Easter 6A

Easter 6A May 21, 2017 First of all, let me say how wonderful it is to be back with y’all today! I’d like to take a brief opportunity to thank you; I learned so much from you about how to love and be loved as a priest and her people. I continue to be deeply grateful for my time with you and for the continued friendships that have lasted over the years! Our gospel reading for today picks up right where we left off last week. Jesus is speaking to his disciples over the course of several chapters in John’s gospel that are known as the farewell discourse as Jesus is trying to prepare his disciples for what is to come as they are gathered together in the Upper Room just before the Last Supper. He has just told them to not let their hearts be troubled and that he is going before them to prepare a place for them. In our reading for today, he promises that he will ask God to send them an Advocate who will be with them so that they shall not be orphaned. The King James Version actually translates it as “I will ask the Father to send you a Comforter” and he promises, “I will not leave you comfortless.” And doesn’t that sound lovely? When we, like the disciples, are faced with times of uncertainty and transition in our own lives, it is helpful to remember Jesus’s promised gift of the Holy Spirit to comfort us. I like to think of the Holy Spirit showing up, draping a nice down throw around my shoulders, giving me a cup of chamomile tea and patting me on the head and saying, “There, there, love. Everything’s going to be ok.” (maybe even with a charming British accent?) And sometimes the Holy Spirit does show up and do that. And in those times I am extremely grateful. But I have also learned that I cannot limit myself to that understanding of the Holy Spirit, because sometimes the work of the Holy Spirit in my life and in the life of the church is offered in different and unexpected ways. One of the presenters at the Preaching conference that we went to this past week, a United Methodist Bishop named Will Willimon said it this way: “Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit to teach us lessons we cannot learn on our own.” Three years ago, I was on an 8 week sabbatical in Hawaii where David was working for 10 months. Our family had a wonderful time and experienced so many unique and interesting things. One night, our friend Paul convinced both David and me to go skydiving with him and a group of our friends. (Let me just say I have no idea why I agreed to this! As most of you know, I am one of the least likely people to do agree to go skydiving. But I did.) As we went to bed the night before our skydiving trip, I lay awake for hours absolutely terrified. I lay there imagining what it was going to be like to stand in the doorway of the open side of the plane and to have to jump out into the great wide open. And I thought, “I don’t know how I’m going to do that.” But I had committed to going and didn’t want to back out. When the day finally arrived and we got all suited up for our jump, I was introduced to my tandem jumper, a very large Russian man named Viktor. As Viktor tried to make small talk with me, I think he quickly realized that a). I was absolutely terrified and b). I couldn’t talk much because I was trying not to throw up. We took off in the plane as Viktor wasis religiously checking and re-checking all the buckles and straps of our two harnesses, and all too quickly, it became our turn to go. The moment I had most feared loomed before me. I made my way to stand in the doorway of the plane thinking that there was no way I was going to be able to do this, when Viktor did something that surprised me. He shouted in my ear to sit down on the floor of the plane and dangle my legs out. I felt a certain degree of momentary relief as I followed his instructions, and the next thing I knew, I was out of the plane and hurtling through the great blue sky. Now, what I only realized later after talking to our friends was how Viktor and I actually got out of that plane. Our friends confessed how horrified they were to watch as Viktor actually threw me/us out of the airplane. And you know, as much as I like to see that lovely comforting Holy Spirit show up with a cup of tea and words of comfort, sometimes the Comforter shows up and, like Viktor, throws us out of the airplane because there is just no way we are getting out on our own. And thankfully, the Holy Spirit stays connected as we free fall for what seems like an eternity but is really only seconds and then deploys the parachute with a tremendous jerk that leads us to land (, sometimes softly, sometimes not), at our destination. How has the Holy Spirit has shown up in unexpected ways in your life or in the life of your parish during times of transition? In what ways might God be calling you to trust in the work of the Holy Spirit, as unexpected as it might be? What are the lessons that the Holy Spirit may be trying to teach you right now that you are not able to learn on your own? There are certain seasons in our lives when we are called, as followers of Jesus to wait and to watch, to open ourselves to new life that the Spirit is calling forthfor in us. These can be times of uncertainty and anxiety, but they can also be times when we grow in our faith, trusting in what another writer calls “the slow work of God.” The poet Jane Kenyon captures this openness to the unknown and the unexpected in her lovely poem Let Evening Come that I will share with you in closing. “Let Evening Come” by Jane Kenyon Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as the sun moves down. Let the cricket take up chafing as a woman takes up her needles and her yarn. Let evening come. Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned in long grass. Let the stars appear and the moon disclose her silver horn. Let the fox go back to its sandy den. Let the wind die down. Let the shed go black inside. Let evening come. To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop in the oats, to air in the lung let evening come. Let it come, as it will, and don’t be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come.