'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!
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.
