Comments for Jim Other sermons   

            Life is transition and most transitions mean loss – frequently the loss of someone or something that is beloved. To grow we must face such losses squarely; whatever is lost is gone. But once we accept this, God gives us something back. Though the form of the beloved is gone, the essence of what was lost is returned to us in new forms. Spiritually, we are called to let go of the sacred as we know it, experience the pain of loss, and receive God’s presence in new forms. Understood this way, transitions are like windows, moments of opportunity to look into the heart of God.

            The scripture lesson this morning portrays an important transition – and it involves facing the loss of the physical form of Jesus. The setting is the Last Supper. In John’s Gospel Jesus speaks words of farewell and then a prayer in which he expresses his understanding of his mission. God sent him into the world, to proclaim and to embody God’s unconditional love for the world. Jesus speaks of a profound spiritual unity between God and himself and each person in the world. Jesus asks God to protect his disciples so “that they may be one, as we, you and I God, are one.” He is asking that the unity among these disciples be the same as the unity between God and Jesus – we are sent into the world to proclaim and to embody God’s unconditional love. And if such a unity exists, then they and we are called to the same mission as Jesus. In saying this, it is important to remember two things. First, when the writer of John’s Gospel refers to “the world”, what he means is the mess we find around us. This is not the world of beauty and goodness that God created, but the world of the evening news – the world as created by Caesar, by Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, by those who corrupt politics and abuse power, the world of materialism, racism, militarism and homophobia. This is the “world” into which God sent Jesus. And secondly, Jesus’ mission was not to come and whisk his followers up and out of this broken world, but to send us into the midst of it to be God’s agents of healing and reconciliation, just as God sent Jesus. This is, incidentally, not the mission of a Gnostic Jesus, as might be found in the Gospel of Philip (which figures so prominently in “The Da Vinci Code”) or the newly uncovered Gospel of Judas. Such a Gnostic Christ comes into a world that has been bungled badly from the beginning, bringing the insider-knowledge we need to get of here as soon as possible and get back to heaven. But the Jesus of the New Testament comes to show us the way, the truth, and the life, and to lead us into lives of compassion and justice and peace and joy right here and right now.

            For less than three years, Jesus walked and taught and healed, told stories and went to parties. Inevitably, he came up against the people running the world – a nasty coalition of religion and empire that was determined to be rid of him. At the Last Supper Jesus tells his friends that soon he will be gone. They will no longer see him and know him in the same way. At one level it is the end of something. But at a deeper level it is a transition. The Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is coming. And that Spirit, though of a different form than Jesus, will convey God in a new experience. God will still be speaking, but in a new way.  

            Jesus’ statement “that they may be one” is the motto of the United Church of Christ. Our denomination was conceived and came to birth in an era of ecumenical optimism about the possibilities for unity in the Christian Church. Unfortunately the dream has fallen on hard times. Among our Protestant churches there are fierce disputes over just about everything, including the meaning of Jesus and the role of the church.

            What do Jesus’ farewell words have to say to us this morning? He says he wants us to be as united and as close to one another as he and God the Creator are. St. Paul would later say that we should have one mind and that should be the mind of Christ. Here at Christ Congregational Church we are approaching our Annual Congregational Meeting. At that meeting we will seek to come to one mind on our priorities, our budget, our resources, our vision. How are we to become one and what shall we unite around?  Let me briefly suggest two things.

            Lois and I have just completed another series on Couples’ Communication. And I am struck anew by the wisdom of a basic teaching of that program. Simply put: Love is about good communication, and good communication is about understanding, not agreement. In the life of a congregation, our goal is unity in understanding, not agreement. To do this calls for the very best in each of us – patience, humility, a capacity to listen, a respect for good process, and a striving to understand and appreciate and truly let people be who they are and where they are – a radical acceptance. This is impossible without prayer because these are gifts of the Holy Spirit, graces of God. For each of us, our opinions, even our dreams, are the outward forms of our inward individuality. It is below the surface, at the level of understanding, that we experience our unity, our spiritual oneness with each other and with God. True love is not passionate attachment to people we like. True love, agape, means understanding not agreement with people we like and people we don’t like – people we agree with and people we don’t. Same love.

            Second, unity is about right deeds, not right answers. What is so stunning about Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan is that everybody knew that the Samaritan was hated because he had different answers to life’s questions than the answers of a Levite or a Pharisee or the Inn Keeper or maybe even the man fallen among thieves – different answers from the obviously right ones we can agree on. We can’t hear what the story is about unless we hear it afresh – as the parable of the good illegal immigrant, the good atheist, the good transsexual, the good Sunni, the good Shi’ite, the good secular humanist, the good K Street lobbyist. You fill in the blank. Within Christianity, people will come up with different answers about the nature of God, Jesus, and the mission of the church. But faith is not really about answers. It is about helping one’s neighbor – and our neighbor is anyone who is up against it and needs our help. In our congregation, in our world, I believe it is about understanding not agreement, and it is about right deeds, not right answers.

            I began this by suggesting that transitions are opportunities for looking beneath the surface of our lives, looking into the face of God as we face loss and change. This morning, we have had three such opportunities. In remembering and honoring our veterans, living and departed, we affirm that these are people who sacrificed individual needs, even life itself, for a greater good. Commentator Mark Shields said the other night that what inspired him about the guilty verdicts on Enron’s Lay and Skilling is that a defense costing an estimated $70 million dollars mounted by lawyers in eight hundred dollar shoes and classy suits fell before the hard work of Justice Department lawyers, civil servants being paid far, far less – people who are somehow finding time to pay attention to their kids soccer games and school plays. And thanks to jury members who took their citizenship responsibilities with utmost seriousness. This time the undeserving rich didn’t get away with it. For me, somehow the sacrifice of our veterans connects with that.

            We experienced the welcoming of Ryan Brown into the Body of Christ. This is a powerful transition involving deepened responsibility for Jaci and John, and also a time to recall those not here to share in the event – people like Mary and Richard and Jeff. But they are here in a different form - in the form of love and devotion and family.

            And we marked the transition of Julia Jarvis leaving our staff but not our community. It is a time of appreciation for her energetic good deeds of compassion. And it is a reminder that ministry does not belong to individuals. Ministers and lay leaders come and they go. The faces of leadership in our community of faith are always changing. But what remains is the Holy Spirit, the teachings and the example of Jesus, and the Creator God who has called us into being, into community, into the world, and into God’s very own heart.

AMEN

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