Year C Easter 7 2022 The Water of Life

Year C Easter 7, 29 May 2022

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“Water of Life”

Collect: O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Revelation 22:12-14,16-17,20-21

At the end of the visions I, John, heard these words:

"See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.

"It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star."

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come."

And let everyone who hears say, "Come."

And let everyone who is thirsty come.

Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

The one who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon."

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.

John 17:20-26

Jesus prayed for his disciples, and then he said. "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. 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. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so 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. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

"Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

Good morning, friends and fellow followers of Christ. This Sunday is a hard day to be in a pulpit. I have seen many preacher friends lamenting over what there is to be said today.

I knew where I was going before Tuesday’s tragedy in Uvalde, and the truth rings all the more true. I want to repeat the Collect from this morning’s opening. [Read it with me, please.]

O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Jesus is the Lord of Life. He offers us the Water of Life. And in the living of this life, we all know after not too long that life is hard. If anyone tells you otherwise, experience corrects that quickly.

But in Christ, we are comforted. We are strengthened. We are exalted. Just what we prayed for in our collect. And after the horror of more murdered children by someone only legally an adult himself a couple of weeks, on top of the racially motivated attack on a supermarket killing senior citizens in Buffalo, I know I need comfort, strength, and a little exaltation. Maybe you do, too.

We rarely see the water we swim in, until something like this happens. We get acclimated too quickly. My wife is always amazed at how dirty my glances are. I am too, once it is pointed out. I have trained myself to look beyond it, but there it is. And our tendencies emerge all the more clearly, and already the drumbeat to get back to the status quo has begun. “Don’t notice the water. Look beyond the smudges and blemishes.” All systems seek stasis, and the cultural systems of the United States are no different. And once again, we talk about how there is nothing we can do. God forgive us. God help us. And if you feel hopeless like me this week, God has a word for us.

We see some hopelessness in our Acts passage for today. After Paul and Silas delivered the spirit-possessed fortune teller from her distress, her owners (she was enslaved) had the two missionaries thrown in prison for all the money they lost from her healing. They were singing while in the stockades in the prison, even there praising God, when an earthquake came and shook loose the doors enabling anyone inside to run away. The jailer knew his fate was doomed and was about to commit suicide, when the missionaries called out, urging him to stop. 

"Do not harm yourself, for we are all here." The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

In our hopelessness, God can break through. Maybe only God can. True for the jailer. True for us, too, I believe.

Friends, every nation on this earth has particular sins. Strengths, too. One is often the shadow of the other. We have been blessed beyond belief, the richest and most powerful nation that has ever existed in human history as far as we know. But our privilege has made us fearful. And our fears come out in opposition to our faith. For all our God talk we do culturally, it is fascinating how little faith we seem to have at times, taking matters into our own hands. Several people mentioned to me a question I posed a few weeks ago, “Which is greater, our faith or our fear?” It struck a chord with many of you. I took it to heart, too. 

Fear shuts off our brains. Fear makes us do things to hold on to what we have. It makes us see scarcity when our abundance overflows. Fear makes us lash out, or give ourselves empty power, instead of leaning on the true power that God promises. Love. And Faith in him. Scripture repeatedly gives us cautionary tales of taking power into our own hands, and the price we pay for that lack of faith. Abraham and Sarah over Hagar. Peter taking up arms in the name of Jesus cutting off the High Priest’s servant’s ear. When we lean into our fear and act apart from our faith, God is not glorified.

Paul and Silas’ words still ring true. “Do not harm yourself!” Friends, we harm ourselves when our fears are greater than our faith. Supposedly the Bible says “Fear Not!” 365 times. I have not taken the time to count. But maybe that is the case because we still need to be reminded of that each and every day. God help us!

But our Collect today is not just about us being Comforted. It also talks about us being Strengthened. Where is our strength to be found? The world’s strength is a farce, or at best a season. Bullies and dictators always fall. Always. Empires fail. Every time. There is only one timeless thing I know, and that is the God that is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

And where is the strength of the Lord to be found? 

• Nehemiah 8:10 "Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."

• Exodus 15:2 "The Lord is my strength and my song; he has given me victory. This is my God, and I will praise him— my father’s God, and I will exalt him."

• Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

• Isaiah 12:2 "Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation."

• Psalm 73:26 "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

In our weakness, he is strong. And the only thing I see about weakness on leaning on the Lord is the way the world may see it. It is not taking power into our own hands. It is about leaning on the everlasting arms, as the hymn puts it.

As we are comforted in the Lord, and as we grow in faith and strength, may it empower us to do the hard work that needs to be done. It is not a drive to comfort, it is a drive to action. We are comforted, not as an end to itself. We are comforted so that we can change the world. A world where all God’s children are safe, accepted, loved, and encouraged to be who they are in Christ. Our God is a God of Abundance and this is not a Zero Sum Game. If someone wins, so win we all.

I got sent a story this week from a friend who was just named rector of St. Andrew’s of Burke in Northern Virginia sent me this article from 1977, about us! 

We have a history of living in abundance. When we gave less, we did not cower in fear, worrying that there would not be enough. We chose to be generous, and generosity sprang from it. It is an old story, still true. Still needing to be lived out.

But what about being exalted. It is not for what we do, it is for who we are and whose we are. In Jesus’ prayer in our Gospel reading, he cites what God has done for him is what God will do for us, for those whom Christ claims. 

Jesus said: “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so 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. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

Friends, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that we are loved. We are loved how we are. We are loved where we are. We are loved because of who we are. In John’s vision of what heaven is like, I love the invitation he hears from Jesus.  

And let everyone who is thirsty come.

Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

That was not, “the worthy,” or “the just.” That was anyone. 

And when we have weeks like this, the words that come next are all the more needed. This is Jesus, still. 

The one who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon."

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

Redeem us from our sins. Deliver us from our fears. Comfort those who weep and mourn. Strengthen those who have the audacity to try to change the corruption that plagues us. Exalt those who seek you. And as John says, I echo. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! Amen.