Our Home In-Between

Where in the world is Jesus Christ? That’s the question our Gospel takes up today, and it brought to mind a powerful book by the African-American author Ta-Nehisi Coates whose title suggests an answer to the question: Between the World and Me.  Just six chapters, it’s in the form of an open letter by the author to his 15-year-old son. As a young black man in a world where fathers and mothers have to worry about the safety of their black sons, Coates’s son is starting to ask questions of his father about justice. Coates knows that his son will have to make his own decisions about how he will be in the world. He wants to protect him from it, but he cannot. So in this letter, as in those upper room conversations between Jesus and his disciples—he is helping him face reality, allaying his fears, and offering encouragement. Somewhere between the world—all that it offers, and all that it threatens—and everything Coates has taught him, along with who he was created to be—is where he must find his path.

Now Coates does not hold back in describing the fierce reality of the world as he sees it. Still, he writes: “I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this terrible and beautiful world. My work is to give you what I know of my own particular path while allowing you to walk your own.” 

And likewise Jesus helps his followers, who want to know, just as we want to know:  Where does God live in this world, which can be so beautiful, and so terrible, and how do we locate God among us?

In this Gospel reading, Jesus takes up a question from a prior verse, from Judas (not Judas Iscariot—he’s already left the building to do his nefarious business), who asks him: “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” Will you be with us and others just can’t see you? Is an invisibility cloak involved?  It’s a question rooted in confusion, and anticipatory grief about the impending crucifixion. Where in the world will you be, if you are not among us?, they want to know. Where will we be, in relation to you?

And Jesus answers frankly—I will not be with you in this way any more. It’s not the plan. My presence will always be with you, and the Advocate, that is, the Holy Spirit, will show you everything you need to know. So don’t worry—it will be ok. In fact, better than ok.  For you will receive a peace the world cannot give, the peace which is the consequence of my presence with you, if—IF--you practice the way of love I have taught you, and make a home for God amongst you.

Perhaps the disciples were hoping that they would go somewhere with Jesus. Surely they hoped to be delivered from the violence and persecution around them. Instead, they learn that they are to stay in this place, and that God would come to them. Jesus would be with the Father, they would remain in the world—and somehow, through the Holy Spirit, they would find a joyful communion between them.

Likewise, this is OUR dwelling place and God is with us. Here. For Jesus will spend only 40 days with his disciples, and then ascend into heaven—which we celebrate as Ascension Day on Thursday. And here we followers of Christ remain, between the world and God.  

Now this is, and was, a pretty big stretch.  But how confidently we see the Christians in our first reading—in Acts--living in the Spirit of Christ together. The lesson takes place after Pentecost, after the Holy Spirit has made its home in these communities of Christians, and what a contrast they offer in courage and confidence, and joy, with those disciples, huddled together in fear before Jesus’s crucifixion. The peace they have embraced is transformative. It is meant to show us:  this is what the peace of this life in-between looks like.

We see this in Lydia’s story. First, Paul’s heart is opened to the call of the Spirit to go to Macedonia--a change of plans--and to form the first mission in Philippi. Then Paul’s heart is opened to approach a group of women, who would not ordinarily be in conversation with someone like him. Then Lydia’s heart is open to the message she hears about how the God she worships is at work in this Christ. And finally, she opens her home, and it becomes the hub of the Christian community in Philippi. All of these were extraordinary acts of open-heartedness:  at best, simply not done; at worst, dangerous. But theirs is a story of joy, and peace that the world cannot give.

The disciples haven’t experienced the Resurrection yet, let alone Pentecost. They don’t know what we do: that in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the good news of Jesus Christ remains with us and we, in our mortal bodies on this fragile earth—are the ones who act as Christ in the world. We are the little Christs, the Christians. We are to embody the good news. We are Jesus’ love in action--as Presiding Bishop Curry puts it, the Episcopal branch of the Jesus movement. Here we are, living between the world and the Father, beloved community held together by the presence of Christ consciousness—filled with peace and powered by fuel the world cannot supply.  At least that’s the opportunity, if we hold up our end.

The picture of Christian life in Acts is of love freely given and freely shared. It’s a community where, lifted up by this love, people’s ears and eyes and hearts are open to being called and who follow those calls unafraid: calls to strange, unknown, or uncomfortable places, sometimes to be in community with people who are not like them. Those of us who haven’t felt pulled out of our comfort zone to be Jesus’ love in action—we, too, must seek the peace of which Jesus speaks.

Ella and Andrew Allison, just before leaving for China, 1910

Finding our home between the world and the Father brings to mind another letter. My grandparents spent nearly 40 years as missionaries to China, raising their children, including my father, amidst civil war, Japanese occupation, eighteen months in an internment camp, and finally, the Communist revolution. There was no peace in the world around them—at any point--and yet my grandfather’s abundant letters are full of joy and peace.

He writes on a cold day in February 1940, after a blizzard has him stuck in the mission field, which they had visited by bicycle, their preferred mode of transport. The heavy snow kept them from a baptism and from looking in on the sick as planned. But on the third day, my grandfather writes, leaving their bicycles behind because the snow was still so thick, they set forth into the snow to walk 19 miles to a midway point, where they arrive by dark and stay somewhere—it’s unclear where. On the next day they walk the final 11 miles, this time through slush instead of snow, until they reach home. He describes it as a joyful adventure, and ends his letter this way:

“Pray for us and for all we work with, that the Blessed Mystery may always abide with us; for when it does there is no letting down of the fresh joy of being co-workers with God.” I mean, talk about Acts of the Apostles! My grandfather puts me to shame. Every letter he wrote spoke of this peace. They had truly found their home “between the world and the father.”

Like them, our home in-between is where the Spirit calls us and where we answer. Where we come together, not just as individuals, assembled, like at a movie, but as church, a people held together by membership in Christ. And so as we anticipate the Ascension, the 2^nd departure of Jesus from this world, we meet Christ here in beloved community and we make Christ known to others by sharing his gift of peace.

Where in the world is Jesus Christ? He is at home in the Father, and so, in the peace of the Spirit, are we.

Preached May 26, 2019 at St Gabriel Episcopal Church, Portland, OR 

Lectionary readings (Easter 6C):  Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 27: Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5; John 14:23-29