My buddy Pastor Tim is getting ready to
retire. This is no slight deal for a guy who has been pastor of his
congregation for thirty-six years and has built it from a little
piddly brick building into a gorgeous cathedral and the most stable
congregation in his synod. He's a little anxious about who will
succeed him in the ministry and how the church he's loved and labored
over for so many years will thrive when he's gone. I'll bet his
congregation is pretty worried, too. After all, for most of us it's
hard to deal with change.
In the First Lesson (Acts 1:6-14) from
the Revised Common Lectionary for Easter Seven, we see Jesus'
disciples also struggling with new realities. They seem to really
dig the fact that their rabbi has risen from the dead, but they're a
little hazy about what it all means. Basically, they seem to want to
know when he's going to bring back the good ol' days. You know: those
great bygone times when there was no Roman occupation, David was on
the throne, and all the nations of the earth feared the God of
Israel. I suppose this was their equivalent to the church of
1960—when everyone went to church, there were no money problems, no
pesky questions about same-gender marriage, we all wore our Sunday
best, and the Sunday School and Youth Group were packed with
well-groomed, polite, and non-tattooed young people.
Jesus' response, of course, is that
what God plans to do from this point on is really none of our
flippin' business. We'll find out soon enough. Our job is to stick
together, pray, and wait for the Holy Spirit to teach us how to
spread the gospel news.
I wonder if Jesus isn't more specific
because he knows what God has in mind in this ever-changing world is
more wonderful and mind-blowing than the disciples are able to handle
at the moment? Ya think? God is working so far out of the box that
they wouldn't believe Jesus even if he told them. Can you imagine it?
“Guess what, guys..? Israel is going
to be destroyed by Rome and the Temple smashed to the ground, but
that's cool because you dudes will begin to speak in new
languages and spread the news of my sacrificial love and conquest
over sin and death to the far ends of the earth. I mean, it will
get a little nasty at times (In fact, all of you will die
horrible, martyr's deaths), but you won't really mind because you'll
know that you are giving the world something to believe in which will
ultimately outlast the Roman Empire and bring light and learning and
healing and justice in my name to all the people of the earth.
Whatcha got to say to that, huh?”
Can you imagine the disciples' reaction
to that piece of news?
Just so, we can't even begin to guess
at the way God will be leading us in the next few years.
A really smart lady named Phyllis
Tickle, an author and educator, says that every 500 years or so
there's been a radical change in the Christian Church. Just shy of
the year 500 AD the Western Roman Empire fell and Christianity became
the stabilizing force in Europe. About 500 years later, the Catholic
and Orthodox traditions split apart. 500 years after that Luther
began the Protestant Reformation. I'm not sure that Professor Tickle
isn't reading a little too much coincidence into all of this, but if
she's right then we're just about due for another big shake-up.
The disciples in our First Reading have
to put on their big boy pants and get ready for a church without the
physical presence of Jesus. It's time for them to be ready for the
mystery God's Holy Spirit will bring—even though they may be a bit
afraid of what is to come.
For the folks at my friend Tim's
congregation, they have to get ready to be the Church even without
their beloved pastor of almost four decades and deal with the changes
that their new shepherd will bring.
For the rest of us, it's time to accept
that 1960 won't be coming back, but God will lead us to a whole new
group of people, lifestyles, music, witness, ministry opportunities,
and ways of being Church that we've never thought about before. And
you know what..? We'll be okay. Jesus has already prayed for us:
“Holy Father, protect them in
your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are
one.” (John 17:11)
If
we don't know what to expect in the coming years—what with
increased secularism, an increasingly pluralistic landscape, a yo-yo
economy, mind-bending technology, and all the other forces at work on
us on this little rock of a world, we should at least get together
and pray for some unity. Whatever we do as the church, let's try to
do it together.
God
bless. Thanks for visiting my blog. Please come back!
PS- If Phyllis
Tickle is right and we really ARE heading for something new, how
about we try to work on a new age of Christian unity? There's a
pretty cool new Pope in the Vatican. Maybe we can get him to open the
doors of his denomination a little and let us crazy Protestant come in
for dinner? It's worth a shot asking, don't you think? If you're
Lutheran or Catholic, please sign my petition here.
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