Lest we forget, being followers of the risen one has never
been without peril. Believers have been persecuted, killed, ridiculed, shunned,
and critiqued from the beginning. We make a strange assertion – Jesus was raised
from the dead! – in a world that mostly cannot believe such a preposterous
thing.
This Sunday – the last Sunday before Pentecost – makes clear
that holding the church together has always been a struggle requiring the help
of the triune God. Jesus prays for the church in the name of the One who sent
him, and the Spirit enters into even the choice of new leaders. The church
exists because of God’s work in our midst.
Where is God at work in your midst at this time? What can
you point to as a challenge or a change in your community that has been guided
by the power greater than any human achievement?
John 17:6-19
Following the final discourse
before his arrest, Jesus makes an extended and moving prayer to the Father
regarding the disposition of the apostles. . . . Significant is Jesus’ understanding that
those who have followed him belong to him and thus no longer belong to the
world. Jesus asks three things: that [God make them] one … keep them from the
evil one, and … consecrate them in the
truth. – Mary Katharine Deeley
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
In many ways the Ascension is the
necessary predecessor to Pentecost and the birthday of the church. With the
ascension Jesus leaves matters squarely in our laps and sends us to wait on the
power of the Spirit. Even after the resurrection, waiting is part of the plan.
And if waiting weren’t enough, the way ahead still is unclear and requires
faith to interpret and discern. Jesus leaves in order to make way for his body,
the church, to take its needed place. – H. Gregory Waldrop
Jesus ascended in order to be everywhere present and available,
nudging and comforting.
That Christ is praying for us, his
church in our time, is certain because we live in dire need of the truth that
sanctifies. The church in contemporary society is so weakened and indistinct
from the culture about us that it practically fails to exist. As some witty
Christian—I can’t remember who—said, “Our church, in leaning over to speak to
the modern world, fell in.”
Christ prays for us, because he has
called us out of the world and its penchant for lies into a community of
troubling truth. This means that the church has always had troublers—people who
take convictions seriously enough to bring them up when nobody wants them to.
. . . Troublers ask us to think
about who we are and how we are different, and the reasons why we do what we
do. The church has an opportunity to make a lot of money by investing its funds
in profitable companies, and think of the great good it can do with the
earnings. Yet, these companies are tied to practices and ways that are in
conflict with the church’s own witness and values. Some are tied to defense
industries and war. . . . Some have poor
labor practices, using people to the point of slavery. . . .
Some of the church’s own practices
are less than true. There are those willing to compromise the message for the
sake of winning new members, market the church . . . and turn the church into
another entertainment industry for the sake of fitting into the culture and
being user friendly. Then comes the troubler who asks, “Who is Jesus after all,
and do we really want to advance the church in these ways that so compromise
Christ and his message?” – John E. Smith
The church is called
to live in the truth. Those who complain
about the church’s actions (or our non-involvement in righting what is wrong in
the world) are helping us to see how very much we are in need of Jesus’ prayer.
Mary Katharine Deeley is the director of Christ the Teacher Institute of the
Sheil Catholic Center, the Roman Catholic campus ministry at Northwestern
University, Evanston, Illinois. She is the author of many books, a frequent
speaker on diverse topics, and a pastoral advisor.
H. Gregory Waldrop was baptized in Mayfield, Kentucky in 1954 and ordained
in Atwood, Tennessee in 1981. He is a United Methodist pastor serving Fountain
Avenue United Methodist Church in Paducah, Kentucky.
John E. Smith has served as a United Methodist pastor for many years.
Homily Service 39,
no. 6 (2006): 31-40.
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