Vicar Karla Leitzman
Some of you are aware that my undergraduate degree is in Theatre Performance, and while I have not worked professionally in the theatre since my graduation, I really feel like that training equipped me pretty brilliantly for not only my career path but for life in general. It made me hone my writing and analytical skills, it taught me how to work to a deadline, it taught me to problem solve effectively and stay calm in stressful situations. And, it taught me how to work with people, regardless of if we get along or not, regardless of if we agree or not. So all of these things are very valuable attributes to utilize in our rapidly changing and fast paced world.
During my junior year, I had to take a lighting design course, because Gustavus required all its students, regardless of what their theatre focus was, to learn about all aspects of production. And truthfully, I learned that I really loved lighting design and did flirt briefly with the idea of changing my focus and trying to become a professional lighting designer but that’s another story. That fall semester, there was a small group of us working on a student production and as part of the class two of us were assigned to do all the lighting and sound design. For this production, we had faculty advisors, but it was our job to do everything from direct, to design, to stage manage, to costume and on and on. That Friday of tech weekend, we showed up at the black box theatre to start figuring things, to learn how to use the light board, out only to realize that our lighting professor had something come up for the weekend and she wasn’t able to show us how to do anything but she did email us the manuals for all the equipment in the space. Not getting this done wasn’t an option. Because we were on a deadline we needed to put this show up, so it’s not like we could say, eh we’ll just work on this when she gets back on Monday. Nope, on Monday we were going to have actors on that stage and under the lights we needed to hang, point, and design. We dug through those hundreds and hundreds of pages of manuals, we found ourselves googling voltage numbers for various fixtures because we wanted to avoid shorting out the building, and after spending 40 hours in that theatre in three days time, we had it set for the actors to show up on Monday. We felt lost and confused but we knew we were going to need to figure it out.
In today’s gospel passage, this is what is referred to as the farewell discourse, and it is pivotal in the life and ministry of Jesus and in the next 2,000 years of the Christian Church. Jesus knows he is going to die, he knows he will be put to death for his radical actions and for his public ministry. He worries about his friends who have looked to him for guidance and leadership and friendship during his time on Earth. He worries about leaving them behind to continue his legacy of love and care. They are worried to. And so he promises them that when he is not physically with them any longer, he will send the spirit as an advocate, as one to work through them when he is gone.
As resources go, the Spirit and the Advocate being left behind is arguably a much better tool to leave behind than some light and sound board manuals for a couple of 20 year olds to dig through.
This speaks to Jesus’ immense love for his friends. Even in the midst of his own grief, his own fear at what is very soon to come, he still prioritizes his disciples and their worries. He knows that his leaving will leave them behind feeling lost and orphaned and so he assures them that they will not be alone, that he leaves behind the model of the way he lived his life and practiced his ministry. And then it would be up to them to continue that legacy. The work that Jesus did on Earth is shortly coming to a premature end at the hands of Rome, and now, his friends will be left to carry the torch that burns brightly with the same love, grace, and care that Christ showed them how to share and live out.
As Jesus is sharing this, he knows that the immediate time to come is going to be incredibly hard for his disciples. He will soon be murdered, publicly and brutally. His disciples will be left worrying if they will suffer a similar fate for their connection to Jesus. They will be left to feel lost and confused, wondering if they made the wrong decision in following this outsider from Galilee who preached justice and shared bold love. So, Jesus tells them that there will be good news on the other side of that pain and that trauma, that even know they will hold all of those things, the promise of the resurrection remains and his comfort will remain with them. He will appear to him after his death and resurrection. But, that will be short lived. He will return to them just long enough to inspire them to continue his legacy of acting love out boldly. God has already given the gift of love through Jesus who came to Earth to change it all, to turn a world on its head that prized greed over people, power over kindness. And the spirit is what remains to move through and with us to share that gift of love.
It is one thing to love, it is another thing, sometimes, to use that love to make us act, to love so boldly as Christ did that we can not remain stagnant or complacent in a world that needs that love so acutely. So, the spirit remains. The spirit remains to move and to inspire, to embolden Jesus’ disciples, which now includes us these years later, to allow that love to be active.
Yet the Spirit does not take the place of Jesus. The Spirit, Jesus says is another Advocate. Another one, in addition to him. Both have a pivotal roles to be God’s manifestation of love and care for all of creation, but they are distinct and one in the same, all at the same time. Jesus comes to Earth enfleshed as God’s word and God’s love because the world and its priorities were disconnected, or alienated from God. The Spirit remaining connects this earthly realm to God the Creator and God the Son, all distinct yet sharing the same priority and that priority is love. Unfathomable love.
God leaving the Spirit as an Advocate to remain with Jesus’ disciples reminds us that there is not only life after the tomb, but there is also life after the resurrection. That when the disciples will feel unmoored and that their identities and purpose will die along with Jesus, we are reminded that there is more. There is more even when we don’t see it yet or know what shape it is going to take. But we know that God is already there and that the Spirit is guiding us and advocating for us to live that love out.
Last week we had our first shared worship with the saints, because remember we are all saints, of Faith Lilac Way, Cross of Glory, and First Lutheran. We had 172 people at worship. 172. By my count we had more than ten kids walking through the sanctuary with Pastor Ali sprinkling holy water on the congregation as we celebrated and affirmed our baptism. The choir loft was full. And Pastor Ali preached about how we do not yet know how this is all going to unfold, we don’t know yet where it will end up. But we do know that God is already there and we ask that the Spirit continue to move and to advocate for us in the process.
In our reading from Acts this morning, we are presented with the image of Paul addressing the Athenians, commending the for their strong spirituality. I actually really love the image of Paul taking time to wander around the city to learn about it before addressing its people. It’s like he’s going to identify the places where God is already working, just like our three congregations are doing both within our churches and in the broader community. Where is God already at work and where and how can we amplify that work and the movement of the Spirit? And Paul basically tells them, “hey, as God’s beloved, you have been shown that love and that grace through the resurrection of Jesus. As those beloved, you do not get the luxury of sitting still. You need to act it out. The world needs you to act it out.”
Good friends, the world still desperately needs us to act it out. Where it can be tempting to want to hold fast to what we know and what feels safe, we often find ourselves in situations that push us, and this is especially irritating when we find ourselves in situations where we do not want to be pushed. I would be willing to bet that these first disciples would have much rathered things stay the same, that they could continue about their lives and their ministry, traveling with Jesus, amplifying his messages of love. If they could have been given a choice, I am pretty confident that they would have not chosen being left by themselves to continue that work. But they had to. Staying stagnant wasn’t an option. Saying, “oh we can’t do that we’ll just go back to the way things always have been” wasn’t an option. And so Jesus makes sure that they know that they are not, in fact, alone. And thanks be to God that we are also, in fact, not alone either.