The In-Between Time

'Jesus prayed to the Father, “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”'

--John 17: 6-19

At the intersection of 10th Avenue and 20th Street in New York City is the Church of the Guardian Angel. All along the edge of the roof are friezes narrating various scenes in the Bible.  When you reach the end you see the faces of the apostles looking upward, and then all you see at the top are a pair of feet dangling there.  It’s the most adorable depiction of the Ascension I’ve ever seen! 

An Italian painting of the Ascension from the 15th century (similar to the frieze of Guardian Angel Church).

The Ascension is a core piece of our faith – right there in our Nicene Creed. It’s a high holy day on our calendar, but it always falls on a Thursday – 40 days after Easter – so we rarely hear about it on a Sunday, including this past Sunday. What always strikes me about the Ascension – and it’s something that that frieze on 10th Ave. shows – is the image of the apostles just staring up into the sky. They have no idea what they’re supposed to do now that Jesus has left them. In the story an angel shows up and tells them to return to Jerusalem and wait. Wait for Jesus to send the Holy Spirit, as he promised. But until then, they wait.

What a strange time that must have been! We reflected on that strangeness this past Sunday. The Ascension has happened but Pentecost hasn’t yet. For the next week we are in a liminal time, an in-between time. Jesus’ earthly ministry has ended, but the Holy Spirit hasn’t yet moved the apostles to proclaim the Good News themselves because, frankly, they’re not ready; after all, the first thing they do when they get back to Jerusalem is choose Judas' successor by playing a dice game! This is, in manner of speaking, the apostles’ interim period. It’s a short one, to be sure, only 10 days, but oh how long those days must have felt. Serving as Interim Rector at St. James' in Skaneateles, NY has afforded me the chance to walk this in-between time with folks. 

For the remainder of this blog, I will keep the tense in first and second person, so that it conveys more clearly the good news I had to share with the people of St. James' during their time of transition: 

I suspect that even for some of y’all [the people of St. James'], have experienced the last several months feeling, much longer than they’ve actually been. No doubt there’ve been times when folks have felt like those apostles, staring into the sky just waiting for Jesus to do something, feeling helpless, even hopeless, without their leader. It’s a pretty good reminder that the folks in biblical times understood something with which we are all familiar: that transitions are hard. 

Even when we know what’s coming, it’s still tough, isn’t it? Surely the apostles knew that SOMETHING was going to happen, even if they didn’t know what it was or when it would occur. In the same way, we all know that a person will be called to lead this parish by the power of the Holy Spirit and the insight of the Parish Search Committee and Vestry, even though no one – except God – knows exactly when that’ll happen. It’s scary, but it’s also holy.

This is one of those times when it’s really cool to be an Episcopalian, to be liturgical people, because our calendar and worship ground us right where we are. We can’t jump the gun, so to speak. Just like how we have to feel the pain at the foot of the cross on Good Friday and can’t skip ahead to the joy of Easter, we gotta sit in this in-between time, even though we know that the Holy Spirit is coming next week – and with her the “Acts of the Apostles” will truly begin . But not yet. It’s a divine lesson in delayed gratification. 

That is one of the earliest - and most difficult - things we learn as children, that you can’t always get what you want when you want it. Do you remember what that was like when you were a kid? If not, do you remember watching your kids when they didn’t get what they wanted when they wanted it? I barely remember the time my grandparents took me to Disney World when I was five, but I’m told that I was asking if we were there yet before we were out of their hometown of Bristol, let alone the state of Virginia. They say patience is a virtue, but Tom Petty says the waiting is the hardest part. Yet that is the gift that God gave the apostles before the greater gift of the Spirit’s coming amongst them: the patience to wait, to listen, to feel the discomfort of the liminal time, and to just be, wherever they were, wherever we are. It is so often in these moments God is most stirring, even if we don’t notice. 

What, then, do we do with these in-between times? I suspect they are good opportunities for us to remember who we are, and whose we are, and blessedly we have a good example this week from Jesus himself, to help us remember. In the 17th chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus offers what is often called the High Priestly Prayer, it’s Jesus’ prayer to God the Father on behalf of his disciples – and not only the ones who walked with him, but also those who would come after them, including us. 

“Everything I have is a gift from you,” he prayed to the one he called Abba. He was referring to his friends. If Jesus thought of his earthly friends as gifts from God, does he think of us this way, too? I’d say absolutely he does! Imagine the difference it could make for each of us if we truly believed that, that we are loved, safe, and guarded from the threat of ever being lost. If we can spend these in-between times believing that we are untied to each other in the same way God is united to his Abba, what love could abound, what lessons could be learned, what transformation could occur between now and the promised time of fulfillment?! Like a caterpillar, going into the chrysalis phase, waiting to become a butterfly.

No wonder Jesus promises the gift of joy because there can be no greater joy than to know ourselves as beloved and safe, plugged into the divine connection, encircled by the surround sound of love. If everything is a gift from God, then you are a gift. I am a gift. They are a gift. Even this interim time of uncertainty and delayed gratification is a gift. All gifts. All loved.

We don’t have to look far to see a world constantly in a hurry, anxious to get to the next thing. We do it in our jobs, in our families, and in our churches. I wonder if the apostles even did it with Jesus when he left them to stew over those 10 days. Maybe the wisdom, the insight, the meaning of it all lies in the stewing. Any y’all ever make a vegetable beef stew? If so, you know you don’t just throw everything in the pot, flip the stove to high and cook for a matter of minutes. No, you gotta use a crock pot, turned to its lowest setting, and let that sucker marinate and simmer all day long. It’s hard to just watch it because we don’t wanna wait so long, but boy howdy is it good when it’s done! The tastiest food takes the most time.

Here in the stewing lies a precious gift. I suspect few of us would ever willingly choose to dwell in the interim time, yet this is where God has placed us. And just as we know that the Spirit will come next week and light the apostles’ hearts on fire, we know God is working in the same way, and in God’s time, you, together with the person called to serve as your next Rector, will set this world ablaze the power of our loving, liberating, and life-giving God. Cherish the gift that is the in-between time, and see what God’s cookin’ up. 

He Choo-Choo-Chooses Us

'Jesus said to his disciples, “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. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”'

--John 15: 9-17

He said, "You didn't choose me but I chose you."  When I hear this I can't help but think of one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons. In it Lisa offers a valentine to her classmate Ralph.  The card shows a crazy looking train with the tag line "I choo-choo-choose you!"  Well, that's Jesus folks, the one who will always choo-choo-choose us, even in the times when we don't choo-choo-choose him – or each other. 

In his Farewell Discourse, the last teaching to his disciples before his arrest and crucifixion in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells them that while they did not choose him, he chose them. He even goes so far as to call them friends. Think about that for a second. Plenty like Moses, David, and Elijah had been referred to as servants of God, but friends, that's pushing it. Still, that's the level of intimacy that Jesus offers his disciples. It is a friendship grounded on a commandment, a mandate - the very mandate we got on Maundy Thursday - to love one another as he loves them. 

I’ve told this story, but it bears repeating: years ago when I was playing baseball in high school I had a coach tell the guys on the team, "You don't have to like each other, but you do have to love each other."  At first that didn't make any sense to us, but we came to figure out that, while we may not always get along or agree with each other, we did have to respect each other. We did have to know that we were in this thing together, and that we could count on each other when the chips were down. That's what it meant for our team, our community, to love one another. 

The briefest instruction of all: love each other. The hardest instruction of all: love each other as you have been loved. Maybe it’s that second part that’s so hard to remember. I wonder sometimes if the reason we are so cruel to one another is not that we willingly ignore Jesus’ mandate to love, but rather because we forget that we ourselves are loved; after all, if we don’t know that love for ourselves, how can we possibly give it away; hurt people, hurt people, as the saying goes. How can we choose to love someone if we don’t know Jesus has already chosen us, and them, for that matter? Perhaps we are afraid that grace is somehow limited, that there is an expiration date or that we don’t have enough patience, enough bandwidth. Maybe we expect that Jesus doesn’t. 

Why do we so quickly hoard grace? We want it, we crave it, we long to feel the peace of Jesus’ presence, but still we find it nearly impossible to receive his grace easily and give it away freely. We have treasure to share, and when we know that grace – which calls us his friends – we can pour out forgiveness lavishly upon ourselves and all of God’s creation and share freely, without the need for anything in return. We can go laughing into our lives because we have inherited, through no deserving of our own, the very best of Good News: that Jesus choo-choo-chooses us.

Knowing that, how can we not choo-choo-choose to serve others, encourage others, challenge and call forth other’s gifts? The way we listen to and love the One who claims us as his friends is by keeping his fierce and gentle rule of love. As we love, we become love. As we become love, we give love. As we give love, we receive love. As we receive love, we love. And the cycle starts all over.

We are the body of Christ alive in the world now, loving now. Jesus has no hands, no feet, no heart in this world but ours. The little circles of love interlock with the big love weaving its way through the whole universe – healing, renewing, restoring all that is. We will not fail in these, our tasks of love, when we allow ourselves, first and simply, to be loved. To hear the voice of the one who calls us his friend and to believe him when he does so. When we know that kind of grace for ourselves, oh boy, love can abound, and the whole world can be changed. 

Even when we feel the evil coming and shadows all around, or when we feel danger around us, the love and grace of Jesus – of a loving, liberating, and life-giving God – joins us together as one. We are bound to this struggle with the wind and flame of the Holy Spirit, and we will never fail those whom we love in the very truest sense. We see this playing out right now – once again being led by a younger generation – as those who love justice and mercy – the very qualities Jesus himself preached to his friends – stand in solidarity and cry out against the atrocities of war and occupation. Not everyone may like them for doing so, but we are all called to love them, to remember why they’re witnessing in the first place, and to understand that the same loving, liberating, and life-giving God that choo-choo-chooses them to stand in solidarity with the suffering does the same of all of us who have been called friends of the crucified and risen One, and furthermore invites us to reflect on that friendship, on that amazing grace and love given to us, and to ask ourselves what we are doing with it.

As some of you know my all-time favorite saint is Julian of Norwich, whose feast day is coming up this week. In a vision she once saw something the size of a hazelnut in the palm of God's hands and heard a voice saying to her, "This is everything I have made. And I made it all for love."  In a time of plague, war, and death, Julian knew what it meant to be a friend of Jesus, what it meant to abide in his love, what it meant to know Jesus had chosen her. This is how, in spite of her hardships, she was able to hear Jesus’ say to her, "All manner of things will be well."  In our own time of plagues, war, disasters, and political upheaval, God’s hands are still cupped, still holding all that is in, and the voice of Jesus – the same voice that calls us his friends, that choo-choo-chooses us – whispers that all will be well. We have been given this gift by grace, which is unearned and unending. Let us all pray that we do not squander it.