Sermon
Seventh Sunday of Easter
St. Simon's on the Sound
Episcopal Church
John 17:1-11
Early this year – pre-Covid-19 –
Bishop Russell convened a Jubilee Year Celebration Committee whose purpose was to
design festivities that would take place throughout 2020 and culminate in a
glorious weekend of events. The weekend would include a panel discussion with
Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy and our Presiding Bishop, the Rt. Rev.
Michael Curry; and a Revival Service celebrated and preached by Bishop Curry.
The Jubilee Year celebration activities
were intended to be an exciting and joyful way to mark our diocese's 50th
Anniversary. A way to look at the past, consider the present, and imagine the
future of the Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. A way to Remember,
Reorient, and Renew
The committee made great progress.
They planned monthly activities designed to focus on specific topics such as
history of the diocese and creation care activities undertaken by our various
congregations. The monthly themed activities would take us from February to
December and our Jubilee Year Revival Service to be held at the Pensacola Bay
Center.
Well, immediately after we began
our first month's activities Covid-19 descended upon us. And so, we ceased
in-person worship, and all activities designed for communal participation
disappeared from our horizon. For the time being anyway the committee's hard
work and hopeful dreams for a year of remembering, reorienting and renewing
were dashed upon the harsh necessity of separation and isolation. The cessation
of all corporate worship and communal activities.
However, amidst all the dashed
plans one remnant remained; the dormant vestige of a plan that was intended to
be carried out in a time quite different from this Covid-19 world in which we now
live. A remnant that remains as the closing collect offered in our Prayers of
the People. A collect that we have yet to acknowledge for its relevance – its
stunning importance – at this beleaguered point in time.
According to the Book of
Leviticus, every 50 years would be a Jubilee year. A year in which Hebrew
slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven, and the mercies
of God would be particularly manifest. In other words, it was a year of
celebration; a year of thanking God for the gifts of abundance bestowed on us;
a year of resting and renewing – of preparing for the future.
Our diocesan Jubilee collect
addresses these activities: …fill us with your grace as we remember your
kindness and goodness to us, through providence and through struggle; and let
the trumpets proclaim the year of the Jubilee, a year of the Lord's favor, as
we dedicate ourselves to reorient our mission efforts to renew your Gospel in our
midst. May your Spirit inspire us…
If ever there was a time when we
needed to be filled with God's grace, it is now. If ever there was a time when
we needed to remember God's kindness and goodness towards us, it is now. If
ever there was a time when we needed to reorient our mission efforts to renew
the Gospel in our midst, it is now. If ever there was a time when we needed the
Spirit to inspire us, it is now.
I find this collect – this
dormant remnant of a different time and a different reality – to be of critical
relevance to this time - this Covid-19 reality.
Our lives lived in relative
isolation from each other for the past 10 weeks have been incredibly stressful.
Overnight, we have gone from believing that we were in control of our lives to a
dead zone in which nothing is clear and much is being lost, or at the very least
cast into jeopardy.
Simple decisions such as whether
or not to go to the grocery store are fraught with anxiety, and yes, perhaps
danger. Jobs and/or retirement funds are no longer secure. Visits to loved ones
who may be dying in hospital or nursing homes are prohibited. Plans to visit
family and long anticipated vacation adventures have been eliminated. Life as
we knew it has disappeared. We are, whether we want to admit it or not, in
shock. We have and are experiencing trauma in its Nth degree.
We are very much in the same boat
as the bewildered apostles when they asked Jesus, "Lord is this the
time when you will restore the kingdom of Israel?" How must they have
felt when he answered, "It is not for you to know the times or periods
that the Father has set by his own authority."
As we move through this Covid-19
challenge we are continually asking, "Lord, is this the time when will
this be over. When will we be restored to normal?" Jesus offers us the
same response that he has always offered, "It is not for you to know
the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority."
Our feeling of anxiety, fear,
anger, and confusion are ever present. God's plans and timeline are as always
obscure – unknown. It is not for us to know God's plans.
But we may – indeed we must - take
comfort in the knowledge that Christ abides in us, and we in Christ. That we
are one and as such we are given strength, courage, power, and are capable of being
Christ's witnesses in the world – no matter what the circumstances. The power
of the Holy Spirit is with us and in us – always. Christ with us - always. We
are beloved children of God – always.
That is why this Jubilee collect
is still so very relevant despite the dramatically changed circumstances of its
creation. This is most assuredly a time to remember God's kindness and goodness
towards us, through providence and through struggle.
This is most assuredly a time to
dedicate ourselves to reorient our mission efforts – our efforts to spread the
Good News through word and deed.
This is most assuredly a time to
pray for the Spirit to inspire us. To give us courage to overcome the challenge
of Covid-19 anxieties and fears by experiencing Christ within us and with us in
the here and now. By listening for and being guided by the Holy Spirit in the
here and now.
The here and now is our reality.
It is not our "new" normal. It is life as we know it in the here and
now and it will change; and keep changing. It will not go back to the
"old" normal and we have no way of imagining what a "new"
normal will be. Indeed, a new normal may be, at least for the near future, a
state of continual change.
What is clear is that we must not
stop living. We must not stop loving our neighbor. We must not stop being God's
people in the world. We must not stop reorienting ourselves to this new and
challenging world. We must not stop renewing our vows as Christ's anointed. We must
not – not ever – stop listening to and being inspired by the Holy Spirit – our
advocate – our gift from God.
Perhaps, more than originally
conceived, this is the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast's Jubilee Year.
Perhaps this Covid-19 challenge with its mandate that we pause from the hectic
turmoil of our everyday life is God's way of placing us in a position that
forces us to remember, reorient, and renew.
Will we step up to the challenge?
Will we with courage, strength, and the inspiration that comes to us through
the Holy Spirit let go of the "old" normal and live with the reality
of today and the uncertainty of tomorrow? Will we allow our imaginations to
take us into new and exciting ways to spread God's good news, his love, into a
world that is so filled with pain?
Should we be able to come
together in a Jubilee Year Revival Celebration in December, will we be
celebrating our good works of the year past? Will we be a people expressing through
song and prayer the joy and bounty that we have reaped despite the overwhelming
challenges of Covid-19? Will we be celebrating the remembering, reorienting,
and renewing of God's Kingdom in the Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf
Coast?
Lord
God of all creation, fill us with your grace as we remember your kindness and
goodness to us, through providence and through struggle; and let the trumpets
proclaim the year of the Jubilee, a year of the Lord's favor, as we dedicate
ourselves to reorient our mission efforts to renew your Gospel in our midst.
May your Spirit inspire us we pray in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord. AMEN.
