Seventh Sunday of Easter
For almost three weeks I haven’t watched television, seen the news, read emails or engaged with world events, except with prayers and in church. The noise of the world beating on the doors became quieter and I had time to breath. It made a difference that I was in a foreign country with a different alphabet, so I couldn’t read or understand what was being said. So, I heard with greater clarity, the words of Jesus speaking with God and his disciples in John’s Gospel, reminding them they are in the world, even as he is leaving it. Jesus is speaking with the disciples in the shadow of the cross and his crucifixion, the night before he is arrested. This is not a comfortable, comforting conversation. We need to hear it clearly.
Very challengingly, Jesus is not promising to take the disciples out of the world or to prevent harm from being done to them by the world, but he is reminding them - and us - of God’s promise of faithfulness to all who believe in God, as we live and be the body of Christ, being as one. This is how we are called to be in the world. We are being ‘kept in the world’, which is not the same as being comfortable in the world.
Jesus affirms and blesses their presence in the world, so we as disciples can all make a difference to, with, and in, the world, in God’s creation. As disciples, we are to be active, present, visible, to be examples for those around us, to be faithful, humble, prayerful and steadfast, irrespective of the noise and violence around us. This will not stop the world responding badly to Jesus’ disciples; but by being faithful, as God is faithful, we will remember and know God is present with us in all times and in all places.
As we hear the two other readings: from the Acts of the Apostles and the first Letter of Peter, the message continues to reinforce the habits of our faith which Jesus teaches to us all: to tend and care for one another willingly, not to be arrogant or superior or be a ‘know-it-all’, to be humble, to give all our anxieties to God, to be disciplined and steadfast in faith, and we know God will restore, support, strengthen and establish us. As we still our minds, and words, we can listen to God’s presence among us, in us and with us, and we can know the truth of what Jesus’ has told us.
This week we gathered to consider additional possible services we might offer to our sisters and brothers in the wider community who are vulnerable and anxious at this time and for a range of reasons. These include those who are homeless, perhaps because they are fleeing family, domestic and intimate partner violence, struggling with addictions, or mental health illnesses, or who are homeless because of unemployment or high rents and mortgages and insufficient living wages; indeed, God calls us to include all who are on the margins of our society and who are generally invisible and unnoticed.
This month across the country, we are asked to pay particular attention to those who are suffering with family, domestic and intimate partner violence, as we are asked to focus on prevention and the ways we might change behaviours and habits of those who live among us, our families and friends, our sisters and brothers in Christ. We are reminded of the stories of violence, terror and trauma inflicted by this scourge of intolerable and unacceptable behaviour and dreadful belief systems of misogyny, patriarchy, supremacy in our society and culture, and which sadly, are equally experienced around the world.
I have been reflecting on how we respond to this scourge in our daily lives. Why are we still scrambling to change this behaviour? What are we not doing or sharing or teaching such that we find people among us who still use violence, coercive control and abuse, both physical and verbal, as forms of power over someone else? From the reports of rape still being used as a weapon of war in current conflicts, to the belief that rape, whether chemically imposed or consciously inflicted is still acceptable in marriage, or realising police, juries and judges are still not hearing the voices of the women and children sufficiently clearly to be determined it must be stopped; while instead, finding reasons, excuses and a desire to avoid difficult decisions and cosnequences. Predatory sexual abuse, non-consensual sex and the trolling, threats and rude, verbal and non-verbal abuse continue it seems, unabated and unfiltered. Our social online lives are often violent and unkind, and our capacity to live differently in the world is challenged each and every day as God calls us to be in the world, and to be different in God and with each other.
I have been wondering how we’re going with all this. What is it taking for us to change and sustain not only our lives in Christ, but the lives of those around us?
As we follow the experience of seeing Jesus’ ascension and hearing his last words with them, all the disciples gathered together, with the women and Jesus’ family, (Acts 1:13-14) to pray. We are called to pray at all times, without ceasing.
And Peter reminded us to: ‘Keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing …sufferings.’ (1 Peter 5:8-9)
As we reimagine what God is asking of each of us, as God calls us to faith in the body of Christ, we are reassured ‘the God of all grace, who has called you to God’s eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen and establish us. (1 Peter 5:10).
We must continue to find the silence and stillness to be present with God, to find time to pray as we go about our daily lives, to be ready to act and call out behaviour that does not belong in God’s people or God’s kingdom, and to be ready to support and assist all who are on the margins whether homeless, abused, or traumatised, and to be ready to bring them into God’s house to eat at God’s table.
The Lord be with you.