May 12, 2024

We’ve been talking a lot over the last few weeks about things that are taking place across the Episcopal Church. There was the special convention last weekend where clergy and lay delegates from all three Episcopal Dioceses in Wisconsin voted to move forward with reunification. That decision will have to be ratified at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church that is taking place the last week of June in Louisville KY. There will be a lot more on the agenda of General Convention—including the election of a presiding bishop to replace Bishop Michael Curry, whose term ends this year. No doubt there will be talk of prayer book revision, or liturgical revision, always a hot-button issue in the Episcopal Church.

As I said in my sermon two weeks ago, most of us don’t pay close attention to the structures and governance of the church. We’re content to come to church from time to time, or quite regularly, and volunteer in some way to support our ministry and mission, whether that is through participating in worship or in one of our committees or groups, or at the food pantry or the Beacon. Most of us don’t like to think about the nuts and bolts of structure and governance and even if we are cajoled into serving on vestry, our church council, we serve our three-year term and never look back. For some, a term on vestry or as warden is enough to turn us off church forever.

Still, like any human institution, the church needs structure. And often we look back to scripture to help us shape our structures. And where better to start than with the passage from Acts we just heard? 

We’ve been jumping around in Acts during Eastertide and now we’re back in the first chapter. In Luke’s telling of the story, this takes place right after the ascension, which he relates both at the end of the gospel of Luke and here in the beginning of Acts. Typically, the lectionary omits the juiciest parts, in this case Luke’s version of Judas’ death; but it is Judas’ betrayal and death that accounts for what comes next and what we do hear, the choice of Matthias as an apostle to replace the betrayer.

It’s quite interesting that the lectionary editors chose to include this little episode in our reading from Acts this year, and that they placed it here, after we’ve heard the wonderful stories of the spirit’s movement—the Ethiopian Eunuch, and the story of Cornelius the Centurion, and before Pentecost, when again we hear a story of the movement of the Spirit.

But in today’s reading while we hear of the movement of the Spirit, it is to do something quite different, namely to provide for order, succession, and structure. It’s interesting to see that even at this early point, the disciples, Jesus’ closest companions, even as they waited for whatever might happen next, were making plans, preparing, setting some guidelines for how they would move forward. It would happen again, throughout Acts as new situations developed—when the community needed more people to help with all the tasks at hand, a group of deacons were commissioned to help distribute food and money to the needy among them. And later, when conflict arose over the relationship among Jews and Gentiles, a council of the leadership was called. Meeting in Jerusalem, they made decisions how to move forward in this new situation.

In addition to omitting the description of Judas’ death; the lectionary editors made one more significant omission. Had they included v. 14, the verse immediately preceding the specified reading, we would have learned that it was not just the eleven who were gathered in this upper room, there were about 120 people—women as well as men, and specifically including Jesus’ mother Mary. One of the themes of Acts, though perhaps one that has been often overlooked, is the important role played by women in the early decades of the Jesus movement, and we see that here as well. It’s the same group that is gathered when the Holy Spirit comes down like flames upon their heads, men and women together receiving that gift and power. 

The gospel reading offers another perspective on this dynamic. Here, we are meant to imagine the same room, probably many of the same people, but chronologically we are taken back before Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, to the Last Supper.

In John’s gospel, Jesus speaks extensively to his disciples about his departure, preparing them for what is to come. In chapter 17, at the end of that lengthy discourse, Jesus offers what is often called the High Priestly Prayer, a conversation, not with his disciples but with God the Father. It’s fascinating what the disciples might have thought of this as they overheard this intimate conversation.

There are a number of themes that emerge from this prayer that Jesus offers to God on behalf of his disciples. The first is the inherent unity of Jesus and the Father, and because of the relationship between Jesus and the disciples, the unity of them with God. Jesus asks the Father to protect them “so that they may be one as we are one.”

Another theme of note is the world—the cosmos. It’s important to recognize all the different ways the cosmos is conceived in John’s gospel. Here we see a fundamental contrast between God and the world; the world is depicted as evil, a threat to the disciples. But even as we hear these words, we must remember other ways in which the cosmos is described: “For God so loved the world…” God loves the world, even in all of its brokenness.

There is one underlying motif that needs mention. We often think of our relationship with Jesus or with God, as a wholly vertical one—it’s about me and God, and my relationships with others might get in the way of that. But here the stress is on community—community of Christ with God, and community of the disciples with God through Christ. There is a horizonality to this relationship with God. Relationship with God is only fully realized if it is expressed in the context of relationship with others. 

And that may be where we return to our starting point. Community can’t exist without structure. Nations, states, cities, have laws that govern our relationships with others. The church too requires structure and governance to survive. Those structures may seem unwieldy at times; they may seem to stand in the way of the movement of the spirit and we may become so frustrated by the details of life in community that we abandon it for the chimera of experiencing God on our own, in the silence and quiet of our minds.

But especially now, as we see the lingering effects of the breakdown of community in our world, with egotism and self-interest running riot, the excesses of neoliberalism and unbridled capitalism; the tendency to erect barriers between groups and to vilify those who hold different beliefs or have different sexualities, or national or ethnic origins, the need to build community, to strengthen community is greater than ever.

To imagine, and make visible a community of Christian love, uniting disparate individuals together, and uniting them with Christ and with God can be a witness to a world in which community is shattering and shattered, where individuals seek meaning and connection that can only be fully realized in relationship with Christ and with others. May we make that community a reality, here in Madison and in the world.