Easter 7
John 17:1-11
Service at the Lake
June 5, 2011

In the World


At the Council meeting this month, Marion Fisher was asking about anniversaries. The talk was over how many years each of the three of us have been under call to University Lutheran. This year I will have been at UniLu for 18 years. I started here June 15, 1993. But the date on the calendar which stands out in my mind so much as the first time I gathered with the congregation. It was actually two days before I started my employment – Sunday, June 13. The day was memorable to me for two reasons: First – it was hot. Very hot. We had loaded our moving van in Upper Michigan on the 9th of June. That day, in Houghton, it was 54 degrees. Two days later, we were in Clemson, and guess what the high temperature was for that day? 94 degrees. A forty degree change! Neither our house nor the church in Houghton had air conditioning. We almost melted.

The second reason that day stands out for me is that that first Sunday was UniLu’s annual out-door service. That year the service was at the YMCA Beach. Does anyone remember how many years it was held there? I remember that for a few years we traveled to Twin Lakes – but then they instituted the per-car admission fee and we switched yet again. I can’t remember how long we have been using Biggerstaff, but it is enough so that we no longer refer to it as the service at the lake, or the out-door worship service, but merely Biggerstaff Sunday.

Did any of you have a tradition like this in a previous congregation?
We did, in my home congregation. And it made such an impression on me that I started the tradition at my first two parishes. The tradition, at my home congregation, is much like the one we have fallen into at UniLu. It wasn’t merely a service be the lake, it was a service at our Lutheran Church Camp. The trip of my childhood was around 75 miles. Its destination was Lutheridge. Cedar Grove was one of the initial investors in that facility. We owned a lot, and members donated time to the construction of the initial buildings.

I know that for some, meeting at the lake is a hassle. One of our members (and a dear, dear friend) recoiled at the suggestion that we hold a committee meeting at Biggerstaff, after the service. “I have managed to miss that outing for nearly ten years and I don’t see a change coming this year.” It’s okay. Really it is. The service at Biggerstaff is not for everyone. I am a fan. But I am not a fan because I prefer the hot out-of-doors, with poor sound quality to our beautifully adorned house of worship. I am a fan because meeting out here gives us at least one opportunity to remind everyone that “Church” is not the building at 111 Sloan Street. “Church” is the community of folks who follow Jesus and seek to reach out to others with that which we have first received. “Church” is being God’s hands and heart and voice in the world which Christ came to save.

Today’s Gospel lesson comes from a section which is often referred to as Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer.” He is praying for the disciples. In this prayer of his, we see what matters most, to him, as he considers what will be necessary for us.

There is language here of completion; Jesus says that he has “finished” the work that The Father gave him to do. What, exactly, is he referring to here? This is not a post-resurrection appearance. I guess it would be possible for this reference to having finished what he was sent to do to be referring to his impending crucifixion. Possible. What Jesus has done, at this point, is to make God known throughout the region. What Jesus has done is show God’s delight in all of His children, including (and sometime particularly) those whom others might ignore or overlook.

Jesus is about to depart. The trip to Jerusalem and all that it entails is just around the corner. So much so that Jesus has already begun to check out. He acknowledges in this high priestly prayer that he is “no longer in the world.” He prays for the disciples because “they (remain) in the world.”

We are part of the Church in order that we might be in the world. We don’t go to church, in order to avoid being contaminated by the world. When we do gather, in our church buildings, we repeat stories of a God who set aside the heavens in order to make his home among us. We worship a Messiah whose “work” involved walking the dirty streets of Jerusalem and who only once seems to have taken the teacher’s seat inside a house of prayer. Jesus is no longer in the world. But his followers, those whom God has given him, continue to live in the world. His work ends where ours begins, and ours is to be his hands and his heart and his voice in the world.

We don’t “go to church;” we “are the Church.” And we are at our best when we step outside the confines of the walls and make known to all the world the saving message of Jesus Christ.

Some will read in these words an invitation to isolate ourselves from the world. At one point Jesus prays, “I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.” The Gospel next week is even more critical of that which is here referred to as “the world.” He will note that “the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world.” From here, many have taken their cue and spoken of a deep division between the followers of Jesus and “the world.” But such a division is misguided. Jesus isn’t wanting us to disengage from everything around us and flee into the nearest red brick building with a steeple on top; he is acknowledging that when one sets their hearts and minds on the things of God, the culture and the conventional wisdom will do all it can to bring that one back in line.

“The world,” the culture and conventional wisdom of Jerusalem, imprisoned, beat, and murdered Jesus. “The world,” the culture and conventional wisdom of 16th Century Europe condemned Martin Luther as a heretic. It would be appropriate for me to name modern-day martyrs, but the culture and conventional wisdom operative among us is likely to result in some (if not many) of you disengaging and dismissing everything I am saying.

Steven Carter is an ethicist teaching at Yale. Lately he has taken to writing fiction. But his earliest books were in the “ethics for the laity” genre. In "The Culture of Disbelief" he had a chapter entitled “God as Hobby.” His critique of modern day American Christianity is that we treat it as a “hobby,” rather than the center and core of our existence.

Want some examples? We all know that Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor, right? Haven’t we also been carefully taught that Jesus expected this of him because he had become so attached to his possessions – implying that so long as we aren’t so deeply attached, it is okay for us to keep our stuff.

In Acts 5 there is a terrible story of Ananias and Sapphira. After joining The Way, they sell a piece of land, but rather than give all the money to the elders they keep back a bit for themselves. Both of them die when their withholding is acknowledged.

How many weeks has it been, maybe 10 or 11, since we read Jesus’ instructions on what we are to do when someone begs from us? If they ask for our coat, we are to give them our shirts also. Doesn’t our culture and conventional wisdom tell us that if you feed a stray dog it will only keep coming back for more – never developing the drive or initiative to provide for itself?

Jesus sends us into the world, but he knows that the world will do all it can to mute the message we proclaim. And in muting the message, we lose the cutting edges which are capable of removing the fear and anxiety which stands between us and the peace which Christ brings.

One of my Facebook pastor friends said it in a message yesterday. The opposite of faith is not apathy, not unbelief. We become apathetic. We sell short the powerful message of Christ. And, yes, I do believe this happens the most when we are shut up inside our red-brick buildings, doing our own little rituals, without ever exposing this message to those whose lives are crying out for the Good News Jesus came to make known.

With my family, I have just come through a time when I needed the Church’s aid. From the day that my mother-in-law was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, we depended upon the prayerful support of you, our fellow church-members and friends. We would not have had the courage to commend her to Almighty God where it not for the constant reminders that God would take better care of her than we could. What a glorious escape, from the harshness of “the world,” to gather with others, singing hymns and offering prayers of hope and promise. It has now been three weeks – the amount of time it takes for so many to forget and go back to what they were doing before. But it is the faithful, our sisters and brothers in Christ who continue to remember and to comment and to lift us up with prayers and promises. It is at times such as these that one really comes to deeply appreciate the relationships formed through week after week of sharing a pew and fumbling through the familiar liturgy. I am not dismissing the importance of knowing that we are part of a community, that we belong to a group, and that we have a clubhouse where we can get together with our fellow travelers.

But we only got to that place as a result of someone somewhere in our past reaching out to us and inviting us in. We would not have know the peace of Christ which passes all understanding had there not been an understanding person encouraging us to be a member of God’s family.

The ministry of the Church starts out here, in the world. It is only after the promise is given and the opportunity presented that we can then come inside to experience the comfort and assurance.

Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer is for those who will remain the world when he is ascended to heaven. He knows how difficult it is for us. He knows that we will only be able to face those difficulties if we have one another; if we are joined in mission and in purpose. We join together to celebrate what has been given to us; and then we look for opportunities to give it to others.

We can’t sit inside that building at 111 Sloan Street and wait for them to stumble in the door. We need to go out, into the world, sharing with them what it is that calls us inside, only then will they be able to hear the invitation and come inside.


Amen.