Easter 7A

7th Sunday after Easter-Year A June 1, 2014 We have been doing much waiting, much anticipating in the Lemburg household of late. Every day, we have been counting the number of days left in school. (Only one and half more, in case anyone needs help counting it). We have two June birthdays to which we are counting down, and we also are just about close enough that we can begin counting down the days to our summer trip to Hawaii. For me, I have always enjoyed the anticipation of the event, the preparation, the expectation that comes along with the waiting. So I am struck today by the waiting that takes place in the Acts story for today. We find ourselves in this weird sort of in between time liturgically, where Jesus has ascended to heaven (which we celebrated this past Thursday) and the church (and the disciples) are left waiting. We have been promised by Jesus that he will send his gift of the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us after he has gone. And we look forward to this. We will celebrate it at Pentecost next Sunday with red balloons and birthday cake and a baptism. We wait with expectation of what is to come. “So when they had come together, [the disciples] asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ [Jesus] replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…’” Even after all that has happened, the disciples are still waiting for their certain expectations to be fulfilled. They are counting down the days until Jesus will restore the kingdom to Israel. But Jesus blows those expectations wide open, just before he is physically taken up to heaven. And all of a sudden, the disciples are left there, looking up to heaven with their mouths hanging open. They are left there waiting without their expectations. So the question for us this morning, the invitation for us is—what is it like to wait without expectation? What is it like to wait without the countdown to something bigger and better? What is it like to wait without watching the clock? What is it like to wait without expectation? Because this is the kind of waiting we are called to in these final days of the Easter season and beyond? I’ve just begun reading a book called Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by a man named Parker Palmer. Palmer is a Quaker, and in this book, he writes about how we are all called in vocation—how vocation is not a goal that each of us pursues but rather the voice that calls us in and through our life. Vocation is our life telling each of us who we are. At the beginning of this lovely little book, Palmer quotes a poem by William Stafford titled “Ask Me” which begins to hint at what it means to wait without expectation. Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what you say. You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and going from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say. In some ways, waiting without expectation is like a frozen river: “We know/the current is there, hidden; and there/are comings and going from miles away/that hold the stillness exactly before us.” But how on earth do we do this? How do we wait without counting down the days? How do we keep moving through life and time (which we are all bound to do, no matter how much we might want to stop it) while holding the stillness exactly before us? The disciples’ response to this waiting without expectation is to stay together and to constantly devote themselves to prayer. Palmer’s response to this is that we must listen to our life; that we have deep within us, the truth of who we already are that has been covered up by the goals that we think we need to pursue and the ways that we try to fit in. I think we are called to do both (because really, they are both forms of prayer-of knowing God and knowing ourselves.) How might we do this? Palmer writes about this lyrically and with humor: “How we are to listen to our lives is a question worth exploring. In our culture, we tend to gather information in ways that do not work very well when the source is the human soul: the soul is not responsive to subpoenas or cross-examinations. At best it will stand in the dock only long enough to plead the Fifth Amendment. At worst it will jump bail and never be heard from again. The soul speaks its truth only under quiet, inviting, and trustworthy conditions. The soul is like a wild animal-tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek. That is why the poem at the head of this chapter [that I just shared with you] ends in silence…” We break bread together. And we spend time alone in silence and in prayer. This summer, I hope to spend time with Palmer’s lovely little book and to spend time in silence, listening to how my life speaks. I hope you will join me in doing this in your own life, and when we meet again in August, we will have much to share with each other. Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what you say. You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and going from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say.