The Triune God now knows what it is to live as a human, and we know what it is to be God’s love in the world, for the life and wholeness of all.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Ascension of Our Lord
Texts: Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:44-53, also adding Hebrews 4:14-15, Hebrews 9:24

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

What we celebrate today seems to be the last thing we want to celebrate.

Today, 40 days after Easter, Christ Jesus ascended from the earth, returning into the life of the Triune God, whatever that means in the life of God. But the immediate impact of this ascension was a sense of abandonment by those closest to Jesus. These women and men felt lost, gaped up at the sky thinking, “now what?”

Today we’re reeling from the slaughter of innocents in a Texas elementary school, the slaughter of innocents in a Buffalo grocery store, the slaughter of innocents at a church in Southern California, God’s beloved children of all ages and colors and backgrounds. We’re reeling from the constant barrage of such horrors in our nation, again and again and again and again. Celebrating the absence of a physical Christ Jesus in the world when we’re living with such repeated pain doesn’t feel comforting. We understand gaping up at the sky looking for God.

And we know that 90% of Americans want more controls on guns, and comprehensive background checks, that we’re being held hostage by politicians who repeatedly refuse to deal with this evil to preserve their power, who even proclaim the same messages of hate these shooters espouse in their killing. We also know that we hold responsibility for this world, this culture, and need to be continually engaged, to work for change.

But it would be good to know as well that God is with us. That God feels this pain. That somehow Jesus’ ascension isn’t a sign of God abandoning us to our brokenness and evil.

So let’s hear another perspective on Christ’s ascension.

The preacher whose sermon is called the letter to the Hebrews has this to say:

14 Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are. (Hebrews 4:14-15)

24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. (9:24)

Christ the High Priest is standing for us within God’s life, and that means this: because Christ Jesus is like us, was tested like us, knows our pain, our sorrow, our fear, can sympathize with our weaknesses, even while being at the same time the divine Son of God, Christ now has carried our truth into the Holy of Holies that is God’s life. In God’s Son, we have someone who knows us better than we know ourselves sharing that knowledge within God’s life.

That means the Triune God now understands us fully and truly.

In Christ Jesus, God-with-us, we know God better, have seen God’s face, know God’s love.

But now Christ is also Us-with-God, so the Triune God also knows us better, in ways God never could without taking on our flesh. Knows our fears and pains. Understands what it is for a mortal human being to see as we see tragedies and evil unfold, to experience as God’s children here do such grief and pain in a broken world, to know how it hurts to feel helpless to do anything. You and I and all God’s children are now known and understood by the Triune God as deeply as we can be.

God has not abandoned us at all. And now, knowing us all fully this way, God’s way of healing this world becomes much clearer, makes sense.

In Christ’s ascension, the Triune God now enters us to change this world.

As Christ returned to the life of God in a new way, Christ gave this promise, which is also a calling: you will be filled with power from on high, with the Spirit of God, so you can be witnesses to God’s love in the world.

As we face evil and horrors and unspeakable tragedy, as we look at a world threatened by hatred and violence against the most vulnerable, even as we sometimes despair that nothing can be done, the risen and ascended Christ says: I give you the Spirit’s power to be witnesses of God’s love. Witnesses in our words and actions, Spirit-filled, trying in whatever way we can to make this world more just and safe and whole for all God’s children.

The road of Ascension goes both ways, our lives witnessed and lived in the life of the Trinity, God’s life witnessed and lived in our lives. And in that beautiful reality, we can dare to hope for the healing of this world to finally begin.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Do you want God to bring wholeness and health to you and the world? That’s all God in Christ is asking.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sixth Sunday of Easter, year C
Text: John 5:1-9 (including v. 4, omitted in NRSV)

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Thirty-eight years he lay by that pool.

Most of this man’s life was spent lying on a mat, surrounded by maybe hundreds of others, day after day, waiting for healing that never came. Four decades.

If he had hope once, it was long gone. So he didn’t answer Jesus’ question. Someone who could give him what he wanted stood before him and asked, “Do you want to be made well?” Literally, “do you want to be made sound, healthy, whole?”

It’s a simple question, one he’d have an answer for. Instead, he just named his problem: I don’t have anyone to help me when the water stirs, and by the time I’ve struggled over to the pool someone always gets in there first.

Jesus must have been tempted to say, “That’s not what I asked you.” But Jesus told him to stand up, pick up his mat, and walk.

When you wait years for something good to happen, hope to arise, restoration to come and it doesn’t, it’s hard to imagine it ever will.

For 530 years, since the arrival of European settlers on this continent, the lives and culture of those who lived here has been systematically destroyed, the consequences still crushing our indigenous siblings. Five centuries! For 400 years, since the beginning of the African slave trade, what we did to the lives and culture of those dragged here, abused, killed, sold against their will, has shaped a racist reality that abides in the core of our nations’ institutions, culture, and society, the consequences still crushing our neighbors. Four centuries!

Our community of faith here is full of people who join many in our country and long for those centuries of oppression and violence to be ended, for justice to come, people who hear the cries of our neighbors, feel deep anger and sadness at yet another killing, deep depression at the rise of totalitarian rule led by a white supremacist minority and fueled by right-wing Christianity.

But if Christ were standing here today saying, “Do you want this city, this nation, to be made sound and whole, to become healthy?” would we answer as this man did? Saying: “It’s so deeply engrained, and every time we see a step forward there are ten backward, and the polarization and rage in this country seem to be increasing and nothing ever gets better.”

But then Christ would say, “That’s not what I asked you.”

Can we answer Christ’s question?

Do we want this culture healed, this city made whole, this nation to become sound, where all live in justice and peace, with mercy for each other and care for this creation? God’s not asking whether we think it could ever happen. God’s asking, do you want it?

Too often people of good will who hear God’s call for justice in Scripture, whose hearts are shaped by Christ’s love, assume fixing the world is all on us. And if for years nothing seems to improve, what’s the point?

But justice and peace and mercy aren’t just God’s words in Scripture, they’re God’s full desire and intent for this creation. God promises to make this world new and whole and sound. It is God’s mission we are asked to join, not our mission to create and do.

And that’s very different. God in Christ is asking us, “do you want all this to be made sound and whole?” Because my hand is working on that.

And God came among us in Christ not just for the big picture, the whole world.

In Jesus, God’s care extended individually to the smallest child, to the most marginalized person, to all who felt lost or abandoned or wounded or oppressed or afraid or anxious. Jesus cared not just about the forest, we might say, but also the individual trees.

Which means God in Christ cares deeply for you, and asks, “Do you want to be made well? Sound, whole, healthy?”

And how many of us would answer like that man? Saying things like: “What I’m dealing with has been so long and it never really gets better and that’s the way it is. Or: My depression is too deep-seated. Or: This relationship is too frayed. Or: Spiritually I feel dry and alone. Or: My mental health always seems fragile.”

But that’s not what Christ asked you. The question is, do you want to be made well, sound, whole?

Can you answer Christ’s question?

It’s not a question of whether you hope that a specific illness or pain or struggle is completely taken away. We know often physical ailments aren’t fully healed, and mental and spiritual illness can last indefinitely. Even the apostle Paul long had a suffering that never was fully removed.

But the question is, do you want God’s hand in your life to bring you wholeness, peace, and soundness? Even if the outer circumstances don’t seem to change, do you want God to calm your heart, bring you hope, help you cope with whatever afflicts you or those you love?

Because so many witnesses of faith can tell you God comes to them in the Spirit and gives them hope and life in whatever situations they find themselves. They find wholeness in the broken pieces of their lives, soundness in the frayed and fragile places, health in the wounded places. God cares even for the smallest sparrow, Jesus, God-with-us, said. Do you want God to care for you like that?

Answering Christ’s question is enough to go on for today.

There’s work for you and me to do. God’s mission to serve, our lives to live. But for today, do you want to be made well? Do you want this city, this nation, this creation, to be made well?

If so, Good News. God is even now working in this world for the wholeness and health of all things, and you’ve even seen in you, in others, in this world, God’s hand bringing life. God is even now working in you for your wholeness and health, calming your heart and spirit with the news that you are beloved and nothing can separate you from God’s love.

The One who makes all things new wants to bring you and the world wholeness. Stand up, pick up your mat, and let’s walk together into that new future.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God’s love in Christ is for all God’s children, no exceptions: will we remain witnesses of that love in our actions and life together?

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday of Easter, year C
Texts: Acts 11:1-18; John 13:31-35

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

At first, Peter didn’t fully grasp what Jesus was commanding.

When the disciples first heard “love as I have loved,” they didn’t know what it would mean. Their night of betrayal and denial, Jesus’ horrible death and amazing resurrection, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, were all still to come.

Today we meet Peter after Easter, after Pentecost, and see what’s really at stake for him and the others in this command. Peter’s core beliefs about being a child of God, covenanted with God as God’s people, are now challenged. We 21st century Christians too often ignorantly dismiss this crisis as unimportant. It was anything but.

Remember, at this point, every disciple of Jesus was still Jewish.

These women and men believed that Jesus was God’s Anointed, God’s Messiah promised in their Scriptures, now risen from the dead, and that they had life in his Spirit.

But at their core they were still God’s chosen people, living under the covenant God made with their ancestors more than a thousand years before. They kept going to Temple, to synagogue, celebrated Sabbath, ate according to Jewish laws. Being followers of Christ’s Way didn’t stop them being Jewish. Being Jewish was how they’d always made sense of the world and God, and God’s relationship to them.

Now a Roman soldier and two Gentile slaves knock at Peter’s door, sent by a Roman centurion, Cornelius, saying their master was visited by God’s angel and told to go get Peter, who would give him and his whole household news of their salvation. They said God wanted Peter to go to a Gentile home, unlawful for faithful Jews, and proclaim Christ’s name.

Love as I love, Jesus said. Now the implications shatter Peter’s reality. Can God’s love in Christ extend beyond Judaism? he wondered. Is being circumcised, following Jewish food laws, practicing Jewish worship and community life, not necessarily a requirement to joining Christ’s Way? Is everything I hold dear about who I am and who God is something I can even let go?

At stake here was whether Peter and this new movement were still living in the way of Christ.

Without question God now included non-Jewish people in God’s love in Christ. Peter had a triple vision just before these men arrived, of animals God’s Word previously declared unclean. But in that vision God declared them all clean. Then God’s Spirit spoke directly to Peter when these men arrived and said not to make a distinction between them and him, where previously faithful Jews were taught they were completely distinct from Gentiles.

Now, Jesus said “love as I have loved.” So God’s new Way shouldn’t have been a complete surprise. Peter certainly knew that Jesus fed a group of thousands of Gentiles with some bread and fish just as he’d fed another group of thousands of Jewish people. That Jesus praised the faith of another Roman centurion while healing his slave. That Jesus listened to the plea of a Syrian woman, expanded his mission beyond Jewish people, and healed her daughter.

But the final proof for Peter was, after going to visit Cornelius and proclaiming Christ, the Holy Spirit poured out on all these non-Jewish people just as Peter and the others with him experienced at Pentecost. At that point, Peter realized he couldn’t hinder God in any way.

But here’s what was at stake: Peter and the others were sent by Jesus to represent God’s love in Christ in the world. If they refused to baptize Gentiles, or forced them to become Jews first, that didn’t change the fact that God’s love was already with these non-Jewish people. God’s Spirit already filled them. But it would mean this new Church no longer represented God’s love in Christ faithfully. God’s love would move forward and this new Church would no longer be relevant, no longer faithful, no longer apostles of God’s love in Christ.

So, is someone knocking at our door, sent by God, asking us to consider whether God is moving in a new direction?

What deeply held ways and beliefs is God’s new way calling us to face and reconsider?

How is God’s Spirit lifting up for us the evils of racist laws and systems and structures that force our siblings of color to prepare their children how to avoid being killed by police, that disempower millions of God’s children from living where they want and earning what is fair and right? What is God asking you, and me, and especially this community of faith here at Mount Olive, to let go of? To do? Should we be talking about reparations, and how would that look? Other things? How are we concretely, truly, loving all whose skin color is not white as Jesus loves them?

How is God’s Spirit lifting up for us the evils of prejudice based on gender identity, systems and laws that give rights to some of us that others don’t have? Laws that threaten our young people who don’t fit into the tight categories of gender our culture has normed, targeting them literally as fair game for assault and discrimination? Systems that marginalize any not identifying as male, whether through pay disparity or lack of opportunity? What is God asking you, and me, and especially this community of faith here at Mount Olive, to let go of? To do? How are we concretely, truly, loving all God’s children, whatever gender, as Jesus loves them?

How is God’s Spirit lifting up for us the evils of the genocide some of our ancestors inflicted on the peoples who lived here, so that now we’re all living on stolen land, even worshipping today on stolen land? What is God asking you, and me, and especially this community of faith here at Mount Olive to let go of? To do? How are we concretely, truly, loving our indigenous siblings as Jesus loves them?

The Scriptures are as clear to us as God was to Peter that day.

God’s love is on the side of those oppressed and marginalized, those crushed into generations of poverty, those who increasingly are even targeted by powerful political leaders in our country. God’s love is for all God’s children, whatever they believe or don’t believe, whatever they look like, however they understand themselves. God’s love in Christ is clearly for all, and ignores all categories we make.

The only question for Peter, for you, for me, for this community at Mount Olive is this: will we remain on the side of God’s love in Christ? Will we continue to call ourselves witnesses of the resurrection, bearers of God’s love in the world? God’s love for all is reaching out and picking up everyone God can find, not asking for ID or conformity or anything like that. Will we be left standing by the side of the road, watching as God’s love spreads without us, irrelevant to God’s mission in this world?

Love as I love is still Jesus’ command.

Your leaders here have already begun thinking about how following Christ’s love might call us to new paths at Mount Olive. This will take prayer and contemplation from all of us. It will take listening to God and to our siblings around us. It will have to lead to action.

So today, let us pray together. Let us come to this Meal of life that gives us love and grace and healing and ask Christ to make us his body and blood for the world. Let us listen, like Peter, to when God speaks, whether through the knock on the door, or the Spirit’s voice inside our hearts or through Scripture, or even a vision.

God’s love for all in Christ is absolute. May the God who loves us dearly and forever help us get on board, however God needs us to do it. For the sake of all God’s children. But also for our own sake, that we might remain faithfully God’s people in this world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Christ gets in your way and invites you, calls you, transforms you, to walk in the Way and join God’s children in healing the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday of Easter, year C
Texts: Acts 9:1-20; Psalm 30; John 21:1-19 (plus 20-22)

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Followers of the Way in Damascus probably prayed Psalm 30 a lot that week.

Word had gotten out that Paul, known better by his Hebrew name, Saul, was on his way to do in Damascus what he did in Jerusalem. He was an enforcer for the Council leadership, finding, arresting, and bringing back in chains those who proclaimed Jesus as Messiah. Luke says he “breathed threats and murder” against the faithful Christians. And now he was on the way to Damascus. Surely they all prayed “don’t let our enemies triumph over us,” from this psalm.

And Christ Jesus, risen from the dead, answered that prayer. By confronting their great enemy with love and invitation. Christ, who taught them to pray for and to love their enemies, said, “Here’s what I’ll do with those who hate you. I’ll love them over to our side.” Ananias and the others were understandably doubtful. But Jesus said, I’ve chosen him to be my instrument to bring my name – the Good News you all proclaim – to both Jews and non-Jews.

That’s the way of Christ: transforming hatred with love, for the healing of all.

And the risen Christ believes sinful people are absolutely necessary for this Way.

As tremendously daunting as the world’s problems are, with systemic sins like racism and sexism and classism, and deeply embedded patterns of violence and hatred as a common human way of living, God in Christ has a simple plan: change people one at a time, inviting them into the Way, and eventually all will be healed. The Dalai Lama once wrote, “Although attempting to bring about world peace through the internal transformation of individuals is difficult, it is the only way.” [1]

Christ couldn’t agree more. The healing of all creation will come by transforming the human children of God in it, to bring about the wholeness and life of all things.

And it’s the sinners, the broken ones who keep breaking things, the embedded, intransigent ones who perpetuate oppressive systems, the oblivious ones who benefit from the pain of others without knowing it or seeming to care about it, these are who Christ needs to transform.

People like Paul.

Vengeful, violent, and zealous for his cause, Paul is a notorious persecutor of the new community of those who trust in Christ.

Rather than violently stopping Paul, Christ looks at one of the best-trained Jewish people of his day, an exemplar Pharisee, brilliant in the ways of the Jewish faith, and says, “that’s one I could use to reach non-Jewish people, and bring my Gentile and Jewish children together, if I can change his heart.”

No one but God would think that way. So, Christ got in Paul’s way on the road to Damascus, and asked, “Why do you hate me?” Then told him to go to the city and people who he’d been seeking to destroy would help him. Paul went, and he and the world were never the same again.

Christ needed people like Peter, too, whose problem is the opposite of Paul’s.

Peter isn’t breathing threats and murder. He succumbed to his fear after boldly saying he’d never leave Jesus, denying him three times the first chance he got. Peter seems to us to stumble more than walk, overstep more than wisely act, one who at the test failed miserably.

Christ looks at this clumsy, impulsive, fearful follower and says, “there’s a leader. That’s one I trust most to lead my apostles.”

No one but God would think that way. So, Christ got in Peter’s way, sat down with him at breakfast and asked, “Do you love me?” After three painful asks, Jesus each time said, “take care of my sheep. Feed my lambs.” Peter did, and he and the world were never the same again.

Do you realize Christ needs people like you to walk in the Way, too?

The healing of all things will only happen when individuals are transformed from within. And sinners like you and me are critical, because we’re part of the problem. Changing us takes away that part of the problem and makes us part of the solution. Whether you’re breathing violence like Paul or running away like Peter, or in between, the risen Christ sees something in you that you can bring for the life of the world.

Maybe no one but God can see that. No one expected Paul’s transformation. Nothing Peter had done inspired trust he’d be a leader. But Christ saw who they could be, and got in their way, calling them into his Way.

What will that look like for you? God knows. But somehow Christ is going to get in your way to invite you to walk in his Way. Maybe on the road. Maybe at breakfast, saying “do you love me? Then I’ve got a job for you.”

And Peter had another lesson you could learn: don’t compare yourself to others.

After this conversation with Jesus, Peter wondered about his friend John. What would happen to him? Jesus said, “don’t worry about him. You do you, I’ll handle the others.”

That’s good wisdom. You aren’t expected to be Paul or Peter. Or Mother Teresa or Mary Magdalene. Nor are you to worry about whether others are having their conversation with Christ.

But you’ve already come here today to worship the Triune God and hear God’s Word. Essentially, you’ve said to God this morning, “can we have breakfast and talk?” You’re ready for it.

So, listen to what Christ says to you. Because there are lambs to be fed and sheep to be tended. A creation to be healed, God’s children to be brought into life and justice and peace. Christ has a role for you.

Don’t worry what others are doing. And trust that Christ has the utmost confidence you’ll be able to be and do what God sees in you. So that one day, all things will be healed through the Way of Christ.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] In the foreword to Peace is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh (New York: Bantam, 1991), p. vii. Cited in From Cruelty to Compassion: The Crucible of Personal Transformation, Gerald G. May (Fetzer Institute, 2003), p. 1