Easter 7, 2018, New Athens/Darmstadt IL.

John 15:26 When the one called to be along side comes, whom I send from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes forth from the Father, that one will witness concerning me.

Come with me, back to a scene in the Garden of Eden.  After God created the man, God noticed that something was not good.  The man was alone.  The man needed someone to be alongside him, an ally.   God took a rib from the man and created a woman.  Together they would oversee and care for creation as God’s representatives.  The man was delighted God’s creation, and he called her Eve, because she was the mother of all living.  In more than 900 years of marriage, besides giving birth to Cain, Abel and Seth, Eve also bore other, “sons and daughters.” There we have the first Mother’s Day.

When we turn to our text this morning from John’s Gospel we note that as Jesus neared the hour when his ministry on earth was completed, he did not want his disciples, his church, you and me to be alone in carrying on his ministry in the world as his representatives.  “I will not leave you as orphans,” he promised.  “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another one to be alongside you, who will be with you forever.” Thus, we have the Holy Spirit alongside of us, as an ally in the place of Jesus. God became flesh through Mary and lived among us until he accomplished that for which the heavenly father had sent him, that is, to reconcile, to make peace with the world which had been at odds with God ever since our first mom and dad failed to trust God in the garden of Eden.  Jesus’ hour of glory was on the cross, in his resurrection and when he ascended to take his place at the right hand of God.

But the Holy Spirit, poured out on Pentecost and richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ in baptism is with us forever, right now, right here, and no matter where we are the other 167 hours in this coming week.  I saw a cartoon on Facebook which was a drawing of people walking, riding a bus, pushing a baby stroller, sitting on a park bench, looking out a window. The caption asked, “Where is the church?”  Then throughout the drawing little arrows pointed to various people riding a bike or walking or on park bench or looking out a window and each arrow saying, “Here, here, here.” Wherever we are, there is the church and there is the Holy Spirit alongside us.  Okay, but what does the Holy Spirit do as our ally, our advocate, our helper?

Last Thursday was Ascension Day.  Gathered with his followers Jesus promised that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit and when the Spirit came upon them they would have power to be “my witnesses…to the end of the earth.”  We know what happened on Pentecost as people heard that group of Jesus’ followers, who only a few weeks before were hiding behind locked doors, doing nothing. Who only ten days before stood gawking into the sky at Jesus disappearance wondering, “Now what do we do?”.  But ten days later, as the result of their Holy Spirit driven witness the church grew by 3,000 in one day and not long after to 5,000.

The Holy Spirit is also a witness. Jesus said, “He will bear witness to me.” The focus of the Spirit’s message is never on himself, but always on Jesus. Jesus and Jesus alone.  He witnesses to us about Jesus helps us recall Jesus teachings.

Before followers of Christ were called Christians, they were called followers of the Way.  During Jesus night time meeting with Nicodemus Jesus said, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” And “whoever believes in him is not condemned.”  The way to the heavenly Father, the way to God is through Jesus and that means that path runs through the cross, the tomb, and the resurrection.  It’s the only way.

But the way is also, a way of living.  Jesus calls us his friends.  What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.  However, there are expectations of us as Jesus friends.   “That you love one another as I have loved you.”  On April 14-15 a huge snowstorm called Evelyn dumped a bunch of snow the one upper Midwest.  Eastern Wisconsin received some 30 inches.  On the Al Oberstadt farm a 70 by 100 – foot section of his barn roof collapsed. It killed one cow and injured 10 others. About 67 farms were impacted by the storm.  One of the people who stepped in to help was Kelli Zahn a member of St. Mary’s parish in Bear Creek.  She gathered a group of people, who put together meals to be delivered to fellow farmers in the area.  She said, “I just feel it was an act of God.  I felt like I was nudged by the Holy Spirit to say, ‘Hey, let’s do something to help people.”  Nudged by God to help these people.  The Holy Spirit nudges us to love one another as Jesus has loved us.  Nudges us to not only believe in Jesus as the Way, but to care for others a way of life.  When the Holy Spirit nudges us to reflect Jesus love for us by loving others, that is proof that we belong to Jesus, even in a time of wondering.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth alongside us to teach us that Jesus is the truth.    What is the truth?  Didn’t someone else ask that question?  I think it was Pontius Pilate at Jesus trial. The truth is that when God became flesh and lived among us, He came filled with grace.  Grace piled upon grace. Think of the grace we have already received today.  We confessed our sins and were promptly forgiven.  Poor miserable sinners one minute, saints the next moment, with sin, wiped out, wiped away, sin kaput, alive to Christ.  No wonder we respond with, Alleluia, Praise to God. Grace, nothing but grace.  In the readings, the Lord says through Ezekiel, “I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you.”  So, we sing following the sermon, “Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.”  And we receive more grace in, the bread and wine of communion and in the blessing at the end of the service.

The Holy Spirit also shows us Jesus who is our life.  His life is like grace, life piled upon life, so abundant it flows over into eternity.  What a powerful gift we have with us daily in the Holy Spirit who is available to give all the help we need.  Next week we will hear even more about the Spirit’s wonderful work alongside us.

 

 

 

 

Jesus calls us his friends.  What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.  However, there are expectations of us as Jesus friends.   “That you love one another as I have loved you.” (The following is drawn the weekly farm paper, the Country Today.  I’m using it in a sermon tomorrow.) On April 14-15, snow storm Evelyn dumped large amounts of snow on the upper Midwest.  Eastern Wisconsin received some 30 inches.  On the Al Oberstadt farm a 70 by 100-foot section of his barn roof collapsed. It killed one cow and injured 10 others. About 67 farms were impacted by the storm.  One of the people who stepped in to help was Kelli Zahn a member of St. Mary’s parish in Bear Creek.  She gathered a group of people, who put together meals to be delivered to fellow farmers in the area.  She said, “I just feel it was an act of God.  I felt like I was nudged by the Holy Spirit to say, ‘Hey, let’s do something to help people.”  Nudged by God to help these people.  The Holy Spirit nudges us to love one another as Jesus has loved us.  Nudges us to not only believe in Jesus as the Way, but to care for others a way of life.  When the Holy Spirit nudges us to reflect Jesus love for us by loving others, that is proof that we belong to Jesus, even in times of wondering.

 

 

The Seventh Sunday of Easter seems to be like a guest who we really appreciated hosting, but now has stayed a bit too long.  We really want to move on to Pentecost and Trinity Sunday and then the Pentecost season.  Since Easter 7 follows Ascension Day on Thursday, which is mostly ignored, do we ignore the seventh Sunday in favor of an Ascension Day Sunday? I know, this is only a problem for preachers and those planning worship.

This weekend I’m at two churches in Illinois, New Athens and Darmstadt, where they use the one-year lectionary.  The gospel emphasizes the promised coming of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit.  Why don’t we call this Sunday, Holy Spirit Sunday?  We tend to give the Holy Spirit short schrift anyway.

While I’m at, I think the translations of Paraclete are too narrow.  The Paraclete is more than Helper, an Advocate, A Comforter or Counselor. It is all of those and more.   A Paraclete is one called to be alongside us in the place of Jesus who has ascended.  The Paraclete is sent by Jesus and the heavenly Father, to carry on the ministry of Jesus.  It is among us forever, to teach all the things which Jesus did and taught. To guide us in carrying out Jesus command to love one another.  To bear witness to Jesus and impel us to bear witness of Jesus.

Have a blessed Sunday in the Holy Spirit.

 

 

I’ve done a few sermons in poetry, though it’s been awhile.  This morning I came across a poetic Easter sermon from the fourth century.  It seems to have been more common then.

Join, then, all of you, join in our Master’s rejoicing.

You who were the first to come, you who came after,

Come and collect now your wages.

The rich and the poor, sing and dance together.

You that are hard on yourselves, you that are easy,

Honor this day.

You that have fasted and you that have not,

Make merry today.

The meal is ready: come and enjoy it.

The calf is a fat one: you will not go hungry away.

There’s kindness for all to partake of and kindness

To spare.

Away with pleading of poverty:

The kingdom belongs us all.

Away with bewailing failings:

Forgiveness has come from the grave.

Away with your fears of dying:

The death of our Savior has freed us from fear.

Death played the master: he has mastered death.

 

Things I did not do, but wish I had, and not quite sure why I didn’t.

While serving in Albert Lea, MN for eight years, I never ate Lutefisk.

Try curling while in Marshfield, Wi.

While on vicarage, I spent two weekends in Pembroke, Ontario filling in at area churches.  I water skied on the Ottawa River, but did not drive across the bridge into Quebec.

Go to the horse races in Collinsville, Il

Accepted covering the vacancy in Troy, Il. in 2004, it would have saved them a lot of trouble over the next couple of years.  Could have worked with Sarah while she interned at the congregation and interim principal Walt Schefft.

The list of things I have been able to do far outdistances those listed above.

 

After reading psalm 118, I “serendipitously” came across a portion of Luther’s exposition of the same psalm.  This is vintage Luther.

Ps. 118:5-6 From the straits I called to Yahweh, Yahweh answered me in a wide-open place. The Lord is for me, I shall not fear. What can humankind do to me?

Luther: You must learn to pray and not sit alone or lie about, hanging your head and shaking it, brooding over your thoughts, worrying about how you can escape and looking at nothing but yourself and your sad and painful condition.  Get up, you lazy villain, then fall on your knees, lift your eyes and hands toward heaven, take a psalm or the Lord’s Prayer, and pour your trouble with tears before God, lamenting and calling upon Him…God desires it, and it is His will, that…you not let it lie upon yourself, dragging it about with you and being chafed and tortured by it, so that in the end you make two or even ten or a hundred calamities out of one.  He wills you should be too weak to bear and overcome such trouble, in order that you may learn to find strength in Him, and that He may be praised through His strength in you.  Behold, this is how Christians are made!

 

I seem to recall a red work book from grade school called “Think and Do.”

The Collect of the Day (Prayer of the Day) this week, is a think and do prayer:

We begin with the acclamation, “O God, the giver of all that is good…,” We aren’t given time to say, “Thank you, Lord” or “Hey, can we talk about this?” We quickly move to a request.  “By your holy inspiration grant that we may think those things that are right and by your merciful guiding accomplish them.”  We need God’s sanctified breath to get our heads on straight and think rightly.  Once God gets us going in the right direction, then we need his help in doing the right things.

These Collect Prayers are from of old, so the need for thinking and doing rightly has been our problem for a long time.  And yet what does God do?    God doesn’t wait for us to get our act together. Instead, God keeps giving us all the good we have in our lives and keeps pushing us in the right directions through his holy breath.

As is the usual case we pray our requests to our gift giving God, “through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”

As the work book from long ago suggested, “Think and Do.”

 

 

 

One of my favorite authors when it comes to writing about gardening is the Armenian priest, Vigen Guroian.  In his book, “The Fragrance of God,” he writes,

“In early spring, our son, Rafi, and daughter, Victoria, visited to look at how things were coming along.  I pointed down below at the perennial bed just beginning to show green and sad to them, ‘That’s where I want you to bury me, like a big seed.’ ‘But Dad,’ my son pleaded, ‘it’s against the zoning laws.  They won’t let us do that.’  I said, ‘Anthony Quinn got permission to be buried in his garden in Rhode Island.  Anyhow, sneak me out at night. No one will know.’  My son persisted: ‘Dad they’ll want to know where you went.’ I answered, ‘Tell them he is in Paradise.’”

I’ve been out this morning trying to recrate a bit of paradise in our yard in Sunset Hills.  I planted some Cosmos around an old pine tree stump.  Also, three tomato plants, a Brandywine red, a cherry tomato, and a Better Boy.  I also put in three Elephant Ears and transplanted a perennial that must be related to a nettle, but flowers instead.  I have some Zinnias and Vincas to go in yet.  Then I’ll see where I’m at before I get more plants.  I go at it a little at a time lest Becky find me laying in the garden, throw some dirt over me, and tell people,” He is in Paradise.”

 

During my morning ablutions, I came across this quote from the fourteenth century by Catherine of Siena.

O eternal Father! O fiery abyss of charity!  O eternal beauty, O eternal wisdom, O eternal goodness, O eternal mercy!  O hope and refuge of sinners! O immeasurable generosity! O eternal, infinite Good! O mad lover! And you have need of your creature?  It seems so to me, for you act as if you could not live without her, although you are Life itself, and everything has life from you and nothing can have life without you.  Why then are so mad?  Because you have fall in love with what you have made.  You are pleased and delighted over her within yourself, as if you were drunk with desire for her salvation.  She runs away from you and you go looking for her.  She strays, and you draw closer to her.  You clothed yourself in our humanity, and nearer than that you could not have come.

And what shall I say?  I will stutter, “Ah-ah,” because there is nothing else I know how to say.

 

Psalm 150 was appointed for this past Sunday.  Fifty years ago the psalm was often cited in the debate whether to allow the use of other instruments than an organ in worship. Today the psalm reminded me of the names for the Sundays of Easter up until 1974.  The Sundays were named after the first word in the Introit (entrance) There was something poetic about Jubilate (Joy), Cantate (sing) and Rogate (pray).  Cantate was a good Sunday to have a musical outburst before the choir took a hiatus for the summer.  Rogate, was a time to pray that the crops being planted by the farmers would lead to a bountiful harvest.

What might be a Latin name for some our Easter season Sundays now?  Well, the Sunday which begins with “In your presence there is fullness of joy,” could still be Jubilate.  Good Shepherd Sunday would be “Pastor Bonus.” Last Sunday would be “Videbitis” (See) and next Sunday “Audio” (hear).

There isn’t a lot poetry in those names, but neither was there in Quasimodogeniti, which made me think of the hunchback of Notre Dame, rather than “as newborn babes.” Or Misericordias Domini reminded me of misery rather than “goodness of the Lord.”

After due consideration, I think we should stick with the English.  Excuse me while I go watch the ballgame.