RCL Easter 7A
21 May 2023
Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
In the summer between Grade 9 and Grade 10, two of my teachers, Mr Knox and Mr Kordula, asked if I wanted to work in their 4th of July fireworks business. These were the days when teachers were only paid nine months of the year and many supplemented their income by side businesses. I was thrilled for two reasons: In my school being asked by Mr Knox and Mr Kordula to work for them was considered a really special deal and, perhaps more importantly, I love fireworks. One of the perks of working for the two Mr K’s was being able to take home $15 of free fireworks a week – US $15 in 1968 dollars!
After two weeks of ramping up inventory, preparing assortment bags and putting the firework stands together, we were ready for business. There were some older boys who had worked in previous summers, so each one took one of the younger boys – sorry, only boys in those days – under their wings. My ‘mentor’ took me to our assigned stand and business began. After a couple of days I learned that I would left on my own. My ‘mentor’ would be driving a circuit to other stands to make sure all was going well. I would be responsible for an eight-hour shift.
The day of my solo debut arrived – a hot Colorado summer day, $50 in my cash box and several thousand dollars’ worth of fireworks on the side of a busy street. My ‘mentor’ drove away – I had no car and was too young to drive – and I was on my own. Within two hours I learned that the procedures manual did not cover all the situations I faced:
· What do I do and where do I go if I need to use the washroom? Answer – Thanks be to God for the friendly and sympathetic manager of the gas station next to my stand!
· What do I do if I run out of change or end up with too many ten’s and twenty’s? Answer – Make friends with the manager of the convenience store on the other side of my stand!
· What do I do if some kid who has been saving up his allowance for weeks to buy an assortment pack comes up 10¢ short? Answer – Be generous the first time and less generous on repeat occasions.
By the end of the summer I had learned a great deal and earned my employers a good return on their investment.
I’m pretty sure that all of us have had a similar experience. We begin a new job and undertake a new responsibility only to discover that there are many things not covered by our training or by the procedures manual. Waiting around for our supervisors to return or for a revised procedures manual is not an option. We have to use our natural talents and skills and trust whatever learned experience we have to do the best we can.
Forty-three days ago, in a place far from here and two millennia distant, a small group of Jewish women and men had an experience that would eventually transform them into a potent movement of renewal and reconciliation that continues to this day. Their beloved rabbi had been raised from the dead and had spent forty days with them. During those days he had shared his heart with them. He had told them that they were to be witnesses to his mission and to continue his ministry. He had assured them that they would have the resources they needed to do what God wanted them to do.
I am sure that the disciples expected that Jesus would remain with them forever. But three days ago he was taken up into heaven and they were left gaping up into the sky. I have always loved the two angels who come along and tell the disciples to move on. The angels know what we know now – we are not called to stand around hoping that our supervisors will show up or a new procedures manual will be put into our hands. But I can’t help but think that the disciples asked themselves a question that generations of Christians have asked time and time again as we ‘are wearied by the changes and chances of this life’ – What do we do now?
What do we do now? First and foremost, we gather. In his lengthy poem, ‘The Church Porch’ the Anglican poet and priest George Herbert writes:
Though private prayer be a brave designe,
Yet publick hath more promises, more love:
And love’s a weight to hearts, to eies a signe.
We all are but cold suitours; let us move
Where it is warmest. Leave thy six and seven;
Pray with the most: for where most pray, is heaven.
In a society where individualism and privacy have been asked to bear weight that they were never intended to bear, the Christian community acts in a counter-cultural fashion by holding up the coming together of people as a fundamental quality of being human. It is gathering together as God’s people, whether within the walls of this cathedral or within the virtual confines of Zoom or Facebook, that we strengthen one another, encourage one another, enlighten one another, sustain one another.
What do we do now? When we gather, we transform ourselves and others. The breaking open of the Word of God, the lifting up our intercessions, thanksgivings and petitions and our sharing in the bread broken and the wine poured have the power to take people who are weary, uncertain and discouraged and reinvigorate them, enlighten them and rekindle the hope that fuels the human heart and the Christian movement. As we have been saying during this Easter season and will say again in a few moments, “Dear friends in Christ, God bids you welcome to this table. Here we are strengthened for the journey. Here strangers become friends and the seeker finds God’s wisdom speaking to them. See who you are and become what you see.”
What do we do now? We gather. We transform. And we send. As Jesus ascends, he does so in the confidence that his friends already have within the knowledge, authority and power to continue the work begun by God in creation, furthered by the covenant with the people of Israel and renewed in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. No one can deny that our lives can be roller coasters of success and failure, hope and despair, clarity and doubt. But what can be affirmed is that we are not alone and God’s commission is to a people, living in real places, in real times and in real circumstances. At the end of the eucharist, the deacon takes on the role of the angels at the ascension and says, in so many words, ‘Don’t hang around here. There is work to be done and we have the knowledge, skills, resources and power to do what needs to be done. Move on!’
Friends, there is work to be done. We need to build up our resiliency as a community serving this downtown neighbourhood. We need to build up our confidence in our future as witnesses to the risen life of Christ. But most of all, we need to build up our hope and trust in one another, our joy in gathering, our joy in being transformed, our joy in being sent. So let’s move on!
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