May 11, 2008
A Sermon of the Rev. Christian Brocato, PhD
John 17:1-11
May the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and Redeemer. Amen.
Unite, unite, let us all unite,
For summer is a-come unto day
And whither we are going, we will all unite
On the merry morning of May.
-- Padstow Night Song, traditional Cornish song
These ancient Celtic words welcomed the evening before the first of May. At twilight of that evening, the great festival of Beltane began which was an ancient Celtic celebration that excluded "no one from its embrace" and which "involved the kindling of bonfires." (The name of the festival derives from 'bright fire.)
Beltane is consistent with so many other traditions throughout the world where indigenous peoples celebrate great festivals, celebrations of life, of nature, of transition between the darkness of winter and the light of spring, celebrations of sacred places, mounds, rivers, streams, mountains, celebrations where special powers were perceived operative in mysterious ways in nature, ways that as one Native American writer put it, have the "ability to open the portals of the mind to waking visions and vivid dreams." Ah, would that all sermons could do the same! (James A. Swan, Sacred Places: How the Living Earth Seeks Our Friendship, p. 64)
The "ability to open the portals of the mind" to something new, to something vibrant, to something more meaningful, more permanent and life-giving it seems to me is what Jesus' life was all about. He came in to the world to bring life in abundance and left this world leaving behind the Spirit of Truth, of Comfort, of Forgiveness and Reconciliation.
Jesus left this world forty-days after Easter. The Church celebrated Christ's Ascension this past Thursday. Jesus was lifted up to heaven as the Gospel of Mark tells us, "So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God."
That position at the "right hand of God" is a metaphor that links Jesus to the Father, the Redeemer to the Creator, in an unmistakably direct and meaningful way. Christ came into the world, lived, preached a message of hope, reconciliation and salvation, died, rose from the dead, and then, ascended to Heaven.
Our Gospel passage for today is an unmistakably direct and meaningful passage in which Jesus very clearly tells his disciples before Passover about his union with his Father, a kind of union that is both profound and real, spiritual as well as a sanctuary. This union Jesus experienced throughout his life. However, in no place in the scriptures is there a more intense and intentional manifestation of that union than here in John's Gospel, part of Jesus' farewell discourse to his disciples prior to his passion and death. But why so soon after Easter do we hear this passage from scripture, a passage that precedes the Last Supper, the events of Good Friday, the resurrection and Christ's ascension into heaven?
As I prayed this week with the scriptures for today and read theological resource after resource trying to hear God's message to me and for us for this the Seventh Sunday of Easter, I came across a small book in our library at home. The famous Lutheran theologian, Martin Marty and his son Micah, published this book of reflections and photos entitled, "Our Hope for Years to Come" with the subtitle, "The Search for Spiritual Sanctuary." Through brief powerful reflections on scriptures along with beautiful black and white photos mostly of our own Washington National Cathedral to accompany them, this small book preaches a message of hope, hope for what can be, not so much freedom from what is, but for what awaits those who hope and trust in God's love and mercy.
There's an old Gospel hymn written in 1921 that goes "Trust and obey, for there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey." In these words perhaps not comfortable for some of us, we are challenged to trust in the God of hope, the God of resurrection life and light, the God of justice and truth, of righteousness and peace. We are challenged to obey, yes, that anti-21st century and anti-democratic way of thinking; we are called, as Jesus was called, to obey the voice of God. If we truly listen, we can hear that voice calling us to newness of life in the quietness of our inner selves.
Jesus found quietness within himself as well as spiritual sanctuary in his relationship with his Father, a oneness with the God of creation from whom Jesus was sent to redeem the world. Time after time in the gospels, we hear Jesus retreating to a place where he can spiritually be with his Father. Those places were 'sacred places.' They were his 'spiritual sanctuary' where his encounter with the divine nature that was within himself was at one with the divine nature that was mysteriously 'other.'
Today's gospel gives us a kind of liturgical prayer, if you will, one in which Jesus addresses the Father through the power of their Holy Spirit. Jesus called out to the Father in a kind of proclamation of profound truth, the utter realization of his absolute unity with the Father. In verses 1-5, Jesus speaks directly to the Father. The hour has come: "Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ."
In verses 6 and following, Jesus turns from his focus from his Father to his disciples. As one scripture scholar said, "the passage moves uninterruptedly from thanksgiving to intercession…leading always to the Father, though the Son, in the Spirit." (The Collegeville Bible Commentary). This is the same progression that our Eucharist makes, Sunday after Sunday, as our worship is offered to God the Father, by God the Son, through the power of God, the Holy Spirit. Jesus' words in this passage from John are Trinitarian in structure and the model of our public prayer and for our private prayer as well.
Where do you go for that private prayer and why is that going and is that participation in a union with God in prayer so extremely important and potentially life giving? Perhaps, it is because it can become for us a source of hope, an action of our search for spiritual sanctuary where no one can harm us, no one can distract us, where our search can "occur in small sanctuaries where words and sounds stimulate and stir readied spirits." (Martin Marty) Recall, the passage from scripture that says, when you pray, go to your room, close the room and pray to your Father in Heaven in quiet and stillness.
Small sanctuaries, harder and harder for us to experience in our busy and fragmented lives, these places where our spirits can utter words and sounds because of God's Spirit alive in us, these places where we commune with God can really be just about anywhere. They can be in barracks in Iraqi. They can be in the rugged war ravaged countryside of Afghanistan. They can be in a prison cell in Guantanamo or a medical clinic in Haiti or Africa. They can be in poverty stricken areas of Central and South America or in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, the South Side of Chicago, or Watts in LA or even with our sisters and brothers on today's Walk for Hunger in the streets of our great city.
To be one with God requires that we clear our minds and our hearts and somehow make room for God in prayer. That act of making room for God is the very act of creating a spiritual sanctuary where we can be one with God and where God can be one with us. Jesus' spiritual sanctuary, his union with the Father, gave him the sustaining grace to keep going, to hope, to continue his mission, to be a person that the world could not drag down.
Mother Teresa once said, "We cannot place ourselves directly in God's presence without imposing upon ourselves interior and exterior silence. That is why we must accustom ourselves to stillness of the soul, of the eyes, of the tongue." I wish I could tell you that I'm there but I'm not. One time, I feel like I'm close, then, another, I'm very far away. The closest I seem to get these days is my once a month spiritual direction appointment at Bethany House in Arlington. For about an hour or so, I'm deeply rooted, connected, at one with God. It's a wonderful place to be, a seemingly transforming experience. Transferring that time and that place to my daily life is still a work in progress.
Our spiritual sanctuary, our union with God, can enable us to contend with the petty jealousies that surround us, the gossip where we work that can seemingly destroy us or with which we can destroy others, the lies that can prevent us from living whole and healthy lives, and the list goes on. When we participate in such destructive activities, we run the risk of destroying the very spiritual sanctuary that is deep within, that calls us to an inner peace that calls us to be one with our selves and one with God.
The message of the Resurrection is that we have been freed from those things that can destroy us, those things that can drag us down and others with us, those things that can prompt us to feel less than who we are in the sight of God. The message of Christ's Resurrection and Ascension is one of profound hope, hope for a new realization of the depth, breadth and height of God's love for us, hope that we can and will be transformed into people of prayer, people of truth, people of justice, people of peace. As one theologian put is, "we get to say good-bye, without regret, to the self we had been. It was a self that, clinging to conventional experiences, had been reluctant to hope."(Martin Marty)
Jesus' prayer in today's Gospel is filled with hope, with clarity of vision, with profound realization that the spiritual sanctuary that was his with his Father, would continue to sustain him through the trials that lay before him. Because of God's sustaining Spirit that we will again celebrate next week at Pentecost and our union with God in this Eucharist that we will share, we, too, can be filled with hope, with clarity of vision, with profound realization that the spiritual sanctuary that is ours with God, will continue to sustain us and transform us this day and all the days of our lives.
Amen!