Come Eat Supper

Easter 7 - Year B

Readings:  Acts 1:15-17, 21-26   Psalm 1   1 John 5:9-13   John 17:6-19

Lord Jesus, thank you for reuniting us with God, our Father. Amen

There’s a podcast I subscribe to called “This American Life” from NPR in Chicago. Each broadcast, they have a theme, and they tell three or four different kinds of stories based around the theme. The last one I listened to, the theme was “Reunited, and it feels so good…”

Jesus is reuniting God, the Father, with his children. The first step was when he became one of us, when he was born as a baby and became our brother, growing up in a family and seeing from the inside what our lives are like. Then, he started talking to us about God, his Father – our Father - what he’s like, what he wants to say to us and how he wants to relate to us.

Finally, he started telling us he was going to leave, but that we wouldn’t be alone – we wouldn’t be left comfortless, as we prayed in the collect – because we would be able to talk to God, to Our Father, directly now.

Earlier on, people had become afraid to talk to God. When Moses went up on Mt. Sinai to receive the law, there was fire and thunder, and the mountain smoked, and everyone was terrified. They told Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us or we will die.” (Ex 20:1819)

After that, God communicated to his people through the law and then through the words of the prophets, priests and kings, but it was not a perfect system because a good many of those folks were not dependable and garbled up the message or ignored it or said whatever they felt like. So, finally, God sent his own Son to bring the message – to communicate with us, and the way he chose to do that was by becoming one of us.

While that is hard to comprehend in itself: that God’s Son would become a human being – the even more astonishing thing – which is also the more important thing about Jesus coming to live with us, is that in doing so, he brought us back into a relationship with God – and a closer relationship than we had before.

The Exsultet – the hymn at the beginning of the Great Vigil of Easter, says “How blessed is this night/ when earth and heaven are joined/ and man is reconciled to God”

Being reunited to God was a difficult process, certainly not without pain. First, there was the pain of the initial separation – and then a prolonged period of estrangement that was also painful for both us and God. Then, God had to be separated from his Son in order for his Son to enter our lives. That separation was painful for both of them, even though it brought Jesus into a closer connection with us.

Then, once Jesus had reestablished a connection with us, in the bonds he formed with his disciples and followers, he had to leave to go back to God, “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.”

And that meant a separation of one type of closeness with us, even though it began to bring us all back to a closer connection with God.

“The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but will tell you plainly of the Father. On that day, you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf, for the Father himself loves you…” (Jn 16:25b-27a)

Jesus has been telling them he’s going to have to leave, and that things are going to get pretty hairy when he leaves, but that, through him, they have the same access as he does to seek help from God – his Father and their Father.

Then, while they’re sitting there, he begins to pray for them. It’s like he’s bringing God in the room and introducing Him to his disciples and introducing them to Him.

“I have told these folks about you; I told them what you said, and they’ve received it and know you’re the one who sent me. Now, I’m asking you – protect them, and unify them, just like we are. While I’ve been here, I’ve looked out for them, but now I’m coming back, and so I’m asking you to look out for them now.”

And pretty soon after this prayer, he gets arrested and killed, and things do get pretty hairy for the disciples, and they don’t understand what’s going on at first, but gradually they realize that Jesus has reunited them with God, his Father and their Father – Our Father.

When you’ve been separated or estranged from someone, even just briefly, reuniting is difficult – and sometimes it takes some help.

Imagine you and your dad having a fight, and you get really mad and go lock yourself in your room. He tries to talk to you through the door, but you won’t say anything.

After a while, here comes your brother… “Dad says come eat supper.”

“No!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!”

“Can I come in?”

A brother is different than a dad. Your brother can talk to you in a different way than your dad can – and there are things your brother can tell you that you won’t hear from your dad.

That’s kind of the situation between God and his people. There had been a lot of fighting between us and God, and we’d become estranged and weren’t talking to each other. We had locked ourselves in our room, kind of. So Jesus came into the situation from our side. At first, he ferried messages back and forth like a mediator. He would tell us what God said and explain what he meant by it and he would also listen to our grievances and see what we were upset about and then go out to the kitchen and talk to God for us.

So you’re in your room, feeling a bit better and thinking maybe you’ll come out in a while - and your brother says, “Okay, I’m going – it’s time for supper and I’m supposed to set the table; you should talk to Dad.”

And maybe you feel ready for that and maybe you don’t, but he opens the door, and there’s God, standing in the hall. “I told her that you’re not mad and that you just want her to come eat, and she said she believes you and she’ll come out.”

Then he goes down to the table – and God’s there in the hall, and you’re looking at each other for a while, not knowing what to say – and he says, “Why don’t you come eat with us…”

Amen.

You are a promise

Year A, Proper 3
Readings: Isaiah 49:8-16a 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 Matthew 6:24-34 Psalm 131

Thus says the Lord, “I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people…” (Is 49:8)
A covenant is a promise. God says, “I have… given you as a promise to the people…”
God has given you as a promise to this town and this place. God has given you like a promise to the people of Silsbee and Hardin County. You are part of God’s promise to the people you live around and come to know and care about.
What kind of promise? – for one, a promise of justiceWhat kind of promise? Isaiah talks about things like helping people establish themselves and get back their lost, wasted or stolen heritage. Those are promises of justice.
We are part of God’s promise to this community – and that includes working for justice for people who are being mistreated and hurt and taken advantage of.
Examples
For many years, Gary Monday served as a police officer and saw all kinds of abuse and violence and exploitation – and part of his job was to serve justice by catching the offenders and sometimes by restoring some of what was lost in the damage. Gary was part of God’s promise of justice to the people he served. He was also part of God’s promise of justice to the offenders themselves – because as Paul would argue, being shown that you’ve broken the law gives you a clear call to turn around and change.
But Gary couldn’t possibly keep the whole of God’s promise of justice to all those people by himself (though sometimes, people seem to expect that of the police). There are lots of pieces to our justice system, and lots of people involved in each of those pieces.Betty See worked for many years with victim’s services, and part of her job was to help the victims re-establish themselves – to gain back some sense of security and dignity and self-confidence.
Diane Bebee is now extending her previous work as a social worker and therapist. She’s working to establish The Roosevelt House here in Silsbee. It’s going to be a place of refuge for girls who have been temporarily taken out of their homes because of abuse or neglect.
Right in the back of the church here, sharing space with us, is the Samaritan Counseling Center. You can see the sign when you go out the kitchen door. It serves some of these same children by offering counseling to cope with the abuse they have suffered.
Earl Stover works as a judge, and his job is also part of God’s promise of justice to the people of this community. Our laws serve as guides to set down what we understand justice to be – what kinds of interactions between people reflect justice and what kinds of interactions reflect injustice… It’s the job of judges to interpret those questions in individual situations. When a judge administers justice well, it can give people the opportunity to make things right.
Justice and Grace
This is similar in some ways to the function of the service of reconciliation in our prayer book – just as our justice system doesn’t assume people are perfect, the church also doesn’t assume people are perfect, that we will never mess up, that we will never hurt each other. Of course we will – of course we do. Both the church and our legal system assume that we will mess up. They provide ways to deal with the wrong things we do and also give opportunities for us to turn around and do things differently and re-join the work and service going on.
Fr. John used to be a lawyer, serving as part of God’s promise of justice in that capacity, and now he is a priest and offers us in an even more obvious way God’s promise of justice – which includes grace and forgiveness.
All these things: making just laws, justly enforcing laws, justly interpreting laws, helping victims, helping offenders, offering avenues for reconciliation and grace and forgiveness – these are all part of the same promise of justice that God makes – and that God has given us some responsibility for upholding.
That’s a really big responsibility – to uphold God’s promise of justice - Justice is a tall order. That’s why it takes so many people doing different parts – and each doing them conscientiously. None of those parts are dispensable. Each one of us individually is not so strong or powerful, but together, and with God, we can stand up against injustices and defend people who are being hurt and taken advantage of, especially those who can’t stand up for themselves. And we can work to reconcile and restore people who are doing the hurting as well. God’s justice covers a lot of things.

Don't forget
An important part of justice is not forgetting things that are unresolved, not forgetting people who are still suffering, but making sure we remember until things are made right.
There are lots of people still stuck in bad circumstances, and they are wondering if anybody knows or cares – or if they have been forgotten by everyone, if even God has forgotten them…

But God doesn’t forget. God doesn’t forget any of the people he has made. ‘Can a woman forget [her own baby]? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you,’ God says, ‘See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.’ (Is 49:15-16)God doesn’t forget any of us. He has our names written on his hands.
What can we do to remember the people and situations we should not forget?
One big way is prayer.
With her prayer beads, Bette Cheek holds in her hands the people God’s given her to remember – including everybody here at St. John’s – and everyday, she prays for us. And she makes prayer beads so other people can do the same. I’m sure many of you have some. Glenda Gray’s pictorial directory can be a similar tool. You can look at the pictures and pray for people and pray for the church. The prayer list in the bulletin is another tool - we pray aloud for these needs Sunday and Wednesday of each week. The Daughters of the King have studied and made vows to pray regularly, and they meet together to stay accountable to that calling. They also wear their crosses everyday to help them remember they have committed themselves to prayer.
Our prayer book includes prayers about every kind of situation the church feels must be remembered – and they’re laid out in a regular rotation so we cover them all. The prayers of the people we do each week also remind us of all the areas God’s hand covers – and for which we also share some responsibility. Justice is only one of them. Our worship is intentionally structured so we will be reminded on a regular basis of all the things God is concerned for – all the things God promises – for us and for everyone.
But being reminded is just the catalyst, just the first part to get things started – if I remember and then forget again, remember, forget, remember again.. without anything ever actually happening as a result, what good is that? The reason we remember is that remembering God’s promises should change the way we live.

God has given us as a promise to the people around us – and God does not forget his promises.

You are a promise.
We are a promise.

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Given to St. John's, Silsbee
May 25, 2008