Sunday after Ascension

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Sunday after Ascension with Baptism

June 5th 2011 The Revd Alison Camplin

• Acts 1:6-14 *John 17:1-11

http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons

We all know how hard it is to wait for something when you only know that it will happen sometime soon. Maybe today, it may be tomorrow. That is exactly what the disciples had to do. After seeing Jesus the Risen Christ leave on Thursday, Ascension Day, they were now waiting for the power Jesus promised. As they waited for 10 days until Pentecost (next Sunday)they spent time together praying, encouraging one another, reassuring one another.

They were able to talk about the coming gift of the Holy Spirit in eager expectation. Jesus praying for them helped them to move from a body of helpless frightened people to a community that belongs to God. Through all that had happened we see now the church at work, seeking to embrace, embody, and enact its convictions in the world.

I would like to read John 17 verse 10-11 to you again as written by Eugene Peterson in The Message.

Jesus said “Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, and my life is on display in them. For I’m no longer going to be visible in the world: They’ll continue in the world while I return to you. Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life that you conferred as a gift through me, so they can be one heart and mind.”

And Acts 1:7-8 “What you’ll be getting is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to witness in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world."

Jesus prayed for his disciples and promised to give the disciples, as he gives us, a power source that would encourage, and empower them in their ministries. This gave the disciples confidence. It enabled them to see that the future of the church was not resting on their own abilities, or their “know how”. The future of the Christian church was in the hands of God – God would work through them as God works through us today.

By allowing them to meet together for those ten days, Jesus helped them to understand that they, like us, have the help and support of other Christians to help them through difficult times, to challenge them, to speak words of love to them, to listen and to share.

The Church works like a pile of coals. When coals are piled together, they feed off each other’s heat, keeping each other warm and glowing. But if one coal falls to the side, it soon loses its heat and its fire goes out. That’s the way the Church works. When we are left alone – we can quickly despair. But when we know we have the support of others, we are able to grow. Jesus knew this, so he allowed the disciples ten days to feed off one another before sending them out.

Through our baptism as we become part of God’s family, we become part of a much larger story - a story that is never ending - a story of eternal life. We begin our journey of faith and ministry with our baptism which continues and never stops growing. Rachel and Paul, as they bring Zoe for baptism today, know that they are part of a much larger family. Just as Zoe has been born into a family that will love her and protect her, she is shortly going to join us in God’s family, the Church. Zoe, like us all, is a much loved child of God. Zoe through her baptism will be under God’s protection.

Being part of a family and part of God’s family means that we can make choices. We can choose to wander away from our family or from God but whatever happens, family and God will always be there for us waiting for our return. Coming from overseas or having extended family overseas is hard, but wherever we are in the world, there is always a wider family that will include us. A church community where we will be accepted, loved, prayed for and supported.

Part of my role at Wellington Cathedral as Chaplain is having the privilege be able to walk alongside families. Paul, Rachel and Emily have been part of our Cathedral community/family for several years as regular members of the Buggy service and Bumps & Babes, now the weekly Tots’N’Tunes. These have become opportunities to share and experience times of joy, and times of sadness together. Whatever happens, we all have the knowledge that we are not alone.

Like the disciples, it is all of us who help to make up the Church. Barbara Brown Taylor (who visited last year) describes the truth in this way, both for the first disciples and for us as well: “With nothing but a promise and a prayer, those disciples consented to become the church and nothing was ever the same again, beginning with them. The followers became leaders, the listeners became preachers, the converts became missionaries, the healed became healers. The disciples became apostles, witnesses of the risen Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit, and nothing was ever the same again. That probably was not the way they would have planned it. If they had had it their way, they would probably have tied Jesus up so that he could not have gotten away from them, so that they would have known where to find him and rely on him forever. Only that is not how it happened. He went away --- he was taken away --- and they stood looking up toward heaven. Then they stopped looking up toward heaven, looked at each other instead, and got on with the business of being the church.”

That is what we have become, what the Holy Spirit has made us to be, so that when the absence of another or the absence of God is deeply felt by any one of us, all we have to do is turn to one another and see that we are not alone, we have not been left behind. And this is why we gather as a visible reminder that Jesus is still with us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, drawing us together as a community, as the body of Christ, and feeding us with Jesus’ body and blood at Communion. We also gather together, so that we can continue to be inspired and empowered by Jesus’ words and then to go out and share those words with others, both with our lips and in our actions, so that all may know the life-transforming presence of our Risen Lord.

As Teresa of Avila reminds us, "Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which to look out with Christ's compassion to the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; Yours are the hands with which he is to bless people now."

We are all the body of Christ together. We are Christ to the world using the gifts that Jesus pours out on the church through his Spirit dwelling within us and among us.

Amen