The Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year C
For the second week in a row, we hear part of Jesus’s Farewell Address to his disciples, prior to the final events of his life. Farewells are bittersweet. We bring to remembrance all that has been and that we have valued. We hope to carry forward what really matters and to learn to let go. We also grieve what is changing or being lost and are anxious about what is to come. We promise to keep in touch but know that won’t always be possible. Farewells can be lonely. We may feel abandoned or afraid that we will never again have the type of companionship we have known. A few recent events have made me think about farewells.
Some of you know about the eagle couple, Jackie and Shadow who successfully hatched and are raising two eaglets named Sunny and Gizmo. They live above Big Bear Lake in central California, where a couple of cameras record their lives 24/7. The eaglets are now fully grown and getting very rambunctious. It’s close to the time that they will leave the nest for the first time ever, which is called fledging.
For 12 weeks their world has been the huge six-foot deep nest at the top of a pine tree, their parents who take care of and feed them and each other, the annoying siblings who vie for food, attention and space. Once they begin to spread their wings and explore the larger world, they will be trained by their parents and continue to find safety and food back in their nest. Eventually they will depart for good and we may never know their fates.
It makes me wonder if they will recognize their parents and siblings when they come near one another or if they will simply establish new territories where they never have any contact. Will the strong bond and companionship that the siblings experienced help them be better mates in the future? Will they mimic their parents’ way of doing things or discover entirely new ways of surviving? What will they carry with them into their new life away from home?
On the other end of the spectrum, I attended a memorial service for a priest of this diocese, Dennis Tierney. He was our Diocesan Property Manager and an important, respected and strong advocate for our redevelopment plans. He had pre-planned his service down to the tiniest detail; every word, every piece of music and every movement was specifically chosen to make a statement about his values, his loves and his faith in God. He wanted us to know what was truly important to him and to be remembered for his service and commitment to God, the Church, his family and friends. He leaves a powerful legacy that will continue in the lives he touched and in the work he accomplished. It was a bittersweet farewell for him.
Farewell speeches were part of the ancient world. They often had a kind of formula. Jesus adopts some of that in his, but he also includes things that are completely unique and surprising. Like others, he wants his followers to remember what he said and taught and to put his words into practice. His words come from God and those who love God will act in accordance with what they see and receive from Jesus. But Jesus doesn’t expect us to be able to continue his ministry and teaching on our own. He promises to send the Holy Spirit, the one who is able to continue the teaching of Jesus over the years and in radically different situations.
This is so important to us who are 2,000 years removed from the physical presence of Jesus. We were not direct witnesses to what he said and did, yet we can follow in his footsteps and know his way. And that’s because of the Spirit. Even in totally new circumstances and with situations that Jesus never faced, we can find our direction by the guidance of the Spirit.
The Spirit is the one who helps us discern responsible and loving ways of interacting with technology and new discoveries. The Spirit led God’s people to incorporate evolution and the solar system into a responsible understanding of faith. The Spirit opened the church to the ordained ministry of women as well as LGBTQ folks.
The Spirit brings new, fresh and creative movements of God into life as it changes and develops. Because of the Spirit, we can change our minds about things we previously thought were immutable, because the Spirit keeps us true to God’s Word, Jesus.
Some of you know that I have had the same spiritual director for 15 years. Her name is Flora Schlosser Wuellner and she is just turning 97 this month. Besides her wealth of wisdom, sense of humor and deep prayer life, she is absolutely brilliant and is the author of 13 books, all of which were composed longhand since she has never owned a computer or cell phone.
Recently though, she has become a YouTube star with her show, “A 96-year-old woman finally speaks out.” Although she has been ordained for nearly 70 years, her show never directly mentions her faith. Instead, she links experiences from her life with current events to demonstrate how horrible actions from history are being repeated today.
Just as humanity continues to make the same mistakes, she finds the grace, mercy and compassion of the Spirit present to bring us through our current difficulties. Like the author of John’s gospel, she continually mentions the “presence” of God in the person of the Holy Spirit. It is this abiding presence, this ongoing presence that is with each of us by the gift of Jesus.
We can face our own personal as well as our national and global challenges knowing that we are not alone, that we are constantly accompanied by the grace of God, the love of Jesus and the active presence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has not abandoned us but has breathed into each of us the power of the Spirit to abide with us. Like those eaglet chicks, we have been imprinted with the love of God, and we bear in us the very likeness of Christ.
The Spirit creates community where we were once alone. She helps us to love even those we don’t like very much and to forgive those with whom we have great disagreement. Every now and then in history, the Spirit breaks through in dramatic ways to demonstrate that the community of Christ’s love is fully inclusive of all. In 1906 in Los Angeles, a Black Pentecostal minister who had to preach out of a small house because the church wouldn’t allow his message kicked off a revival now known as the Azusa Street Revival.
The Spirit fell upon Black and White, church members and unbelievers, rich and poor, Latino, Asian and folks of every ethnic background. From this small beginning a movement spread all over the world. Sixty years later it broke out anew in the life of an Episcopal priest in Van Nuys. Dennis Bennett was a respectable, successful white pastor of a large and wealthy congregation. His experience of the Spirit led him finally to a small and dwindling parish in Seattle and another charismatic renewal began in 1961 right here in this church.
It was characterized by attracting all sorts of people from Catholic nuns to high-school students, drug addicts and respectable Episcopalians from other congregations, professionals and fishermen, and people from all over the world who heard about the Spirit at St. Luke’s and came to experience what God was doing.
Over time, the Spirit weaves through our human experience, creating, guiding, supporting, convicting and accompanying us. Our long-term members are fond of saying “The Spirit has never left St. Luke’s.” Even when the situation was desperate and the church’s survival unsure, God’s Spirit has been present to enliven our faith and sustain our commitment to the way of Jesus.
In two weeks on the Feast of Pentecost, we will remember and celebrate the miraculous outpouring of the Spirit on the disciples and the communication of the good news in every tongue. Today we are reminded and promised that this is not just a one-time or sometimes experience but that Jesus has breathed into each of us the Spirit of God and poured out upon the community who bears his name the power of the Spirit so that we might live and love faithfully in our time. Amen.
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