Sermon for the 7th Sunday of Easter

"(Jesus) ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father...'you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.'” (Acts 1:4-5)

I had an odd feeling the other day. I walked into my home after a busy work day, and there was my wife sitting on the couch watching TV, and from our “guest” bedroom came the sounds of gunfire and explosions, which actually seemed quite normal to me. After all, my son has a number of video games. Some take place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Some take place on the beaches of Normandy. Some take place in some modern country that ends in “stan.” But it’s all the same: good guys fighting bad guys while trying not to become bad guys themselves. So I walked by that bedroom, and said “Hi John.” Then I remembered that this was not all that normal. I hadn’t heard that sound in months because John has been in a state far, far away. But for a second, I felt as if I was in our old home. It felt as if John had never left.

I think that the three of us are between a full nest and an empty nest. We are between a relationship of authority, and a relationship of equals. It’s going to take time to redefine that relationship. And so we wait, between a past that seems comforting but is no longer real, and a future whose landscape we can’t see yet.

That is also where Jesus’s disciples are, in the reading from Acts. Jesus has left this earth and his friends. Jesus has left behind a promise. But we don’t know what shape that promise will take. The Greek word for spirit and wind are the same. Both are kind of hard to see. Both can be quite unpredictable. Sometimes, it’s easier to look back and hold on to the past, even if it isn’t really there anymore. So what are we to do in this “between” time? We are to pray and hang on to each other.

The disciples in today’s reading are hanging on to a past of their own: “Lord, has the time finally come? Are you about to restore Israel’s independence? Has the time finally come when the nations that have oppressed us for so long will realize how wrong they were and come to us begging forgiveness?” This is the vicious cycle that Israel has known for too long: return to their promised land; forgetfulness of their God; oppression, exile, even attempted genocide; another return to their land and yet another round of conquest and bondage. Of course, Jesus’s followers want to see the restoration of the kingdom of David, when Israel was the conqueror, and was free to worship her God without fear.

And what do they get from Jesus? A shrug of the shoulders, and this non-answer: “I don’t know what time my Father has set for these things, and you know, it’s really none of your business.” I think that at least some of his disciples got a little perturbed. So then Jesus says to them, “Wait. I know this doesn’t make sense right now, but wait. Wait for the Holy Spirit. I can’t tell you what day he’s going to show up. But a heck of a wind is going to come in. And that wind is going to blow you in new directions, to places in this world you can’t imagine right now. Wait.”
And so they wait together and pray together, with one purpose: to look for the coming of that holy wind, that will bring a new purpose, and the power to carry out God’s purpose for them. And in this promise of Jesus, they trust.

We too are “between.” Our attendance is up this year from what it has most recently been, but not as high as it has been in the more distant past. We would like our numbers to increase more, but we wonder where those new people will come from. So, we are between a time of conflict and instability, and a time of growth and stability. We are between youth and age. There are many of us closer to the end of our physical lives than the beginning, who need more help than we used to. There are also many of us who are very close to that beginning, and who need help to begin navigating this good and dangerous world. We are between the needs of both young and old, ministering to both. By this time next week, we will have celebrated two births, and we have recently had three burials. We are between life and death.

Our community is in a "'between" time. At the Albertville High School graduation, I could count on one hand the number of African Americans I saw getting a diploma. I suspect that before the mid 1990s, Albertville was a pretty homogeneous place, based on skin color. We all know that it isn't today. And whatever mistakes have been made in the past, changing government policies will not change the current demographics in this community. This community is between a unity based on a common race, and a unity rooted more deeply in our common humanity.

And so, as we wait together, we pray together, just as those first disciples waited and prayed together. We pray together on this and every Sunday. We pray together in our daily prayer – here in the church or on the Blog. We pray together for healing in our Tuesday Eucharist. And praying together and waiting together, we grow more and more into that outward and visible sign of Christ’s love that people around us need.

Next Sunday, we will celebrate that Holy wind that blew the first disciples in directions they could never have imagined. Pray this week for the Holy Spirit to blow us in God's direction.