater understanding of what it means that we are not alone, and greater willingness to act out of, and live into, and with what we have to offer, to be part of the unity and the flow of God’s love for all in the world.

 

According to the Gospel of Luke, the disciples went back to Jerusalem happily and hopefully.  Having met the risen Jesus – raised up by God from death to new life, and knowing that things falling apart is not the end of the world or of God’s love in our life, how could they not?  Not be willing and ready to go back to that place of their own powerlessness, to know the power of God in their lives, too?

 

The world is full of people living in Jerusalems, where things fall apart and life becomes unmanageable.  Where you know you can’t go back to what was.  And you don’t know how to go ahead towards something new and good.

 

The world needs people – God needs people, who are able themselves to be in those places of powerlessness and lack of control deeply enough and honestly enough, to be raised up by God as witnesses to the promise and the power of new life and a new way of being in the unending flow of God’s eternal love for all.

 

The thing is, there’s no control over how and when it happens.  No step-by-step guide by which we can control the outcome.  That’s kind of the point!

 

What there is, is the risen Jesus.  And his gracious call to us.  And our willingness to go back to Jerusalem, wherever and whatever that is at this moment.  And to stay there, where things fall apart and we can’t fix it.  Until we are clothed in new ways with the promise and the presence of love, and we know what God would have us do next – or at least right now, to be part of the flow of his love for all in the world.

 

Praise be to God.

Good conversation -- more than good preaching, is the way God's truth is known (Sunday, May 22, 2022)

 Reading:  Acts 16:6-15 

After Paul is converted to The Way of Jesus as the way of God and of true life, he cannot keep it to himself.  He becomes as active and aggressive in spreading good news of The Way and helping establish new communities of its followers, as he had been before in trying to squash them.

In the reading today, he and his companions are trying to sort out where to go next.  Their first thought is to go back over old territory, seeing people they already know.  God has other plans, though. 

Paul and his companions travelled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. 

During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.

On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. 

The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us. 

 

 

Reflection 

This past Wednesday on my way home from a graveside service for one of the pillars – one of the Dutch immigrant builders of the community of Winona, I met Yahaya Baruwa, an inspired and inspiring young man from Nigeria.  We talked for 20 – maybe 30 minutes, by the end of which each of us confessed to the other how grateful we were for the conversation and our meeting.

It very almost didn’t happen.

I was on my way home from the committal service – a deeply moving time of community gathering.  I stopped at Indigo to pick up a book I had ordered.  Just inside the door of the store, on the right-hand side was a table stacked with 20 or 30 copies of a book, and the author beside it, asking people if they wanted to hear his story. 

I avoided eye contact.  I made it safely past, browsed a bit, picked up a couple more grandkid books, and went to the check-out to pick up my order and pay.   Just doing my business.

I turned towards the door, and my heart sank.  He was still there, with no one around to keep him occupied.  “Please don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me, please don’t take to me” I muttered to myself behind my mask.  I almost made it to the door, then made the mistake of looking up.

“Would you like to hear my story?”  

“I’m just on my way out,” I stammered, trying to look like I had places to go and people to see.  He just stood there as I walked out the door.  No judgement on his face.  Just a quiet look maybe of sadness, tiredness, one more rejection, loneliness?

In my heart I knew I had done wrong.  As I walked to the car, I knew I should go back.  But I started the car, buckled up, drove out of the parking lot, onto Golf Links Road, headed towards home.

Three or four minutes later, though, I was back in the parking lot – same spot I had just come from.  Walked back to the store.  And yes, there he was, still standing by his books.  Alone. 

“I’m sorry,” I started.  “That was rude – the way I walked out.”

And for the next 20 minutes we talked – first, about his book, and then about him and his life.  About his attempts to follow other people’s dreams for his life.  His struggle to follow his own vision of being a writer.  His psychological plumbing of his struggles and hurts, of his mistakes and heart-breaks, and of how he has learned to be led rather than undone by the difficulties he encounters, all of which turned into the fictional story he wrote and titled, “Struggles of a Dreamer: A Novel.”  Then the jobs he took along the way – including one as a canvasser for World Vision, to support himself and be able to self-publish.  The 27,000 doors he knocked on in Toronto to try to sell the book. 

“How did that feel,” I asked, “going door to door like that?  It must have been hard.”

“At first, I was afraid as I approached every door – afraid of rejection, of disapproval or hostility, of looking silly.  Then I remembered my vision – my dream, and of touching 1,000,000 people with my story of knowing and living by your deepest vision.  Then the fear ceased to rule me.”

“Fear, huh?” I said.  “I was afraid.  It was fear that made me walk out the door the first time.  I was afraid of getting in over my head.  Of getting into a conversation that I might not know how to get out of.  Of buying a book I might not want.  I was afraid of not being in control, and that’s why I left as I did.”

By the time we finished talking, he thanked me for listening, for talking, for caring, for being open.  He said our conversation was the best thing for him that day.  I thanked him for inspiring me with his story, and I told him our conversation might end up in the sermon this morning.

I bought a copy of his book and went to pay for it.  On my way out, we shared a gesture of blessing.  And then before I went out the door, he ran after me.  I stopped, and he asked me to include in my prayers, prayers for him and his fiancée who will be married June 11.  I said I would, and we shared one more gesture of blessing, grateful smiles on both our faces. 

Our reading this morning is also a story of good, Spirit-led conversation that changes lives – and in that way, the world. 

Paul is a recent convert to The Way of Jesus.  Once the chief enforcer of the Jewish authorities against the followers of The Way, now he’s an outspoken advocate and spreader of The Way, and on the run himself from his former bosses.  He and his associate Silas are trying to plan out a missionary route, but all the places they think of – places they already know, the Spirit of God closes the door to.  Finally in a dream, Paul sees a man of Macedonia – a territory new to them, calling them to come and bring him the good news of The Way. 

So, step by open step, they come to Philippi – a Roman colony in northern Greece, the first time the followers of The Way venture into what we know today as Europe.  Shunning the centre of town and places of power, they find a riverside spot where they’ve heard people gather for prayer.  And there – open to the step-by-new-step leading of God, they meet not some Macedonian man (which was probably the only way Pauls’ mind could formulate God’s call), but a group of women, one of whom is Lydia – an independent woman, head of her household, a seller of purple cloth – a high-end commodity that would have made higher-ranking Roman bureaucrats her best customers, and a transplant herself from Thyatira, a city in Asia Minor maybe 300 miles – almost 500 kms by land from Philippi. 

They talk.  Unlike in other apostolic visits, no big sermon is recorded; no big display of power is mentioned.  They seem just to talk – Paul and Silas, and the women there for prayer.

And what do they talk about?  About the journeys they are on – geographically and spiritually?  About having left home, and being far from where they started?  About questions that they struggle with?  Challenges that test them?  Surprising answers that seem to appear?  Visions and dreams that guide them?

By the end of the day Lydia is also converted to The Way of Jesus as the answer she is looking for, to the questions she is living with.  She also opens her home to Paul and Silas – gives them a place to stay.  And from that, grows the Philippian church – the church which over the years remains the dearest to Paul’s heart, the gathering of followers of The Way that he loves the most warmly and simply.

It reminds me of a few lines near the end of a liturgy of morning prayer that I’ve been using for the past six months, “This day, O Christ, be within me and without (or beyond) me / lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. / Be in the heart of each unto whom I speak, / in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. / This day, be within me and without me, / lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.” 

And as John O’Donohue, an Irish priest and poet, has said, “Good conversation is the enemy of falsity, façade and shallowness.  It chases the truth of things, it demolishes the flimsy foundation of façade and it penetrates to the depths so as to soar into unfolding possibility.  When things stay separate and isolated they stiffen into the act of surviving, whereas when they have a conversation with each other they begin to live as the artists of their own destiny.”  (Walking in Wonder, p. 184)

I wonder, if maybe there isn’t enough conversation in the world today?

We have divides: deep divides – racially, economically, religiously, politically, personally.

We have all kinds of social media, information and communication technology, platforms from almost anyone in the world can speak, and with great power. 

We have all kinds of people – maybe all of us, on journeys, far from home, far from where we started, living with new kinds of questions, facing challenges that try us and test us.

But do we have conversation?  Do we have places outside the centres of commerce and power, places that aren’t just about speeches and performance, places not in the public eye, where people can meet, can be guided by something other than fear, can talk, and maybe in the process discover something good together?

Something neither one would ever have known or seen just on their own?  Something maybe truly, expansively and healingly of God – the God who is in the mouth of each who speaks unto us, the God who is in the heart of each unto whom we speak?

I wonder: do we know, do we have, do we help to create places like that in the world – in our own little part of the world, in our daily and weekly lives?  Where we are drawn into, and also contribute our own part to conversation beyond fear?