Our Gospel lesson for today is a fairly familiar passage for me. It was used to describe my grandmother, who was often called “a Martha,” which was a euphemism for a woman who worked as hard as she did. She seemed to always be in the kitchen, always preparing something. Occasionally, I would see her sit down to watch a soap opera, but if she did, there was a bowl in her lap, and a 10lb. bag of potatoes at one hip and a colander at the other. She would peal those potatoes with a paring knife with long winding peals into one bowl, and then cube the naked potatoes into the other. Those potatoes would go into a pressure cooker with chunks of beef, and while that sputtered away, she would change loads of laundry from one machine to the other, balance her checkbook and the church’s, sweep the house, prepare to teach Sunday School, and entertain the grandkids. She served the church as secretary, treasurer, custodian, and youth Sunday School teacher, sometimes in multiple capacities at once. What Luke here calls “a certain village,” we know from the other Gospels was the town of Bethany, and these women are the sisters of Lazarus, whom Jesus will raise from the dead. The town of Bethany and the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus becomes something of a home base for Jesus. He will stop here often on his travels to teach and presumably, to be ministered to by Martha. In the week of his passion and death, he will sleep in Bethany at night and teach in the temple in Jerusalem during the day. My grandmother’s house was also something like our family’s Bethany. We would come weary and beset by the pressures of the world, and we knew we could retreat to Mamaw’s house, to be ministered to by our very own Martha. Maybe it’s because I can see so much of Martha in my grandmother, that Jesus’ words have always seemed a bit harsh. He seems to chide Martha for asking for help, and seems to insinuate that Mary, who has been sitting and listening to Jesus, has done something greater, better, preferable, by neglecting service, by not helping her sister, by not providing for the care of Jesus’ body and those of the disciples. Mary loved Jesus, visited with Jesus, listened to and learned from Jesus, but Mary didn’t serve Jesus, not the way Martha did. My grandmother was also a woman of deep faith. All of that work I described, ran on prayer and a “half a cuppa coffee,” always Maxwell House instant. She and my grandfather were always up early, and just after breakfast, she would read from the scriptures, perhaps a devotional, and he would pray for them. This was virtually every morning of their 62 years of marriage. My grandmother poured over the scriptures like a lawyer over a contract, like a war bride with a letter from the front, clinging to every word, believing every promise, and loving Jesus, because he first loved her. My grandmother chose both parts, she chose love and service. In fact, her service flowed from her love, and love flowed through her service. Jesus is not admonishing Martha to neglect her service because conversation is better. Jesus is inviting Martha to keep her priorities in order. Mary has not chosen the better part, but she has chosen the primary part, the first-things-first part. Jesus is inviting Martha to rest, to relationship, to Sabbath, to work from her rest, rather than rest from her work. And from this relationship, from this place of rested renewal, from the vantage point of ordered priorities, Mary and Martha can rise and work together. In late January/early February, a significant number of people approached me privately and separately to express concern, fear, anger, sadness, hopelessness, despair at the state of the world, the state of our country, the state of their heart. Each one felt helpless, exhausted, not sure how to take charge of their anxiety and not sure how to respond to the rapidly changing political climate. We began to gather on the fourth Sunday of each month to address these concerns. Many wanted to take action, wanted to know exactly what they could do to make a difference in the real world. Many came to his meeting like Martha, working hard to do what had to be done and absolutely exhausted from this sense of duty. They too had begun to wonder, Does Jesus not care? Because of my grandmother, and the work of contemplatives like Richard Rohr, Patrick Boland, Lisa Miller, I knew we would never be able to make a difference, never have the energy to do our duty, never be able to sustain an effective ministry if this ministry was not rooted deep in the solid ground of love. If we were not coming to this ministry from a place of love, a place of relationship, a place of intimacy with God’s very self in Jesus Christ, we would not be a church. We would have the same mission as the Lyons Club or the United Way. We need to experience Jesus, to sit at this feet and meditate on his goodness, on his God-ness. Richard Rohr speaks of a tricycle, where experience is the big wheel out front, the one with the pedals and the steering. Experience drives the tricycle. We need regular encounter, fellowship, intimacy with God in Christ. A practiced spirituality becomes the manner of encounter. Experience and spirituality must be balanced and supported by scripture and tradition, by study and action. Experience without scripture and tradition is a unicycle, a circus trick, a spectacle with little value to the spectator. Scripture and tradition, without the experience is of little value, and the big wheel goes nowhere without the pedals and steering of spirituality, study, and action. This week our kids will begin to learn this mystery. We kick off Communion Camp tomorrow, teaching these children about the sacrament of Holy Communion. Communion is an experience balanced by scripture and tradition, a practiced spirituality supported by study and action. We will alternate each day between learning what we do in here on a Sunday and how it should teach us to act when we are out there every other day. We will learn about the Last Supper, and we will make sandwiches for those in need of food. We will learn how to set the table for communion and how to set the table to feed the unhoused. The sacraments are an invitation to experience Christ, in worship with awe and wonder, and in service with love and devotion. In both our Critical Mass group and in our Communion Camp we will be doing the essential work of integration— of integrating devotion to God and service to neighbor, of integrating the values of our faith and the politics of our lives, of integrating the reverence of Mary and the responsibility of Martha. And the product of our integration is integrity. In the coming months, the council will be defining a process to reevaluate and articulate our values and our vision. We will need to hear from each of you. This meal invites you to an experience and a spirituality, to a regular encounter, to fellowship, to a seat at the feet of Jesus. It is an invitation to rest from your work that you may be able to work from this rest. It is an invitation to love like Mary and to show it like Martha. It is an invitation to consider how we might use our resources to become in this community the oaks of Mamre for strangers in need of care or Bethany to those passing through. Abraham became a host to God, and Mary and Martha ministered to Jesus. The integration of their reverence and responsibility allowed them to love both God and neighbor with integrity. How might such a ministry of integrity change our lives and our faith? How might our encounter of Christ’s own self offered to us in bread and wine invite us to work with what we have to make a difference in the lives of our neighbors? Our task as a congregation, and as individuals, is to choose both parts, to integrate our inner Mary and our inner Martha, to choose to love with integrity. To commit ourselves to spirituality, study, and action; to experience, scripture, and tradition; to devotion to Christ, to discipleship, following the teachings and example of Christ in our daily lives from a place of regular encounter in the sacraments and in the world. We cannot be so consumed with responsibility that we miss the relationship, nor so consumed with our relationship that we neglect responsibility. Service must come from love, a love for God that begets a love for the other. I am the product of such a love; my grandmother’s love for God made her a devoted disciple who loved me with such integrity that when she said that God is Love, I knew exactly and instinctually what that meant, because I had experienced it in her. I knew what it meant to receive it and I knew what it meant to give it away. One part is not “better” than the other in a superlative sense, but each gives integrity to the other. God is calling us to become a Mary and Martha congregation, the sort of place where others will know exactly and instinctively what it means that God is Love because they will have experienced it in us. Will we let that be taken away from them? Amen.

This particular parable of the Good Samaritan is likely one of the most familiar of all the parables. We call a selfless do-gooder a good Samaritan. Many a Christian charity focused on care for the sick, the poor, the hungry, are named for the Good Samaritan. Pastor Crispin Wilondja runs Good Samaritan Ministries, a ministry focused on accompanying refugees who have been resettled in this area. I am sure that you can think of other ministries in other places with the same name. And because this parable is so familiar, I would bet that you could retell the story, at least in broad strokes. But familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt. If not contempt, at least indifference. We suppose we know the story and so, we half listen, assume we understand, and move on. We don’t wonder what a Samaritan is. We don’t question why it should be necessary to classify this Samaritan as ‘good.’ We smirk at the author’s insight about the legal expert wanting to vindicate or justify himself, calling to mind any number of lawyer jokes. And then because we have helped a charity named for the good Samaritan we pat ourselves on the back and thank God that we aren’t like that priest or that Levite. But this isn’t quite how parables work. They are not fixed stories with an obvious moral suggesting we adopt a certain value and practice a certain virtue. Instead, parables have to be exegeted, contemplated, mulled over, unpacked. Parables have to be read and reread in each new context, each new time and place. Parables are not data to be crunched, are not facts to be recorded are not empirical statements demanding our acquiescence, are not imperatives to be obeyed. They are invitations to introspection, to mystery, to ponderance, to conversation, to reflection. When the legal expert asks Jesus a question, Jesus responds with a question. When the expert asks a follow-up question, Jesus responds with a parable. The legal expert wants to know the fine print, he wants the loopholes, the exceptions. He wants a strict constructionist interpretation, an originalist viewpoint. He wants to know what the framers meant when they said “neighbor,” and more importantly, he wants to know exactly what they did not mean when they said “neighbor.” Jesus rejects this strict constructionist view. And it might be important here to point out that Jesus is the framer. Jesus tells the legal expert that he already knows the answer to his own question. Jesus seems to be echoing the tone of our first reading. The legal expert doesn’t need someone to go off and get the answer, doesn’t need someone to pronounce an edict, file an amicus brief, or author a majority opinion. No, Jesus tells a parable to show that the best interpretation is near the legal expert, the answer comes from his own mouth, out of his own heart. Jesus and the legal expert together become re-framers, reinterpreting the law through the lens of mercy. So, what then does this parable mean to us? How are we to read it? As a congregation, we have been asking this question for some time. Who is our neighbor? So, let’s read it again in our context. A man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. In our context, this might sound like, “A refugee was fleeing the violence of his home for asylum in the US when he fell into the hands of coyotes who exploited him, deprived him of food and water, and dropped him off at the border half dead.” Jesus says that by chance a priest was traveling that road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and when he saw this naked, half-dead traveler he passed by on the other side. There are some who think that I should follow this priest’s example and pass by this whole subject. But the vows I made at my ordination and the vows we all reaffirm when we remember our baptism call us to work for justice and peace in all the world. It would be unfaithful for me to avoid topics of justice and peace when they are right in front us everyday. Pastor Crispin is preaching the same message with his very life, working to help and to heal refugees fearful for their lives and abandoned to their own devices here in our community. Jesus says that “likewise a Levite, when he came to the place [in the road] and saw him, passed by on the other side.” Now, the Levites were the tribe of Israel from whom the priest’s came. They were a privileged group, religiously and socially. They were the keepers of the laws and the customs that made the Hebrew people the Hebrew people, that made them God’s people. I imagine that this Levite thinks this banged-up traveler isn’t his problem. He probably also thinks that this is why he usually avoids this part of town. He’s likely worried, “If they beat this guy up, they might get me too. “It’s just not safe to stop and help. “Someone else will take care of this— some agency, some do-gooder. “This is also what that politician has been talking about; undesirables making the streets unsafe for people like me. “I’d better get out of here.” But then, Jesus says a Samaritan comes along. The Samaritans were a divergent religious and ethnic sect. They were outsiders, heretics, everything the legal expert, priests, and Levites were working so hard not to be. This Samaritan then puts the legal expert, the avoidant priest, and the privileged Levite to shame, demonstrating that without vocational obligation, without their religious heritage, without legal expertise, this foreign heretic was a better interpreter of the law than the legal expert. Jesus reframed the question. The question is not Who is my neighbor [and therefore, who isn’t]? The question is, if you have the law and the prophets, if you know the whole of the law and prophets are summed up in loving God and loving your neighbor, then why don’t you become a neighbor by practicing mercy? Neighbor-hood is a relationship of mutuality. You can’t have a neighbor without being a neighbor yourself. In these next few months, we will be trying to reframe this question, “Who is our neighbor?” and “How can we become a neighbor to them?” Our congregation is shrinking, our funds are dwindling, and we have been hoping for easy answers and loopholes. We have encountered opportunities to become what our neighbors need us to be, and we have passed by on the other side. We have clung to a mission statement some 30-plus-years old. We have hoped that someone else would take responsibility for the ministry here. We have been too religious, too frightened, too complacent, too tired, and by our own admission, too old to engage in the ministry in our path. We have hoped that someone else would go up the mountain or across the sea— or down in the ditch— and come and tell us what we want to hear, would bring us throngs of children and young families, would restore our former glory at best, or would absolve us of responsibility for our dissolution at least. But Jesus tells us that the answers to our questions are near us, they will come from our mouths, and from our hearts. I will be working together with the council and the Mutual Ministry team to define a listening process to discover and to voice a new mission statement and a new vision for this congregation. This will take all of us. It will be uncomfortable, it will cost each of us something, but it will make us neighbors, it will make us merciful, it will fulfill the promises of our baptism to work for justice and peace in all the world. We will know who our neighbors are and they will know theirs, too. Amen.

Today is the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after the Passover, the day we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, the birthday of the Church. This is a day of celebration , a day of joy and feasting. We deck the place and the minister in red, the color of fire, the color of blood, the color of love. Yesterday, when Deacon Sue was ordained, we invoked the Holy Spirit, we laid hands on her, and we put a red stole across her shoulder, a symbol of service derived from the towel Jesus tied around his waist when he washed the disciples’ feet. Red is the color of the Church because it is the color of the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit descended on the day of Pentecost, a mighty rushing wind and tongues, or language, that spread through the assembled crowd like a wildfire. This Holy Spirit fell on ethnic Jews and on Gentile foreigners alike, and they all became something new together. But like that one-hit wonder “Closing Time” by Semisonic reminds us “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” We come to this point in the metanarrative of the Scriptures after the Resurrection of Jesus, his appearances to his followers, and his ascension into heaven with the promise of the Holy Spirit and that he would come again. And then, they waited. The apostles— including Mary Magdalene— Jesus’ mother, the other disciples and followers had at this point already begun to gather on the first day of the week. And so they gathered this Sunday morning, as they had been doing, to wonder and wait together. And when this hot and holy wind blew through like a tornado in a wildfire these waiting wonderers were set ablaze like that burning bush that called to Moses and set God’s people free. They each spoke with tongues on fire, burning with love, illuminating the gospel, and purifying the earth. These Gentile proselytes from across the Roman world heard the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses, the God of David, speaking to them in a language they could understand. Paul called this the spirit of adoption. There is no human being who is not a child of God. God is the father, the parent of us all. But to have a mother and a father is very different than having a mom and a dad. It is one thing to recognize that we all have a relationship to God and it is another to have a relationship with God. When Paul says in Romans 8 “When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” Abba is an Aramaic term of affection, meaning something like “Daddy.” The Spirit comes to make us know that we already have a relationship to God as parent, creator, sustainer; but we are invited to have a relationship with God that is deep, intimate, enduring There is a principle in counseling were the relationship between any two people or things is actually a third entity. In the relationship between a married couple the marriage is that third entity. That marriage must be nurtured, prioritized, calibrated over time in order to remain healthy. Theologian Walter Wink theorizes that this is what the ancient world meant by talking of spirits and demons. A toxic and harmful relationship is a demonic spirit. A good and healthy relationship is an angelic spirit. I think this is how we should think of the Holy Spirit. The relationship between the Father and the Son, the relationship between Christ and the Church, the relationship between individual believers, that goes beyond a mere relationship to the other and draws us into relationship with the other, this is the Holy Spirit; that third divine entity that makes two into One. At creation, God breathes a hot and holy wind into molded earth and this created thing became a living being precisely because God desired to be more that related to this creation; God wanted a relationship with this creation. So God named this living being, God walked with this living being, God saw Godself in this living being; God and this living being shared a relationship as close as breath. In Hebrew, the language of the book of Genesis, ruach means breath, wind, and spirit. The same ruach that hovered over the waters before creation is the same ruach breathed into this living being. In Greek, the language of the New Testament, pneuma means breath, wind, and spirit. That same mighty rushing pneuma blowing through that crowd on the day of Pentecost is the same pneuma descending like a dove at Jesus’ baptism, and that same pneuma Jesus promises to send to us to make us one with the Father as he and the Father are one. The ancient mystics tell us that this is precisely why the Spirit came as a tongue on Pentecost; because it is the tongue that forms the Word within us, and it is the pneuma within us that brings that Word to life. There is more to this Christian faith than assurance of our relationship to God. By our baptism we are marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit, that is, we are made aware of our relationship to God in Christ and we are invited into a deep, intimate relationship with God. And today, as we come forward for communion, I invite you to receive again this anointing oil, marking your forehead with the sign of the cross and the seal of the Holy Spirit, our deep, intimate relationship with God. Let this tongue of fire form the Word within you and the ruach, the pneuma bring it to life. Let this encounter lead you into relationships with your neighbors and let this relationship lead to mutual understanding. Let this hot and holy wind sweep your inner house “clean of its furniture” that you might make room in your heart for the new thing God is doing. Let this ruach, this pneuma be the Holy Spirit, the relationship between the Father and the Son, the relationship between Christ and the Church, the relationship between individual believers, that goes beyond a mere relationship to the other and draws us into relationship with the other. This is the Holy Spirit; that third divine entity that makes us into One. Amen. 

This past Thursday was the day of ascension, a holy day when Christians around the world remember and reflect on Jesus’ ascension into heaven to be seated at the right hand of God. This day is important. In fact, this holy day is right up there with Christmas and Easter. This is a day when, as Jesus promises, we see scripture fulfilled and wisdom given. In Jesus’ final moments with his disciples he once again shares the gospel: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. What this means is that beginning with God’s covenant to Israel, extending to the disciples, and to all generations to come, God’s forgiveness and salvation reigns! And not only has God kept these promises, but God makes new promises promises of grace and forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Ascension truly is one of the most holy days in the church’s life, full of promise and hope. But then, Jesus leaves. And I find myself mystified and perplexed. You mean to tell me that God’s ultimate work is finally accomplished in and through Jesus Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection and that because of Christ we too have been justified, saved, and have the promise of resurrection and then he just… leaves? Is this the feast of the ascension or the feast of the abandonment? Surely those standing there that day must have felt the words of the psalmist, the words of Jesus from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And if we’re honest, maybe we’ve felt that too. Maybe you’ve looked up to heaven and felt the vastness of space, the breadth to time, and the depths of the world’s pain and wondered if Jesus leaving this whole Church thing in the hands of his followers was such a good idea. Maybe you’ve felt that black hole of grief collapsing in on itself and swallowing worlds and starlight with a never-ending appetite, trying to fill the void created by your loss. Maybe you’ve felt the brokenness of divorce, the fear of your diagnosis, the shame and aching need of your addiction, the disgusted resignation of being unable to change your circumstances, the injustices of the world, or the person you see in the mirror. Or maybe you’ve just read or watched the news. Maybe you’ve feared for the safety of our immigrant neighbors, or our poor neighbors, or our elderly neighbors. And maybe you’ve wondered if Jesus didn’t so much ascend as escape, blow dodge, go AWOL, or give up on the whole salvation project. I think to some degree our sense of abandonment comes from the language we use to describe what happened in the ascension. We say Jesus “ascended,” was caught up to heaven. We say Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. We paint Jesus in baroque opulence, borne on the wings of cherubim and standing on sunbeams, rising from the earth, departing our realm for a distant, invisible, intangible Heaven beyond our mortal reach. And this language, in words and pictures, teaches us to think of the ascension as a separation, a departure, a loss of proximity to our God. And so we have over-spiritualized the word salvation because of it. We have assumed that our salvation is also our escape, departure, separation from our neighbors, from any responsibility for the state of the world and the plight of our neighbors. Which is why when the earthquake in our first reading causes the chains to fall off Paul and Silas and all the prisoners in that Philippian jail, and the doors swing wide open, we might have assumed, as the jailer did, that all the prisoners would have escaped, “r-u-n-n-o-f-t,” like Everett, Delmer, and Pete in O Brother, Where Art Thou? We cannot fathom what it means to be saved, to be, as Luther said, the perfectly free lord of all and the entirely bound servant of all all at the same time. And all this makes us think of the incarnation in the abstract, like an anomaly in the life of God. It makes us think of the incarnation as an impossible thing we are expected to believe as a litmus test for our faith rather than the living reality of the whole life of God. Theologian Wellford Hobbie writes, “The ultimate question is not whether there is someone or something out there in limitless space whom we call God, but whether there is someone who knows something of the dust of the earth, something of the blood-stained face human existence wears and can feel for it.” When Jesus meets the disciples in that locked room that first Easter morning, he comes in the flesh, scarred from the ordeal of the cross. He comes physically, inviting their embrace. He comes hungry, sharing their food. And he comes reminding them of all the promises God had made, and all the promises God had kept. He comes defining the cross and proving in is very body God’s power to redeem. He comes entirely free in the sovereignty of God and in total solidarity with the human condition. He comes to make us one with God through the preaching of the apostles. Here indeed is a God who knows something of the dust of the earth, who knows something of the blood-stained face human existence wears and can feel for it. Can cry its name into the stench of the tomb and rescue it from death. Here indeed is a God who’s own face was stained with blood, who’s own body is but the dust of earth. Here indeed is a God who not only feels for human existence but feels with human existence. The ascension is not the end of the incarnation. The ascension is not the end of God with us, not the end of grief or pain, suffering or death. The ascension is the incarnation exposed, the incarnation universalized before our very eyes. In Jesus we have found the hidden God. And in the ascension, we have found God hidden in our very lives. Christ is incarnate in us. We have not been abandoned by the ascension; we have been appointed, appropriated, called up and sent out, made one with the very heart of God. We are the living, breathing, bleeding and dying body of Christ. If Christ is the image of the invisible God, then the Church is the image of the invisible Christ. When the world wants to know that there is someone who knows something of the dust of the earth, something of the blood-stained face human existence wears and can feel for it, the world is looking to the Church. When the church prays for an end to gun violence, poverty, war, loneliness, disease, tyranny— and then takes no meaningful action, takes no real risk to see them end, our neighbors do not see God answer prayers. When the church takes a moment of silence in response to the grotesque horror of racism, sexism, classism, the world hears the silence of God. When the church remains silent, the world experiences the absence of God. The ascension of Jesus is not God’s abandonment of the world, but the church’s silence, inaction, and insistence on its own rights is God’s absence, failure, and indifference in the experience of our neighbors. Salvation is not freedom from responsibility for the suffering of our neighbors. Beloved, the incarnation continues in us. The Gospel is embodied in us. In us Christ is dying, In us Christ is rising, and in us Christ has come again. Christ has descended into our personal hells to lead us out of all that holds us captive. Christ calls our names into the tomb to free us from all that binds us. Christ is the Word spoken into the formless void of grief and shame and fear and doubt, Let there be life, let there be love, let there be peace, let there be faith. The world wants to know that there is a God out there who knows something of the blood-stained face of human existence, and can offer more than lip-service to it. Martin Luther said, “God doesn’t need our good works, but our neighbor does.” Perhaps in our context, we might hear his words this way, “God doesn’t need our voices, our advocacy, our votes, but our neighbors do.” The incarnation of God in Christ is the revelation of God’s solidarity with the human condition. The ascension is God’s commissioning of the Church to practice the same radical solidarity with a world in need. We have been called to embody the good news of God’s solidarity with the human condition. People of God, turn your eyes and hearts, and voices toward your neighbor that they may know what is the hope to which Christ has called us, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power that they might see Christ in the Church, which is his body. And when we live out this faith, we are embodying the resurrection, proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes. Amen. 

This is one of those weeks where I feel like the lectionary isn’t doing its readers and hearers any favors. Our gospel lesson begins, “Jesus answered him…” Who’s him? ? And what was the question? So, backing up just a bit, Today’s lesson comes in a section of John’s gospel known as the Farewell Discourse. Jesus speaks to his disciples on the night he will be arrested. Where the other Gospels spend part of one chapter recounting the institution of the Last Supper, The Gospel of John doesn’t even mention it and instead spends chapters 14 through 17 on a long monologue, interrupted a couple of times by questions from the disciples. Just before our passage today, the other Judas, not the one who will betray Jesus, asks Jesus a question, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answer to the other Judas is our reading for today. But then this raises other questions. How is what Jesus says to the other Judas supposed to answer his question? The other Judas asks “How do you reveal yourself to the us, and not to the world?” “Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.’” Why don’t you reveal yourself to the world, Jesus? Why don’t you reveal me to the world, Other Judas? seems to be Jesus reply. Jesus seems to say, “It is you, my beloved ones, and those who love me, who will reveal me to the world, when you love me, and when you love one another.” Here as Jesus is leaving He is giving his disciples some final instructions. And they are in fact, the same instructions he’s been giving all along. Love me. Love one another. Then, It’s almost as if Jesus anticipates their next question. Jesus says, “I have said all this while I am still standing here. But when I’m not standing here, the Holy Spirit will be with you in my place, and the Spirit will teach you everything you need to know and will remind you what I said while I was here.” In my last year of Seminary, I was asked by the Bishop of the South Carolina Synod to serve as a Synodically Authorized Minister to a small rural congregation in a tiny town where the next nearest ELCA congregation was some 30 miles away. It was my job to function for them in every capacity an ordained pastor would, including limited permission to consecrate the Eucharist, normally the sole propriety of an ordained pastor. When I first arrived there in early September, there was an enormous amount of anxiety, grief, and frustration about dwindling numbers, about what could or should be done to bring in and keep new members, about how to meet the Synod’s expectations and avoiding closure. It was clear that this congregation knew and loved Jesus. It was clear that this congregation wanted to be out in the community but they felt too worn out and resources felt too scarce to do anything meaningful. It was clear that this congregation felt the other Judas’s question in their bones. “How come you revealed yourself to us, Jesus, but haven’t given us what we need to share that with others?” But it was also clear that this congregation had a fierce love for each other. While they struggled to know how best to meet the needs of the neighborhood, this congregation was a vital part of each other’s lives. They called and checked on each other. They visited each other when they were sick. One couple loaned another their favorite recliner so the husband could sleep while recovering from a fall. They spent their own time and money to make repairs to the church building. A member volunteered to be the organist when the previous one resigned and moved away. When the child of the former administrator lost her mother suddenly in her freshman year of college, they met her in her grief and in her need and gave her a job and the grace she needed. And they embraced this starry-eyed seminary student who was trying to put all his theory into practice, and they wrestled with the scriptures with me, they listened to my ideas and backed me up in trying new things; they came to worship 5 times in one week between Palm Sunday and Easter, they invited me for dinner, they called me to the bedside, they let me be their pastor before I could rightly claim the title, they were effusive with their encouragement, and gentle in their critique. AND when the opportunity presented itself to offer Sunday School at the new assisted living and memory care facility that had just opened across the street, they showed up early, they helped move furniture, they engaged in conversation, they bought flowers, they made space for these children of God to be a part of the life of their congregation. Those residents couldn’t come to church, and they brought church to them. This is what ministry looks like. It is not measured average weekly attendance, or average weekly contributions, or in Church Vitality surveys or viability metrics. Ministry is not measured by rubrics of success and failure. Ministry is measured in presence and faithfulness. This is what Jesus means when he tells the disciples “I do not give to you as the world gives.” The world wants to weigh and measure and quantify and validate by comparison. But where the world gives stress and competition Jesus gives the Spirit and Peace. Ministry is measured in presence and faithfulness. Jesus’ call to discipleship is powered by The Holy Spirit of the Living God and the Peace of Jesus himself. The late theologian Rachel Held Evans gave this advice to a gathering of ELCA Rostered Leaders in 2017: “ You have the Sacraments. You have the call. You have the Holy Spirit. You have one another. You have a God who knows the way out of the grave. You have everything you need. You just need to show up and be faithful.” You just need to show up and be faithful!! That’s it. Saints, our congregation has twice the members and roughly 6 times the annual budget of this small, rural congregation in South Carolina, and we are situated in a suburban county of nearly 1 million people— people who need us to be revelations of the presence and faithfulness of Jesus, who need the sacraments, who need the Holy Spirit, who need the community we have in each other. They need a God who knows the way out of the grave. They need us to show up and be faithful. We have many opportunities to meet our neighbors where they are, to love Jesus, and to love each other. We don’t need more money to show up and be faithful. We don’t need more members to show up and be faithful. We have everything we need to show up and be faithful. And when we do God in Christ by the Holy Spirit, will reveal Jesus to the world through us. Amen.