Janet’s Blog

Sermon 4th May

What do you do in a crisis?

The quintessential British response of course involves the making of a cup of tea, preferably of builder strength and even those who never normally have sugar find comfort in a precious spoonful stirred in to the amber fluid. Some crises of course involve additional responses, perhaps blankets or in some cases the preparation of the legendary hot water.

The disciples had found themselves in crisis after crisis during the Easter story. There is a temptation for us to become a bit blase about the story because we know what is going to happen. At each moment of desolation, hopelessness and despair we know that it’s going to be alright in the end so we can not be unbiased observers. However hard we try we cannot exactly imagine the most bizzare grief process which has ever occurred.

So where do we find the disciples in this story? Jesus has died, an excruciating painful, public death which was shameful. Then Jesus is alive, but you never know where he’s going to turn up next. Maybe he’s taking a stroll to Emmaus, or maybe cooking a little breakfast on the lakeside, maybe he’ll pop in to the prayer meeting even though all the doors are shut and you weren’t expecting him.

Grief is a process of complete disorientation, followed by a period of reorientation but reorientation into a world which is not the same as before. The reorientation can only take place when the harsh realities of the new certainties have become real and been accepted. The problem for the disciples is that the new certainties have not yet been settled.

We hear the disciples asking “Lord are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel. This is a question borne from the confusion of grief and ungrief.

The disciples are asking ‘what are you doing God?’ What are you doing God? How often do we ask that question? The question full of puzzlement? Those times when we are wondering what on earth God could be thinking of?

In August 1991 I sat reading the newspaper wondering what on earth God was doing letting the communists take over Russia again, at the time of course he wasn’t going to let that happen, but I have a strong memory of thinking What are you doing God?

For all of us there are times, often more personal than a Russian coup, where we don’t understand what God is doing in a particular situation.
The disciples were confused and disorientated, they couldn’t begin the process of reorientation yet because things had not settled down and because they did not have much of a clue about what God was actually doing.

Jesus is with them, then he gives them a prophecy.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

What did that mean to them, what could that mean to them.
These people who had seen Jesus die very humanly, in a very ordinary and at the same time extraordinary way. These people witness something amazing which would be a great scene in any science fiction movie. The person moves up through the sky as they watch then disappears into a cloud.

In mediaeval art, and in the stained glass of the arts and crafts revival movement the Ascension scene is often depicted in a very graphic and literal way. What is portrayed is the disciples left down on the ground, and then the feet and a bit of the robe of Jesus can be seen up in the cloud and the rest of Jesus is not visible.

So if we cut in to the disciples grief, they had been disorientated by Jesus’ death, perhaps a little re-orientated by his resurrection, the fact that he kept appearing, then he disappears off into the clouds.

If you were there how would you feel? I think that probably depends on the sort of person you are.

You might feel, ‘great this is us on another adventure.’

You might feel, ‘Where has he gone, again?’

You might think. ‘What on earth is going to happen now?’

You might be wondering ‘how many denarii is it going to take me to get my fishing nets fixed.’?

You might think, ‘How did he do that?’

But personally I think each and every witness there has a perfect right to be staring intently into the sky as Jesus was going and after he was gone.

So when two men dressed in white appear (uh oh this usually spells trouble of the cosmic kind), these two men asked the next in the series of stupid questions, following closely on from the ‘why are you crying?’ question in the garden on Easter Sunday morning.

These two men, say “Why do you stand here looking into the sky?”

Something to do with the fact that Jesus has just disappeared travelling vertically upwards in a way which will intrigue stained glass designers and manuscript writers in 1500 years time. We happen to think that’s a pretty good reason to be staring up into the sky.

So the crisis developing, is it getting worse or better, I guess that would depend on who you listen to. The angels say that Jesus will return from heaven in the same way as he left, sp perhaps no more mysterious door tricks or making breakfast unannounced. But in the meantime they go back to Jerusalem in their crisis. They are still disorientated but they need to meet with one another for the first century equivalent of drinking tea and to pray.

These people are carrying a huge burden of grief and uncertainty. God promises in Psalm 126 that those that sow in tears shall reap in joy, but how hard that is to remember sometimse.

Capercaille capture this thought with a different image, a rainbow from a million tears. But perhaps the sun isn’t shining for these disciples yet, or perhaps for some maybe it is, maybe from the glimpse beyond the cloud, the words of the angels, maybe they can begin to see their rainbow.

These faithful people gather together and pray constantly. All the time, the disciples, the blokes, Mary Jesus’ Mum and Jesus’ brothers and the women disciples. They come together and pray, and pray and pray and then they pray some more.

Jesus’ prayer in the gospel passage is that the disciples on earth may be one, as Jesus and the Father are one. What an amazing thought, only able to be to exist in communion and community with each other, as God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit exist in community the mysterious nature of God.

And so with the disciples we wait to see what the plan is which God has. We will be able to find out what the answer is for them when they ask God ‘What are you doing?’, when Pentecost comes God shows them that truth that he first revealed to Abraham, that all of God is everywhere. But after Jesus’ death and resurrection that takes on a new meaning.

The people who have lived and breathed, eaten and sweated, and got blistered feet alongside Jesus will find out that the disorientation of their grief will be re-orientated into a new world, where instead of the occasional guest appearance of God in resurrected human form, God’s power and love will be everywhere, for everyone.

Are we like the disciples, a bit disorientated, unsure what on earth God is doing? We remember that God’s love and power is everywhere for everyone, including us, and so we turn our disorientated lives again, to understand how better to live in that certainty.

So what is your favourite poem?

Most people have one. Most cultures have some sort of poetry.

My favourite poem is by Roger McGough, I heard it on the radio I’m not sure if it ever made it to one of his collections.

It’s about the Scott monument which is a stone monument on Princes Street in Edinburgh which is pointy and renowned for looking like a space rocket.

It goes like this…
The Scott monument is a sight to see
It looks very like Thunderbird three
Which is odd when all’s said and done,
Because Scot was the pilot of thunderbird one.

I like it for all sorts of reasons, for the homely comment about a tourist sight in a once home town, for the comic twist at the end, and the acceptance that all too often we do indeed end up with crossed wires or a misunderstanding if we assume knowledge from one set of people to another.

The passage from Acts is often held up as an example of evangelism in a different culture. Paul has looked around Athens and seen how people understand things, he has picked up on the temple to the unknown god and has used this as a way of understanding how the people think. It is only with this understanding that he can talk to them about Jesus.

The NRSV translates verse 28 as “For In him we live and move and have our being,” as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.”

Paul looks at the poetry of the culture in which he is trying to preach the gospel and then uses that to try to help him understand how to explain the gospel.

When Jesus gave the great commission at the end of Matthew, I don’t think it was just for those few men who were present, but for all of us, we are all to help makes disciples. That is a daunting prospect but we have heard in the gospel passage that we have God’s Spirit to help us.

So I wonder what is your favourite poem?

I wonder if your next door neighbour has a favourite poem?

Your children or grandchildren, what would their favourite poem be?

If we could understand the poems of those around us it would help us understand some of the important things in their lives, and so it would help us talk to them about our faith, and help us work on our collective task of making disciples.

Activity 1

In our reading we heard how we are like living stones being built into a spiritual house.
So I thought we’d try to build a house out of people to try and remember this.

First of all we need someone tall and strong to be the pillar which holds everything up.
Then we need two people to be structural walls, and two people to be the roof.
So now we need some more people to be the other walls.

I need somebody to be the window.

And two people to be the door.
And I’d like somebody noisy to be the doorbell.
We have two doorbells at the Vicarage. One is a really, really, really loud bell and the other one makes a loud raspberry noise, so is there anyone brave enough to be a raspberry noise doorbell?
So now we have our house build of people.

Why does God want us to think about being built like a spiritual house?

When Christians come together in to the church we are all different things, like a wall or a roof or a doorbell. Being all together makes us strong. So that when bad or difficult things happen we can help hold each other up.

Some of you will know the story of the three little pigs where the wolf huffs and puffs but he can’t blow down the last house because it is built very strongly.
All the Christians being built together into a spiritual house make it strong, but in the bible reading it remind us that we are only strong because there is an important special stone which holds up the whole building. And that stone is Jesus.

Because Christians believe in Jesus they can be built together in a strong way and so be a strong group of people, like a strong house.
When we baptise the baby later this morning we will welcome her to the church and we will need to remind her that as she grows up she is part of this strong spiritual house of people all being built together, and being strong because we rely on Jesus.
 

Activity 2

Today’s second reading we heard Jesus talk about buildings, but in a bit of a different way to the first reading.

I wonder what your favourite room would be like, if you could have your bedroom in any way you liked it what would it be?

To start with what colour would it be?

When we moved to the vicarage lots of very, very kind people painted lots of the walls, and they painted my bedroom a special white colour which was just what I wanted which was fabulous.

What things would you have in your bedroom?

I’ve brought along some of the things from my bedroom?

Something cuddly to keep me company.

A cup, one of my most favourite things to do in the whole world is to drink tea in bed.

A book, I like to read and drink tea.

And a blanket because I like to be cosy, drink tea and read books…

Jesus is talking to his disciples about what it is like when the time comes for us to go to heaven.
Jesus says that there are many rooms in his Father’s house and he is going to prepare a place for us.

We don’t know what heaven is really going to be like, but we know it is going to be like going to a room, which Jesus, has got ready.
Jesus knows all about us, so going to heaven will be like going to our special room our best room.

Thomas says to Jesus “but Jesus we don’t know how to get there!”
Jesus says” I am the way.” Jesus means that he is going to sort it all out for us. And he did sort it out, and he does sort it out for us.

When the baby is baptised we remember that God promises to be with her not only now on earth, but forever in heaven as well. God promises that not just for the baby today but for every Christian.
 

I wonder what are the favourite things which you have in your bedroom?

Later on in the family service I’ll produce a cuddly toy, a mug for tea and a good book. These for me are the things I like to have in my bedroom.
In the John reading Jesus is talking to his disciples about what it is like when the time comes for us to go to heaven.
Jesus says that there are many rooms in his Father’s house and he is going to prepare a place for us.
We don’t know what heaven is really going to be like, but we know it is going to be like going to a room, which Jesus, has got ready.
Jesus knows all about us, so going to heaven will be like going to our special room our best room. Perhaps for me that might involve a lot of tea drinking.
In 1986 a man called Adrain Plass wrote a book called the Sacred diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 3/4. It was so funny that I couldn’t stop myself laughing on the bus when I was reading it on the way home from the bookshop.

Adrian goes to church and one day and instead of a sermon they have a visit from a monk called Brother John and he answers questions people ask him.

Adrian asks, ‘what is heaven like?’

The monk replies with a question.

‘What is the best thing that you could ever imagine happening to you?’

Before Adrian has a chance to think of something holy to say,
he finds himself saying, walking out to bat for England at Lords.

Imagine it says Brother John, how do you feel?

Amazing, says Adrian.

Brother John says heaven will be like that, only better.

In the Acts passage we hear how Stephen sees some of the glory which awaits him, like he glimpses his room before he gets there. Stephen the first Christian martyr, the first of many, and Saul the young man holding the coats in this passage will also carry his share of pain as a Christian before he goes to his Father’s house.

In the gospel passage Thomas says to Jesus “but Jesus we don’t know how to get there!”
Jesus says” I am the way.” Jesus means that it’s Ok if we don’t understand it all, he is going to sort it all out for us. And he did sort it out, and he does sort it out for us.