Revised Common Lectionary readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B: Acts 10:44-48, Psalm 98, 1 John 5:1-6, and John 15:9-17.
Are you a music fan? A classical music fan? I am. I love the great symphonies – Beethoven’s Fifth, his Ninth, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth, Dvorak’s From the New World, and many others – they just bowl me over. I can sit down in a concert venue and no matter what emotional state I may be in, a good symphony or concerto can overcome it – cynicism, depression, grumpiness, whatever my condition may be it will be conquered by the music and I will be uplifted. It doesn’t even have to be live in a concert hall. Sometimes when I’m feeling a bit out of sorts, I’ll put on a CD and just let great music lift me up. In fact, even badly played band music can have that effect.
When we first moved from Nevada to Kansas in 1993, Evelyn was unable to accompany the children and me. We had been unable to sell our home and she was unable to transfer her job for several more months. So she stayed in Las Vegas while in August the kids and I moved into an A-Frame farmhouse on 40 acres just outside the town of Bucyrus, Kansas. The kids enrolled in Circle Grove Elementary School and Patrick decided he wanted to learn to play a musical instrument in the band. So he started instruction on the clarinet. Three weeks into the semester, the Fifth Grade Band had its first concert. Believe me that I am being inordinately charitable when I describe it as abysmal – it was SO bad!
Several weeks later Evelyn was able to join us for a few days at Thanksgiving and it just happened that the band was giving its second concert, a holiday offering, while she was with us. Well . . . to be honest, once again, with still only three months of instruction, the band was terrible. But they were so much better, by orders of magnitude better, than they had been at the end of September that I just couldn’t shut up about how good they were. Evelyn looked at me like I had lost my mind; four months in Kansas had clearly unhinged me! But I just had to get down to the stage to tell the band instructor what a marvelous job she had done! I was simply gushing with excited praise for what she had accomplished.
This is precisely what is happening in John’s First Letter. He is so excited about the love of God, so effusive that words just keep flowing across his page: I can see him sitting with his stylus scribbling away, trying to find new ways to write about this wonderful new Christian faith. The way he repeats things, the way his ideas tumble over one another, you can tell he’s just bubbling over with enthusiasm and eagerness.
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith.
In fact, John’s vision of the Christian faith is just like my experience of sitting in a symphony hall. The way my mood, whatever it may be, is overcome by the music is the way John envisions the world being conquered by our faith. Jesus calls us to love our God and our neighbor in such a way that the world can’t help but be won over. “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” And John assures us that this call is not burdensome.
It may not be burdensome . . . but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take some effort, does it?
There is a story of a young sailor on a small ship sailing through the night. The captain instructed him to take the helm while the captain went below for a brief nap. “All you need to do,” explained the captain, “is follow the North Star,” which he carefully pointed out to the sailor. “Do you think you can do it?”
“Yes, sir!” the sailor replied. “You can count on me” as he took the wheel and the captain disappeared below.
Several hours later the captain woke from his nap and came up on deck. One look at the sky he knew immediately that the ship was off course. “Sailor,” he said. “What have you been doing? Why aren’t we headed toward the North Star?”
“Oh,” said the sailor. “We passed that an hour ago!”
Keeping one’s eye on the Pole Star and staying on a heading for it . . . it’s not burdensome, but it takes effort.
In theology there is a concept called adiaphora. It means “things indifferent” and refers to matters which are debatable or spiritually neutral. There are essentials of the Christian faith such as the deity of Christ, Jesus’ physical resurrection, the centrality of the Sacraments in worship, and so forth. But there are also lots of things that we get exorcised about which are non-essentials, things that are neither commanded nor forbidden in Scripture. These include such things as whether to use candles or not, whether to furnish a worship space with chairs or pews, what time of day our services should be held, what sort of music to sing, and so forth. The adiaphora, some would argue, might also include the very important but nonetheless secondary issues that we grapple with, such as war and peace, abortion, marriage equality, healthcare and welfare, and a host of current issues. All of which can, and frequently do, command our attention and distract us from keeping our eye on the Pole Star of our faith, which is Jesus!
As business coach Steven Covey might put it, we forget that “the main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing.” The main thing, Jesus said, is this: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” That is not a burden, but it does take effort because of all the distractions turning around us in this world. This is what T.S. Elliot wrote about in the poem Burnt Norton one of his Four Quartets, in which we find these lines:
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I love that image, “At the still point of the turning world . . . .” For a Christian, that “still point” is Jesus. “At the still point of the turning world . . . there is only the dance.”
If I’d thought about it, before putting this sermon to bed last night, I’d have included “The Lord of the Dance” in today’s hymns:
I danced in the morning when the world was begun.
I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun.
I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth;
At Bethlehem, I had my birth.
Dance, then, wherever you may be.
I am the Lord of the dance, said he,
And I lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I lead you all in the dance, said he.
Wonderful, joyful piece of music. The tune is based on the Shaker melody, ‘Tis a Gift to be Simple and Aaron Copland used it in Appalachian Spring, which is another of those orchestral pieces of music that can pull me right up out of any funky attitude into happiness.
Have you ever heard the term “dance for joy”? Did you know that’s from the Bible? The Prophet Jeremiah wrote that God will come and gather his people like a shepherd gathers his flock, that there will be an abundance of crops, of grain, of oil, of herds, and that “the young women will dance for joy; the young and old men will join in.” (Jer. 31:13, Common English Bible)
Jesus said in today’s gospel lesson that joy is the very purpose of his not-terribly-burdensome command: “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” That’s where the whole gospel is headed, where the whole arc of salvation history is taking us, where God wants us to be. Our Christian faith is taking us – to joy, to the kind of joy that lifts and us completely fills us like a good symphony, to the kind of joy that makes us dance. And that is why our faith is “the victory that conquers the world” at the still point of which there is only the Lord of the dance.
From time to time, we need to be reminded of this. The goal of the Christian faith is not purity; it’s not morality; it’s not bringing world peace or world dominion; it’s not the right to life or the right of reproductive choice; it’s not the sanctity of marriage or marriage equality. The goal of the Christian faith is none of those nor any other secondary thing we can imagine or get distracted by. The goal of the Christian faith is nothing less than joy, a joy that fills us completely and fulfills itself in love.
We . . . each one of us individually, and all of us together . . . need to keep our eye on the Pole Star of our faith, on Jesus, on the Lord of the dance, and remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Amen.
I hadn’t really planned to do a sermon series about my childhood summers spent with Edgar and Edna Funston, but these “I am” statements of Jesus from the Fourth Gospel keep taking me back there, so once again . . . a story from Winfield, Kansas, fifty years ago.
My father died in an automobile accident when I was five years old. Two things important to my religious life resulted from that. First, my mother and I stopped attending the Baptist church which she and my brother and I had gone to up to that point. Second, I started spending every summer with my paternal grandparents, Charles Edgar and Edna Earle Funston, in the town of Winfield, Kansas, and thus began attending the Methodist church during those summer vacations.
“Let it be so for now.” Acceptance of the status quo, even if only for a little while, is a hard thing for a change agent like John, but some times that’s what has to be done. Some time after this event, Jesus would use the metaphor of a mustard seed to describe the kind of faith that can accomplish great things. (Matthew 17:20; Luke 17:6) It’s a great metaphor because it reminds us of the need to follow the advice he gave here to John: “Let it be.” ~ As any gardner knows (and this is the time of year when gardners are reminded if they’ve forgotten), waiting and accepting the status quo is the essence of planting seeds. After all the fun and anticipation of choosing seeds from a catalog or garden-supply store, after the activity of preparing the soil, after making the hole for your seed, after covering the seed and watering . . . there is the waiting. If one is an impatient type of person, growing things from seeds is not the way to experience instant gratification. The worst thing about growing seeds is waiting for them to grow. But that’s what has to be done: “Let it be.” ~ Depending on what one has planted, the wait may be anywhere from five or ten days or to as much as six or eight weeks to germinate. Until then, you continue to water soil that just sits there looking the same. You hope for sunlight, because sunlight warming the soil is important to growth, but there’s not much you can do about that. So you water and you wait. It’s what has to be done: “Let it be.” ~ If a change agent like John can be patient, can make a small change and then accept the status quo for a little while, great changes can be wrought. Jesus used the seed metaphor another time. He said, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24) ~ Small change . . . patience . . . great change. “Let it be so for now.” And you may just hear the voice of God saying, “I am well pleased.”
“A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.” Say, what? I have to admit that I have the same reaction to what Jesus says here that the disciples seem to have – a sort of scratching of the head and wondering, “What the heck does that mean?” ~ On the other hand, when I read that statement what immediately comes to mind is that traveling carnival arcade game “Whack-a-Mole” – the one where the rodent pops up unexpectedly from holes and you’re supposed to hit it with a mallet! Undoubtedly, someone will tell me that I’m being blasphemous or sacrilegious or something, but the image that comes to my mind is that game with Jesus popping up out of the holes – “Now you see me. Now you don’t. A little while . . . you’ll see me again. Try to get me!” ~ And truly, that is the way Jesus sometimes “pops up” in my life. I see Jesus in the hungry who come to my church’s food pantry on Saturday mornings and in the volunteers who serve them, but then sometimes on Sunday I wonder where he is: “He was here yesterday. Why isn’t he here now?” Or sometimes, I do see him on Sunday morning in the wonder and glory of worship and in the fellowship among parishioners during coffee hour, but then on Monday I see folks I know driving less-than-courteously in what my daughter calls “gas guzzling SUVs” (confession: I drive one, too) and I wonder: “Where’s Jesus?” He pops up, I see him, he disappears, I don’t see him, a little while . . . there he is again. Like that darned rodent popping up in the game! ~ I know full and well that this is not what Jesus was talking about to the disciples. I know he’s talking about his crucifixion and his resurrection and his ascension; I know that . . . but I still see that “Whack-a-Mole” game in my mind’s eye! That’s one of the beauties of Scripture, that we can find applications of the text in situations that may not be exactly what the original story was about, but that are nonetheless related and valid. Jesus may have been talking about his immediate return in the resurrection, but he also returns in his community through the ages. The original disciples didn’t see him and then they did; church members today are still seeing him in many places and contexts. Sometimes we don’t, but then in a little while, we do. ~ I’m terrible at “Whack-a-Mole”, by the way. I have lousy reaction times with such things, always have – it’s why I was terrible at sports like baseball or tennis in elementary, junior high, and high schools. But I was good at shooting guns. I went to a military high school where we were required to pass Army ROTC firearms tests. I qualified as either a “marksman” or an “expert” with every weapon on which we trained. I was also pretty good at archery. Did you know that the New Testament word for “sin” comes from the sport of archery? It’s hamartia, which means “missing the mark”. Aristotle (384-322 BC) borrowed the term and used it in his Poetics to describe the “fatal flaw” in the hero of a dramatic tragedy; the writers of the New Testament then used it to mean “sin”. ~ So, sometimes I don’t see Jesus when I ought to. It’s not that Jesus isn’t there; it’s just that I don’t see him or if I do, like not reacting to the mole fast enough, I don’t recognize him. Like playing “Whack-a-Mole” and failing to hit the rodent, my reaction timing is just not right and I “miss the mark”. I sin by failing to “whack” when Jesus pops up! Therein lies the spiritual discipline to which this text calls me – to look, to recognize, to hone my reaction time, to respond quickly and affirmatively, and (if you’ll pardon some really blatant sacrilege) to Whack-a-Jesus! 
The early members of the church were prepared, I think, to be separated from the synagogue, to be cast out from Judaism, and to take the major step of becoming adherents of a new and distinct religion. The church members of the first few centuries were, I think, prepared to be persecuted, killed, martyred. Through their witness and the strength of their faith, the church overcame that separation and that persecution to become the most powerful institution in Western Europe; it was prepared to do that. That was, of course, a mixed blessing and there is a lot of historical debate about and some warranted condemnation of the church’s record as the established religion of empires and kingdoms. However, for 2,000 or so years the church, faced with and prepared for either persecution or power, flourished. ~ What the church was not and still is not prepared for is to be relegated to the sidelines, to be treated with indifference, to be seen as irrelevant to the lives of the people it is charged to reach (I’m thinking “Great Commission” here – Matthew 28:16–20). In other words, the church is not prepared for the contemporary, so-called post-modern world which it, in many ways, has helped to create. A recent book, The Millenials (B&H Books, 2011), claims that 70% of those born between 1980 and 2000 consider the church irrelevant to their lives. Meanwhile, 
In the beginning he had been tempted by riches, by power, by idolization; all these had been offered in the desert. Now how great the temptation must have been to simply give up! Poet Denise Levertov ponders this allure in her poem Salvator Mundi: Via Crucis
In this second act of the drama all that has gone before is recapitulated; all that we saw in yesterday’s first act, the supper in the upper room, the act of servanthood taught there, the agonized prayer in the garden, the willing surrender to unjust authority, and more. Not just yesterday’s first act, but all that has gone before from our first act of defiance in the first garden. Poet Ross Miller reminds us of that bond in his brief verse entitled Tau
A meal is in progress… Is it a seder, the ritual meal of remembrance of the Passover? We don’t really know; the playwrights have not made this clear; the theater critics, the scholars debate this issue. Three of the story-tellers suggest that it is but the fourth, John, tells the tale very differently. (The synoptic gospels tell the story in a similar way and, if truth be told, in the same way – Luke and Matthew based their stories on Mark’s, so to be honest there aren’t three stories, there’s only one that would make us think that this supper is a seder, but John doesn’t. In fact, John doesn’t even care about that – he spends no time at all describing the meal, for him the important thing is what happened afterward, and that comes in a later scene. So as we begin this three-day, three-act drama of redemption, since we have heard Luke’s voice narrating the story, let’s just assume that what we see in this first scene of the first act is, indeed, a seder.)
The meal is over, the dishes have been cleared. The disciples are arguing among themselves about who is the greater among them. Jesus looks frustrated and troubled; the teachable moment has passed and they clearly have not understood! They just haven’t gotten it.
“Stay here,” he tells them, “Stay awake while I go over there to pray.” As they settle themselves, he moves away from them, and collapses in a heap, sobbing: “O God … Father, let this pass!” 
We have just read the simple, yet dramatic story of our Lord’s Passion as related in Mark’s Gospel. But we began our worship this morning with John’s story of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In the span of a few minutes we covered an entire week at the end of Jesus’ earthly life. Logic and reason cannot really make sense of this, and no ten-minute homiletic exegesis of these texts can help us comprehend the enormity of those events. 
This is the fifth and last Lenten sermon addressing a question posed by a parishioner and, in fact, I will try to answer succinctly two related questions that two parishioners asked. One was “What does the word catholic mean when we say it in the Nicene Creed?” and the other was “What do you (meaning me, Father Funston) mean when you describe the Episcopal Church as being ‘in the Catholic tradition’?” (If you could see the way I have typeset these sermon notes, you would see that I have capitalized the “C” in catholic in the second question, but not in the first. That’s an important point which I will address shortly. But let me start with a basic definition in answer to the first inquiry.
