6 Easter, 2025-C: The promises of God in Christ

Lectionary: Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5; John 14:23-29

 

En el nombre de Dios, quien promete vida, paz, protección y provisión. In the name of God, who promises life, peace, protection, and provision. Amen. 

Fronn the season of Epiphany until now, we’ve been reading about the spiritual development and maturation of the disciples and connecting what we learn from them to us, for example, how each journey is unique to the journeyer, how God is steadfastly present with us, meeting us where we are and leading us to where we need to be; how our spiritual maturation is a process that is enriched and developed over time - God’s time; how we hit walls on this journey and how God leads us through them to new freedom, new understanding, and new depths of our faith.

In last week’s gospel, we saw how Peter finally got it… through a dream. Hesitant, at first, to violate a long-held habit and understanding of necessary separation, Peter responded to God’s prompting and opened himself to connect with persons previously forbidden to him. Thus began his powerful, productive life of faith and evangelism. 

In today’s gospel, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, undergoes a similar growth experience also from a dream. Paul is clear about his divine purpose. He knows he is being sent by God in Christ to carry the Good News to the Gentiles and to expand the boundaries of the family of God to include them. But as this story shows us, even knowing our divine purpose doesn’t prevent us from hitting walls. Paul went to the Roman colony mentioned in his dream. He anticipated meeting a man, but instead, he met Lydia of Thyatira, a woman - a rich, astute business woman. 

If you know Paul, you know the nature of this wall he hit. With God’s help, however, Paul responded toLydia’s eager listening of his proclamation by baptizing her entire household, making them the first European converts to Christianity. But when Lydia invited Paul to stay at her home, he hit another wall: a Jewish religious leader staying at the home of a Gentile woman…? The writer tells us Lydia prevailed upon Paul, having to persuade Paul to accept her offer of hospitality. 

In this moment, however, we understand what the writer of Revelation meant when he said, “On either side of the river [of the water of life] - the Jewish side and the Gentile side - is the tree of life,” which in the original Greek means, “collective.” The two sides are mafe one.

That’s the work of God among us, then and now. It is our work too - the work God calls us to do until the whole world is reconciled to God. We have much to do, and we do it as the church, the body of Christ in the world. 

Church is a collective enterprise. We gather not to reassure ourselves that we’re on the path to heaven after we die, but rather, to learn and grow together so that we can go into the world and BE the presence of the path to heaven, which is God in Christ. What do I mean by that? Several things: 

1 - I mean that heaven isn’t a prize we earn after we die. Heaven is the reality of the eternal God in the present moment, living in us.  Jesus said, “my Father (Note: this word is plural, meaning Father and Mother, nourisher, protector, upholder) will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. “With them”here literally means “proceeding from them.” God is in us, acting through us. That is the primary promise of this gospel story.

The one whom God promises will proceed from us is the Holy Spirit of God. Spirit means breath, in Hebrew, ruach. This same ruach that breathed life into all creation, including the first humans, continues to breathe life into us now, and through us, into the world. 

2 - I mean that our church community is meant to be a safe place for us to learn and practice how to be people through whom God acts in the world. We listen together in the circumstances we confront, for the guidance of the Holy Spirit on how we can respond, bringing God’s peace, harmony, and well-being into the world where there is fear, hatred, and distress. 

3 - I mean that as we grow in spiritual maturity in our relationship with God in Christ, we remember that the love Jesus is talking about in this gospel is agape love: a deeply committed, sacrificial love, just like he had for us. A love that led him to the cross, the tomb, and the resurrection for our sake, so that we could believe and become witnesses for him, as Peter and Paul did.

God in Christ, who has agape love for us, abides in us right now, and acts through us to bring this love to all the broken people and places in the world just as he did. Knowing how this feels from his own human experience, Jesus promises us one more thing: his peace. 

When this gospel was written, there was peace. It was known as the Pax Romana… a peace established by the strength of the Roman military, funded by oppressive taxation, and maintained through threat of punishment and the ever-presence of soldiers. This is the peace the world gives. 

Jesus is offering a totally different kind of peace. Jesus’ peace proceeds from our harmony with the eternal God who abides in us.

This peace provides a foundation of well-being, tranquility, and hope, that isn’t disturbed by any circumstances. In fact, this peace transcends all external circumstances as it lifts us continually into the loving presence of God who protects us, provides for us, and holds us close to comfort us, while the powerful love of God works to redeem those external circumstances.

When sin and conflict happen, and they will continue to happen, Jesus says, ‘Remember that I am with you, my peace is with you. So, fear not. Don’t let your hearts be troubled. I am eternally present with you. Love as I love, go where I send you, listen when I speak in your dreams or give you visions, open your eyes to see the truth around you, then work with me to transform the systems of the world that harm my beloved ones and my creation.’ 

All of this may take longer than we’d like, or look different than we’d expected, but our faith assures us that God, who always acts out of love and mercy for us and for the world, will redeem all things. That is the promise. 

So... presence, peace, patience, guidance, provision, comfort, protection, redemption, mercy, and love… these are the promises of God, and they truly do exceed all that we can ask, imagine, or desire. 

I close with a familiar prayer by American theologian and monk, Thomas Mertom. Let's pray.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. 

Amen.