Building a Bigger
Table
NW MN Synod
Assembly/June 7, 2019
Acts 1:1-8 and
Ephesians 3:20-21
Dear
friends in Christ—grace, mercy and peace be multiplied unto you through Jesus
our Risen Savior, who sends us out as his witnesses, to the ends of the
earth.
In
the name of Jesus. Amen.
You
and I are creatures of time and place.
We’re
thoroughly embedded in time….always
living out our days within a single, slender slice of history….forever moving
from our past through our present toward our future….
We’re
embedded in time….and we’re also hemmed in by
place. We simply cannot be in more
than one place at a time…..
You
and I, creatures of time and place, can’t really conceive of any other way of living...
…which
is why it’s virtually impossible for us to wrap our minds around God.
For
God, you see, is not a creature
of time or place….because God is the Creator, and therefore the Lord
of time and place. As we confess in the
Nicene Creed, God is “the Maker of heaven
and earth, of all that is, seen and
unseen.”
God
fills all of time, occupies the totality of space, and therefore is not in the
least bit limited by the boundaries that contain us.
In
these opening verses from the Book of Acts, Jesus’ followers ask him an utterly
time-and-place-bound question: "Lord,
is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to
Israel?"
Now
that’s not really a bad question. It’s
the kind of question creatures of time and place are always asking, especially
when they’re bumping up against realities that baffle them. It’s a question that popped into the heads
of Jesus’ disciples quite naturally, caught (as they were) between Jesus’
miserable death on a Roman cross and his surprising reappearance three days
later, in the power of the Resurrection.
Jesus
was dead….but he’s alive again….so now what?
The
disciples try to squeeze this dead-but-now living Jesus into their time and
their space: “Lord is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
The
question suggests that they were hankering for a little political payback: It’s high time for the Roman occupiers to be put
in their place. Their Empire needs to go so Israel can be returned to the
fleeting glory it knew back when David was king.
Notice
the verb that the disciples use here: “Lord is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to
Israel?”
Such
is often our fondest hope as well--to return, to be restored to whatever our
preferred version of “the good old days” might happen to be!
There’s just one
problem with the disciple’s question, though. And that problem isn’t that Jesus’
followers were expecting too much of him, but that they were ready to
settle for too little.
….which
is how Jesus quickly responds, as paraphrased by the late Eugene Peterson: “ [Jesus] told them, ‘You don't get to know the
time. Timing is the Father's business. What you will get is the Holy
Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my
witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the
world.’”
And
just what might that look like—when the disciples start bearing witness to the
One who has death behind him and nothing but a wide open future ahead of him?
The
disciples ask a very constricted, limited question…and what they get is an
expansive, mind-blowing answer--because the One they’re dealing with has an
imagination as huge as the whole universe….and a perspective that encompasses both
time and eternity.
The
disciples are wishing that Jesus might make Israel great again—but what Jesus wants
is to make all things new again, to usher
in a brand-spanking-new creation!
And
it’s all going to start soon, when the Holy Spirit swoops down upon Jesus
followers on the Day of Pentecost…fills them with fire, untangles their tongues
and places on their lips amazing news that will change everything.
It
all starts as Jesus’ followers become witnesses
to his life, death and resurrection….first “in Jerusalem” where it all
began….then fanning out into the wider neighborhood of Judea and Samaria—the
launching pad for these testifiers to start traversing all the conventional boundaries
of time and place, propelling them to the very ends of the earth, toward a
future that will keep unfolding forever.
This is what
happens when human beings are gob-smacked by the Resurrection. All at once they find themselves living in
a new day, inhabiting the fresh creation that the Risen Christ is always
opening up.
Wow! Isn’t that amazing!??
But
wait--it just keeps getting better!....
….Because
this same risen Lord Jesus Christ meets you and me today--discombobulating
us, as well.
For
whenever we’re with this Jesus, all our working assumptions about how life
works will be called into question.
When
the Risen and Living Christ meets us anew in the Pentecost power of the Holy
Spirit, everything that limits us (like our sin), and everything that thwarts
us (like the power of the devil), and everything else that holds us back (like
our mortality), it all goes off the
rails!
And
when that happens the last thing we want to do is expect too little of our
living, agitating God who “by the power at work within us is able to
accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)
Our
synod’s theme for this year—and thus, our synod assembly theme is Building
a Bigger Table…..or, as I’ve starting saying to myself: “Building an Infinitely Expanding Table.”
In
a world seemingly hemmed in by time and place, the very thought of that seems
ridiculous, undoable, impossible….
But
in the disruptive, sin-forgiving, death-defying, future-opening power of the
Living Christ who transcends both this finite world and God’s infinite
Creation….what seems utterly impossible turns out to be a piece of cake.
And
that’s exactly what God’s been doing for centuries: taking small, warped, seemingly useless
building materials and refashioning them into realities beyond even our wildest
imaginings….
…an
ancient couple gifted with land and family in their old age…
….a
tongue-tied refugee speaking truth to the power of Egypt’s Pharaoh…
…exiles
restored to their longed-for homeland…
…a
tiny little Baby shivering in a manager….
…a
crucified man, lying stone-cold-dead in a borrowed grave….
…a
terrified band of women and men huddled behind locked doors, prayerfully waiting
for Whatever’s Coming Next….
This
is what God’s always been up to: upsetting
all our applecarts, messing up all our assumptions, fashioning something breath-taking
out of next-to-nothing!
And,
bringing it all closer to home, this is what God has been doing for years, here
in our little corner of the vast Creation--our synod: planting faith-communities with one foot in time and the other foot in eternity….establishing
and sustaining congregations, each
of which is a sign, foretaste and instrument of Christ’s in-breaking Reign over
all things.
If
all our lives, put together, amount to little more than the thinnest slice of
eternity….these last twelve years have been barely a blip on a radar screen…
….and
yet, looking back over my two terms of serving as your bishop, I can scarcely
count up all the ways God has been building bigger tables in our midst—with us,
through us, sometimes even despite us!
God
has been opening up fresh ways to welcome all believers—including our gay and
lesbian siblings in Christ—not just to sit
at God’s bigger table, but also to serve
at that Table.
God
has been stirring up in us a passion for passing on the faith, ever more
winsomely, particularly with those in the first third of life.
God
has been helping us see in the wider world how our Lord is building bigger
tables through ventures like YAGM--Young Adults in Global Mission—a host of
whom have come from our synod.
God
has been deepening and enriching our relationships with table-mates in the
Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church of India, our companion synod.
God
has been nudging us toward re-encountering our oldest neighbors, the first
inhabitants of this good land, our beloved native neighbors.
Most
of all, God has been building bigger tables through our 226 congregations and dozens
of ELCA-related ministries—vehicles through which sins are forgiven, Baptismal
water is poured out, soul-satisfying nourishment is served up: God’s Word and sacraments and mission making
all things new right in our midst.
All
these thanksgivings—and countless more that we could add—stir not just our
gratitude, but also our hope.
I
can’t think of any reason why God would not finish in us, all that God has
already begun in us.
Especially
this Pentecost weekend, as our synod calls a new bishop and a new vice
president, we can confidently expect to see bigger tables being built until
God’s New Day surely comes.
In
the name of Jesus. Amen.
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