Easter 7C

Six months ago today I had a total shoulder replacement. The surgery was amazingly easy, the recovery process much more complicated than I expected. I was on sick leave for 3 months, the Bishop told me it would take more like 6 months, I’ll be doing the physiotherapy for the rest of the year, probably forever, to get the maximum effect from the 2 hour operation, and it keeps changing. 

I had planned the time after the surgery for reading, writing, meditation, prayer. But it didn’t happen. I couldn’t even read a book for the first few weeks, writing was no easier, that changed as time went on, but the time for quiet meditation just got noisy, with ideas, old memories, distractions and dumb ideas all leading me astray, and my prayer life turned around too; partly because I was being away from the regular places I worked and prayed, but partly there was this lingering hunch that God was using the change of scenery to change something in me, deeper  than I knew - and it wasn’t easy. 

Now six months later I am back at work, but still not back in old routines, trying to stretch out in the  old places with some new habits, letting life move and breathe in them in new ways. And all that is Eastertide stuff.

We’ve just been though seven weeks of living with uprising. Jesus is alive, Christ is risen from the grave, and life gets confusing pretty quickly. The Gospel readings after the resurrection have some strange encounters: Jesus telling Mary Magdalene, “do not hold on to me,” asking Thomas to touch his open wounds, walking and talking with the disciples  on the road to Emmaus,  enlightening their hope and understanding, arranging a surprising fishing expedition, even serving  the disciples with a breakfast barbecue at the beach. It looks like He just might show up anywhere. And then today, as we move to the feast of Pentecost, Jesus says:

“As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me...that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

And that sends us in a new direction: to take in the chance, the Pentecost promise, that God comes to dwell, pitch his tent, in the middle of our daily journey, here and now, everyday. And how do we stretch out to take that possibility, to live life with God in the middle of it all?

I am doing four things to get ready for Pentecost, for this new season of the church year that leads us all the way to Advent, get us through the winter and spring us into new beginnings. Four things: one private ritual that’s an addition to something I’ve done for years, two old routines I’ve brought back, and something new I never thought of before, surprising me with me great pleasure, fresh breath, new insight, and I want to share these four practices with you today. 

First a story. Some thirty years ago I was living in a seminary in California with students from a variety of faith communities: Methodist, Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist, Mennonite, Congregational, even a Coptic Christan. Julian was from South Africa, had been politically involved in fighting apartheid, racial segregation, and when he finished his Master degree in Berkeley he invited some of us to a celebration, a prayer time together, where he prayed in a way I had never seen. We gathered around a fireplace, and he lit some twigs, then he chanted the Lord’s prayer very quickly, almost muddling the words together, ‘Father in heaven, may your name be holy, may your kingdom come, may your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.Give us today daily bread, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, save us from the time of trial but deliver us from evil.Amen.’ then he prayed some other prayers, moved some wood around the fire, maybe bowed, and again, “‘Father in heaven, may your name be holy, may your kingdom come, may your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today daily bread, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, save us from the time of trial but deliver us from evil.Amen.’

And I thought, this is pretty different! It's like you’re rushing like refugees away from an army, or you’re trying to turn around on a dangerous path, or you’re looking at the likelihood of your own death and trying to remember, quickly, what matters most.  And it’s come back to me now.

For some years, since I trained as a chaplain in a psych ward in 1989, I’ve often prayed when I washed and dried by my hands during the day, not many words, sometimes thinking of baptism and what that means, sometimes remembering St Theresa of Avila where she says. 

Christ has no body but yours...Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world…Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

But now I am quickly adding the Lord’s prayer, like a pilgrim trying to practice resurrection and the promise of Pentecost, and it seems to lead me to more life. I offer it to you as a gift for this new season. 

Two other routines I used to practise have returned in my sick leave and recovery time; silently saying "thank you" and "I'm sorry" to God twenty times a day, sending that quick prayer to God like an email: but not just for me but for others in this world we share: it can be a tree's autumn colors, a child’s laughter, someone leaning on a friend, the lady driver who slows down to let me cross the street. I say I’m sorry too! For other people dealing with illness, age, anxiety, all the sad and wonderful business of being human. I watch people going the tough times and I pretend I’m “an authorized friend of Jesus” and I hold them in my heart like the Lord crying over Jerusalem, and I witness the compassion and hope and the rest we share in Christ with God. 

Jesus says: that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Before the surgery I usually started the work day doing morning prayer at the Bishop’s Registry. But home alone I found another way to pray, something that surprised me: how many of you remember chanting the psalms? 

(singing) Light dawns for the righteous * and joy for the upright in heart.

Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, * and give thanks to his holy name.

It may be a little odd, sitting at my desk alone at home. But I think of all the choirs, the gatherings over centuries, in little churches and schools, monasteries and convents, cities and deserts, on the road to somewhere and in the middle of nowhere, how these songs of praise and prayer, lamentation and laudation, continue to sing out all over the world, even more than the world, and I add my voice to the choir and it gives me great joy.

Jesus says, that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

We are here to prepare for Pentecost, for the promise of God’s loving spirit, God’s very simple breath, in our lives, in our hearts. These are some stretches, basic aerobics to reach out and touch the spirit of Christ that longs to give us breath, offer a hand, enable hope, heart and glory, with the gift of the Spirit. 

Let St Theresa have the last word: 

Let nothing make you afraid.
All things are passing.
God alone never changes.
Patience gains all things.
If you have God you will want for nothing.
God alone suffices.

Amen