The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Ephphatha Parish of the Deaf
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY
Today is one of those uncomfortable Sundays in the Church year when we can't quite decide how we should feel. There are others: the Sunday between Christmas and Epiphany, when according to the ways of the world, Christmas is over...but we still feel Christmas in our hearts, and don't quite know how to manage these feelings; then there is Easter Day, when we read about how the women and the disciples found out that Jesus was alive again, but they knew they had seen him die. They couldn't figure out what they were supposed to do now, or how they were supposed to feel. After Easter, it seems that the disciples did not see much of Jesus, and so they seemed to feel they should get back to the every-day work of supporting their families. They seemed to feel that all the years of going around the country with Jesus were over, and what were they supposed to do now? Simon Peter said to the other disciples, I'm going fishing. They were not expecting to see Jesus, but there he was, on the shore of the lake early in the morning, and they did not quite know what to say or how to behave in this unexpected situation. And today, we have much the same feeling. Jesus has ascended to heaven. The Easter candle is put out. What do we do now? It's an awkward, lost kind of feeling, isn't it?
Today's Bible readings give us some ideas about what to do now, in fact, what to do every day of our lives as Christians. The reading from the book of Acts is almost funny in some ways. There was this slave girl, and she had some kind of spirit within her that made her able to tell fortunes. Her owners made a lot of money from people who listened to her!
But, the funny thing is that Paul and Silas, who were telling the people in the town of Philippi about Jesus, were bothered by that girl. And why were they feeling bothered? Because she was calling out to the people, These men are servants of the most high God! They announce to you how you can be saved! She was telling the same message that Paul and Silas were telling, but the girl and the disciples were telling the same message for two different reasons. The girl was possessed by a spirit of some sort, and that spirit had to proclaim exactly who Paul and Silas were. Paul and Silas were telling the people about Jesus, because they believed that Jesus was and is God the Son, and wanted everyone else to have a chance to know and believe, too. The girl was forced to call out her message by an unknown spirit. She didn't know Jesus at all. Paul and Silas taught the same message, but they taught it out of love and faith in Jesus. The girl's calling out bothered them and distracted the people they were preaching to, and so they ordered the spirit to come out of the girl, and leave her alone. And the owners of the slave got very upset about that, because she could no longer tell fortunes and make money for them.
It seems that we can tell the truth from love, and from our own experience and belief, as Paul and Silas did. Or we can tell the truth because we are forced to, like the spirit forced the girl to shout out. Paul and Silas spoke from the power of their belief and with the help of the Holy Spirit. The girl spoke out of the power of her fear, and the power of a strange spirit. She was not trying to get people to believe in Jesus. And maybe some people did believe because of what she said, but if they did, their belief was based on fear and curiosity, not on love and faith. Good things can sometimes come from bad situations, but we cannot depend on those things to be 100% good. So for us, our lesson for these awkward times when we don't know what to do with ourselves, is to keep on loving Jesus, keep on obeying him, keep on telling others about him. We need to let the Holy Spirit guide us as we decide who we should tell about Jesus and how we should tell that person or group who Jesus is and why he is so important.
The second reading, from the Book of Revelation, tells us that Jesus is coming back, and that we need to live in the expectation of Jesus' coming. We need to do what we can to get sin out of our lives... wash our robes and make them clean in the blood of the Lamb, Jesus. One of the major things that we Christians need to do in these "in-between" times is simply to keep on believing in Jesus and trying to make our lives the kind of lives Jesus taught us to live.
Our third reading is from the Gospel of John, and it is part of Jesus' long prayer at the Last Supper. Jesus prays for us, and for all Christians. He prays that we become one with him and God the Father. And we should do this, too: pray for all other believers, and pray especially for those having trouble believing; and try to grow closer to God through our worship, prayer and Bible study.
These three readings really tell us how we are supposed to live as Christians all the time. But it is even more important to keep living this way when everything seems mixed up and we don't know exactly what to do or how to do it. The times of waiting, the times of feeling "in-between," the times of not knowing what we should be doing now....these are the times to let the Holy Spirit guide us in telling the Good News about Jesus to others, while we continue to pray and worship and grow closer to God, and wait for the future coming of the Lord Jesus to us again. Amen.
