Charlotte
Collins Reed
Christ
Church Episcopal
May 13, 2018
7 Easter B
The day after Ash Wednesday, I spent
the whole day in the Cleveland Airport waiting for a flight to Chicago. My very early morning flight had been
cancelled by the time I got home from church Ash Wednesday evening which did
not break my heart, and I was able to rebook a late morning flight easily. However, I did not expect to get to the
airport on Thursday morning and find that flight cancelled, and then the next
flight cancelled, and then the next flight cancelled, all due to weather in
Chicago. The terminal was packed with
people waiting to hear about a seat on the next available flight. I was amazed by the patience of the people
waiting, and the sense that we were all in this wait together. People chatted with strangers, commiserated
with people they did not know, and generally tried to maintain good humor in
aggravating circumstances. This was the
day after the shooting at the high school in Parkland, Florida and I do believe
the mood was a little more patient than the mood might have been, because as
one weary traveler put it “If this delay is the worst thing we have to deal
with, we are doing pretty well.”
Today is the Sunday between the Feast
of the Ascension last Thursday, the day we celebrate Jesus’ ascension into
heaven, and the Feast of Pentecost next Sunday when we celebrate the descent of
the Holy Spirit on the disciples, transforming them into the apostles who would
take the gospel out into the world. The
ten days between Ascension and Pentecost were days of waiting for the disciples
who had no clue what Jesus meant when, just before he ascended, he said “You
will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The disciples are waiting for something
powerful to happen even if they do not know what, exactly, they are waiting
for.
The disciples teach us a bit this
morning about how to wait faithfully, whether we are waiting for something
fairly inconsequential like my flight to Chicago, or for something more
consequential like a diagnosis, or for a baby to be born, or a wedding or a funeral,
and as we wait and watch for the places where God is working powerfully in our
lives now. First, the disciples were
waiting together. Waiting is hard work,
whether we are waiting for something joyful or something challenging, and
sometimes God’s action in our lives is hard to see. The disciples are also together in the gospel
reading when Jesus prays for them and reminds them to whom they belong. Jesus prays “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.” Remembering
to whom we belong gives us patience and courage while we wait, and our
remembering is best done with others who also remember.
Secondly, the disciples were not
paralyzed by their wait. There was work
to do, as God was calling the disciples to act even as they waiting for God to
act. A 12th disciple was
needed to replace Judas so that the number of disciples would be complete again. The criteria for the 12th disciple
were that the person be someone who had accompanied the disciples as they
followed Jesus during his earthly ministry, and that the person already be
witnessing to the resurrection. The
believers prayed and cast lots, and Matthias was chosen as the 12th
disciple. The disciples’ time of waiting
was a time of prayer that led to action that prepared them for the future.
And that is the third thing the
disciples teach us about waiting.
Waiting is a time for prayer and discerning what God is calling us to do
while we wait. Jesus was waiting for the
crucifixion he knew was coming when he prayed for his disciples in the gospel
reading. The disciples had a decision to
make in the reading from Acts and they prayed and asked God who God had chosen
to take Judas’s place. Prayer is central
to this time of waiting and reminds us that God is acting in our lives now even
as we wait for God to act in the future.
We are all waiting for something,
watching for God to do something powerful in our midst. God calls us to be a community of faith where
we wait together, pray together, and work together in the midst of our wait,
always remembering that we belong to God, and that God is acting even as we
wait for God to act. We need each other
as we wait for whatever powerful thing God is about to do in our lives as
individuals and in our life together. Into
this community of faith, we will baptize Grace Andrews this morning. She will hear the words “You are sealed by
the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Grace belongs to God. In the baptismal covenant which her parents
and godparents will make on her behalf and which all of us will renew, we will
promise to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking
of bread, and in the prayers, and to repent and return whenever we fall into
sin. In other words, we promise to come together as the Body of Christ to pray
and worship, and we promise to stay together.
We also promise to proclaim the gospel in word and deed, to work for
justice and peace, and respect the dignity of every human being. All of those actions require prayerful work. The baptismal covenant describes what a waiting,
watchful community of faith looks like.
This is the community of faith into which Grace and all of us are
baptized, and this is what God calls us to do and be while we wait and watch,
both as individuals and as a church, for God to work powerfully in our lives.
Amen.
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