Sometimes when we are in church together and I look out at all of you and picture a kind of web, linking us all together. It extends to the past and all the people who have worshipped and done God’s work at Spirit of Life. It goes out to the neighbors all around who contribute and benefit from the ministries. It is a comforting vision for me of how God strengthens the ties between us and links us together more closely. This is not a web that snares and traps, but a web of connection and relationship that challenges and comforts and keeps us together in God’s family.
During
these times where we cannot gather, I still picture the same web when I pray
for you or call you. It is just that the
distances the web stretches are greater.
God builds this web of relationship between us, or maybe it is that
Spirit of Life that the church is named after that creates that web of
connection and love.
Paul
knew about building connections and webs.
He went to the people of Athens with the Gospel, the good news about
Jesus Christ. He didn’t say, “You’re
doing it all wrong!” He pointed out an
openness they had to God’s love. He
pointed out the connections they all shared, that the Athenians, too, were very
religious and seeking the truth. He
pointed out what we all share in common that links us, that we are all made by
one God who knows us and cares for us, that we’re in God’s family. He shows them the web between them and God,
how close God is, accessible to anyone who looks for God. In this way, he was able to build a
relationship between himself and the Athenians, starting a church there that
would withstand his coming absence, that would grow and continue to worship God
through all kinds of troubles and joys.
In 1
Peter, a web of relationship is built.
This is a very strong web, that must endure the attacks of enemies. The writer reminds us to beyond reproach, to
behave ourselves, because when we are untrustworthy, that reflects on God and
other Christians that we are linked with.
We’ve all seen this happen, right?
I think of the child abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church or even
times when our own Lutheran bishops moved around predatory pastors or refused
to act to protect a congregation from a pastor’s power-plays and
narcissism. We’ve seen our religion mis-used
to attack people who are divorced or abused or are in committed same gender
relationships. When people use religion
as a weapon to hurt other people, often those people never recover and never
darken the door of a church again. It
damages their relationship with God that God’s followers would be so unloving.
Every
time we make an account of the hope we have in Christ, our connection to Christ
is strengthened. Just to put it into
words what Christ has done for us and the difference it makes in our lives,
reinforces the relationship and the strength of the web. God felt so connected to humanity, but we
couldn’t see the connection. So that’s
when God sent the son so that it would be more clear to us, the strength of our
connection, so we would see that we are all children of God, in loving
relationship. Not only that, but that
relationship was so offensive, the links Jesus shared with people who were
unclean, undesirable, unacceptable, that he was arrested and killed to try to
stop that relationship and try to destroy the web. However, God’s connections cannot be
destroyed, so Jesus rose again, not to chastise his followers for not getting
it, but to forgive them and continue building that web of loving relationship.
I saw
the most beautiful web this week. It was
truly the Kingdom of God. Many of our webs
have been torn down in the past few months.
Our support networks have fallen away.
Families can’t visit each other.
The food distribution systems, the work systems, all these nets are
showing signs of wear and tear. But I
saw a web being built on Thursday.
Farmers who would otherwise have turned their potatoes over in the field
and destroyed them because of broken systems of distribution to restaurants,
packaged their potatoes and brought them by the ton after ton to the Tacoma
Dome to distribute to people. I took my
Subaru down there to pick up for LifeCare Community Food Bank. Hundreds of military personnel were loading
vehicles with potatoes. I felt the
connection with farmers who care for the land 100s of miles from here. I saw the loaves and fishes story right
before my eyes, with bushels and bushels left over. I saw the abundance of God in people and food
and generosity. I felt hopeful. And there is a GoFundMe account set up for
the farmers who planted and tended this crop that they might be compensated and
find the hope and resources to plant again.
So now
we come to the Gospel. This web of
loving relationship is strong between father and son. It is in our world, and even more in the
Kingdom of God. They are so united, that
they are one. The Father is in Jesus and
Jesus in the father. They are one and
the same. Because we have seen Jesus, we
know the Father. Jesus walked this earth
for a while and his disciples and the people he met became linked in his love,
forming a web of loving relationship.
But now Jesus is about to ascend.
He is going to his Father.
Although they won’t see each other, they are linked by a very strong
bond that can never be broken. It is a
family bond. It is a relationship
bond. It is a bond of agape, selfless
love, that is the greatest of these.
Remember, Faith, hope, and love abide and the greatest of these is love. Love never ends, not even when we die. Not even when we can’t be together.
Even
though Jesus is going away in the body, he leaves us another Advocate. This is the web-keeper, the encourager, the
one walking beside us, the one challenging us, the one opening our eyes, the
one who knows our best interest, the one who conveys God’s love to us and between
us. The Advocate is so many things to
us. The Advocate is the Holy Spirit, the
Spirit of Life that is so present to us, especially when we stop and take note
of all the ways that God is present to us in these strange times of upheaval
and sabbath rest from our consumerist scurrying and trying to prove our
worth. Have you taken an extra moment in
all this change to look around and notice God at work? That’s noticing the web. That’s affirming the life-giving love that
binds us in relationship with God and each other.
Sometimes
we might read the first sentence of this Gospel and fall into despair. Even when we can’t leave the house, we can’t
seem to follow God’s commandments. If we
follow them, then we love God. Jesus
reminds us throughout the Gospels that we just can’t do it. Even if we think we’ve done it, as soon as
we’re congratulating ourselves, we get full of pride and forget God. In the Gospel of John, the commandments are
to love God and love your neighbor. So
instead of pointing to a bunch of laws we can’t keep track of, we have a bar to
aspire to, we open ourselves to God’s Spirit moving within and through us to
share that love.
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