Shalom Mennonite Church
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Easter 6 - “Orphaned and Adopted”
Text: John 14:15-21
Eric Massanari
“a first-hand God”
Orphan.
To be an orphan is one of the most vulnerable
human conditions we might imagine.
It evokes the image of a child
standing alone,
facing the dangers of the world.
“I will not leave you orphaned,”
Jesus says to his friends, assuring them that
he will not leave them without a “spiritual parent.”
He promises them that when he is gone,
they will not be alone.
As Jesus points them toward the road ahead,
he gives them two distinct messages
about the way of discipleship they are to follow.
The first message is:
Remember to keep my commandments.
It is a clear, direct and simple
reminder that they are meant
to orient their daily living
to the path of loving action
he has taught them and modeled for them.
This path includes
tending to the needs of the poor,
visiting the sick,
feeding those who are hungry,
giving drink to the thirsty.
This is the path of loving one's neighbor as oneself.
The second message Jesus gives them is:
God's own Spirit will be with you as your Advocate.
This Advocate will be their teacher and guide
just as Jesus has been their teacher and guide.
The Spirit will dwell among
the community of believers
and within the community of believers.
God's movement continues to be toward
humanity through the Holy Spirit.
And we are called to continue to move
toward God by living in ways
that reflect God's love into the world.
The path of discipleship then is two-fold:
it is receptivity and it is action,
it is being and it is doing,
it is yielding oneself to God and it is asserting oneself in the world.
And Jesus is very clear with his disciples
that these interrelated movements of faith
are complimentary and necessary for the way of the disciple.
The Christian path has found many expressions
over the centuries, and these varied expressions
and traditions have emphasized
these two movements of faith to varying degrees.
Some traditions—just like some individual believers—
have been more naturally reflective,
focused on worship and prayer life,
sometimes with less emphasis on obedience
to Jesus' commandments in daily living.
Other traditions and communities
have been much more inclined to
emphasize the active movement of discipleship;
following Christ in relationships,
preaching the Good News, sharing it
through action and service:
planting churches, disaster relief,
peace & justice work, mission efforts, and so on.
Most Christian traditions and communities
I have encountered have some element of both movements,
but the balance might be struck very differently
and the expression of these movements might
look quite different than it does for other Christians down the street.
And what about us?
What about the good 'ol Mennonites?
What about us here at Shalom church?
It is an interesting question because
I think today Mennonites are often viewed by others
as being “doers of the word.”
We are seen as a tradition that emphasizes
the active more than the reflective movement of discipleship.
And, in large part, I sense we openly claim this
in our own self-identity as a Christian tradition.
In fact, when we use the word “discipleship”
we are typically pointing more to that active
part of faith – the doing more than the being.
Especially at the more “liberal” or “progressive”
end of the Mennonite church spectrum,
we tend to emphasize service to others,
and witnessing and working for peace & justice.
We are very comfortable discussing political and social issues—perhaps more than we are with joining in Bible study
or prayer circles.
We are inclined to ask,
“What can we do?” or “How can we help?”
more readily than we ask,
“How is God speaking to us right now?”
“Where is God leading us as a church?”
To put it in a bit different terms:
We are more of a Sermon on the Mount kind of church
than we are a “go forth and make disciples of all nations,”
or a “go to the garden with Jesus to pray” sort of church.
This is not a “good” or “bad” reality,
it is simply who we have been and become
for some very wonderful reasons—
those reasons being the people
and the circumstances and experiences
that have shaped this remarkable congregation of Shalom.
However, it is an important reality to name
because it reveals to us not only our gifts
but also our growing edges,
as we remember Jesus' two-fold message
to his friends about what the path
of discipleship entails – both the doing and the being.
It means, in part, God needs us—
our doing, our good works—
and it also means, we need God.
We are called to attend to the presence of the One
whose Spirit acts and speaks within us
as Advocate and guide.
We nurture that second part
through our worship together
and through making room for prayer.
And by “prayer” I don't mean
necessarily those formal expressions
of spoken word that sometimes
mark periods in our worship.
By prayer I mean much more inclusively
that spirit of yieldedness
we come to know when we grow receptive
and open to that presence of God's Spirit
within us and among us.
Prayer is less about method
as it is about all that nurtures the connection
between us and God.
This week I came across a book on prayer
that was unfamiliar to me;
a book entitled, Clinging, by Emilie Griffin.
She writes:
Prayer is, after all, a very dangerous business. For all the benefits it offers of growing closer to God, it carries with it one great element of risk: the possibility of change. In prayer we open ourselves to the chance that God will do something with us that we had not intended. We yield to possibilities of intense perception, of seeing through human masks and the density of “things” to the very center of reality.
To avoid this, sometimes we excuse ourselves from prayer by doing good works on a carefully controlled schedule . . . By doing something limited “for God,” something we judge to be enough and more than enough, we skirt the possibility that God—in prayer—may ask us what he wants to ask, may suggest what we should do.
- Emilie Griffin, in Clinging: The Experience of Prayer
I think she is naming a challenge
to a church such as ours as we seek
the path of discipleship Jesus described.
Our challenge may be to
entertain the possibility
that God is here – within and among us -
calling us to much more
than what we assume to be our tasks or jobs.
Which is not to say God is asking us to do more.
It is so easy to get lost in that language of doing
that has to do with our commitments,
our time, our energy, the limited things
we measure with “more” or “less.”
God is not seeking our heroic time commitments
or our overworked exhaustion.
God is asking for our hearts,
our yieldedness together, in community,
to the presence of the Spirit.
And there is no “more” or “less”
when it comes to the Spirit of God.
We are a people whose minds are occupied
with great complex problems and issues.
We sometimes forget, or we are terribly suspicious,
of what may be simple responses – such as prayer,
prayer that listens for God's voice and call.
However, if we make space for this listening,
as we do when we come together like this,
then we begin to participate in the Spirit,
in the Spirit that is working for the needs
and the well-being of humanity and all life.
We orient our doing with our deepest being in God.
We need God,
and God needs us. Amen
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