Living through change

RCL Year B, 7 Easter A few months back when the liturgy committee and our stewardship chair talked about focusing on stewardship in this season of Easter, we looked at the readings for each week to see what different angles on the theme were suggested by the scriptures. We had a few ideas in mind […]

RCL Year B, 7 Easter

A few months back when the liturgy committee and our stewardship chair talked about focusing on stewardship in this season of Easter, we looked at the readings for each week to see what different angles on the theme were suggested by the scriptures. We had a few ideas in mind of different aspects of stewardship we wanted to talk about, but different ideas came up as we looked at how to align those with the readings in question. We didn’t intend for it to work out this way, but it does seem that we’ve kind of progressed along in a certain direction – from the easy and obvious to ideas that are more difficult for us to deal with. We started with care for creation, a pretty simple sell: Earth Day and the environmental movement have been around long enough that the idea of caring for creation is pretty standard now. It might be politically charged just how we apply that, but it’s not novel that we have some responsibility for creation. The next week we talked about caring for our brothers and sisters around the world – again, not too revolutionary an idea for Christians. Then came a week on living out our mission in everyday life and work – obvious as an idea perhaps, but very hard to put into practice. Last week we tried to get our heads around our spiritual gifts and how God gives them to us for other people, not for our own glory. That goes against the grain a little. And this week – well, this week we’re winding it all up with how we live through and serve God through change and transition. And no one ever likes to think about change.

But the theme of change fits with this Sunday in the church year, the Sunday after the Ascension and before Pentecost. In the gospel story, this is the week of transition. Jesus has died and has risen from the dead, and for forty days the disciples have all been spending time with him and living into this new reality of the risen Christ. But now, suddenly, he’s left them. He tells them to wait for the coming of the Spirit, who will tell them what to do next. And then the Holy Spirit comes on Pentecost and utterly changes them and everything else besides.

Of course, from the disciples’ perspective, everything in the gospel has been change. From the moment Jesus calls to them in Galilee, things start shifting – they leave their livelihoods and families, they wander with him around the countryside, they get excited about the large crowds following and then they totally despair when Jesus is arrested and killed. There’s no status quo in the story. And it’s all change within the disciples too – they go from being fishermen and tax collectors to followers of a Messiah to preachers and evangelists throughout the known world. Talk about a career shift.

But it’s a long ways from there to the old joke, How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? If you’re wondering, the answer is four: One to change the bulb, and three to say they liked the old one better. It could be argued that Jesus was crucified in part because he represented too much change – the powers that be were so threatened by that that they killed him. Something in our nature, whoever we are, resists change.

But like it or not, we live, of course, in a time of great change.  Technology is evolving faster than we are – some of you have barely got onto email and others of you already call it old-school. You just learn one version of an Apple product and they come out with the next, much better one. A 20-year-old comes up with a fun way to connect people on campus and eight years later the company is worth $104 billion. And social change is happening more and more quickly – one writer pointed out how it took a century or more for the civil rights movement to take shape, while perspectives on gay rights have shifted in less than two decades. The church, of course, is changing too – the number of people who go to church has steadily declined over the last 50 years, and the average age of the church has gone steadily up. In the Commission on Ministry in this diocese, we have been having conversations about what kind of leadership we need for the church that is to come. Bishop Mary pointed out Friday in our meeting that we’re in a time of transition but we don’t know what it’s transitioning into. She likened it to the time after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. The whole focus and structure of Jewish worship changed, disorienting and grieving those who were left to figure out what happened next. But of course what evolved out of that destruction were the two streams of rabbinical Judaism and Christianity, new things no one saw coming. Out of the destruction of what was precious and sacred came the birth of the new and holy.

Everything changes – it’s the nature of life that we grow and change from childhood to adulthood and then on into old age. Nothing is permanent. As Paul tells the Corinthians, things are passing away. So when we talk about stewardship of change, we are talking really about how we live, knowing that everything, all we have, is temporary. God gives us things for a time, but not forever – we care for things while we have them, but we take nothing with us when we die. Some things don’t even last our whole lifetime. People we care for may not outlive us; spiritual gifts we have to share might fade as we age; jobs and work last only for a season; places and species in creation are dying out and being destroyed. Yet we’re called to be faithful with what we have while we have it.

To live faithfully through change we need to be honest. It is disorienting and saddening when things we love are destroyed or come to an end. It is confusing and anxiety-provoking when things are in flux and transition. It is scary not knowing what is coming next. Whether it’s graduating and starting a new school or college, or ending a relationship, retiring, or letting go of the church we grew up in, change is difficult for us. It does no good to ignore our feelings as we move through transition, but neither does it any good to plug our ears and pretend change isn’t happening. If things around us are changing we have to adapt; if things in us are changing we have to acknowledge it. Denial just doesn’t work in the long run.

The assurance we have in scriptures is that even though everything changes, God is constant. In the gospel we heard today Jesus prays for his disciples and for us, that God will protect us through all that is to come. It’s the prayer Jesus makes in the Gospel of John before his passion begins. Knowing that he will be leaving his followers, Jesus prays for three things: that we will be protected from evil, that we will be protected from division and hatred of one other, and that we will be witnesses of the truth of God to all the world. If we trust that Jesus’ prayer is valid and answered, then once we acknowledge our fears and sadness, we can also let them go: God is keeping us safe despite all the changes around us and in us; God is working to help us to rely on the love of our community; and so we can trust and live into these assurances in a way that teaches others around us not to fear. In other words, when we give all of those feelings and fears to God and trust God, we become the ‘non-anxious presence’ that helps others as well. We don’t need to be afraid. Jesus says this over and over in his resurrection appearances – do not be afraid – and it remains true after his ascension as well. We do not need to be afraid. This is one of the greatest gifts of all, for us and for others.

So to be good stewards of change requires us to trust – to do our best with what we have to care for while we have it, and then to put back into God’s hands what is from God anyway. We are not in charge; we do not have the last word or ultimate understanding of what God is up to. God is always doing more than we can ask or imagine.  Whatever it is – our loved ones, our work, our creation, our own selves – all of that is from God, all of it is in God’s care even more than ours. May we give thanks over and over again for what we have, and may we let it go when it is gone, gracefully. Amen.