05/14/23 - Presence - Rev. Chip Roland - Westminster Presbyterian Church Westminster Presbyterian Church | Serving God and others with open mind, hands and heart - 05/14/23 – Presence

05/14/23 – Presence – Rev. Chip Roland

PRESENCE

May 14, 2023
6^th Sunday of Easter
John 14:15-21
Rev. Chip Roland

As I look back on it, the first time I can say with confidence that I felt the Holy Spirit was in seminary. My next-door neighbor in our student housing complex and I had quickly become dear friends. It was the very start of our winter break and the rainy season in northern California was just beginning. I went to San Francisco Theological in San Anselmo. Now, it sometimes seemed that the power grid in our little town was being held together with paperclips and hope. The slightest breeze would cause a power outage. And, wouldn’t you know it, I heard the rustling of leaves from what we had just learned in our Hebrew class was ruach, the wind, the breath the life! And the electricity unceremoniously went out. We had planned to make a simple dinner that night for a mutual friend who had a stomach bug. We had planned on soup. The electric range was out but we did have this old weber grill some former student had left on the balcony. So we grilled soup. It takes some time. The rest of the afternoon I spent together with my friend, tending a slowly warming pot of soup, and watching the rain com down from our overhang. At some point, she pulled out her guitar and started singing these great, throaty renditions of folk music. I begin to realize that something was going on that was greater than the some of its parts, greater than her and me. The Spirt of God, of truth, of love was present.

I will not leave you orphaned, Jesus says. This time Jesus spent with his disciples seems to balance on two moods. There is the comfort of knowing that through keeping the teachings of Jesus they will all continue to know deep presence and deep intimacy with God the Son and God the Father. But there’s also an ominous sadness running through it. He is speaking to them in the shadow of the cross and the time when many of his followers will feel orphaned, and abandoned.

This is a joyful day for many who are here, who are listening online. Justifiably so! Today is a day to honor and celebrate our mothers, the women who gave us life, who nurtured and continue to nurture us. And for all the mothers out there, thank you! Especially for not telling Dad about the things that become known in families as the spray paint incident, the microwave “event”. But I also know that there are some who are hearing this sermon for whom this is a complicated and challenging day. Some have had mothers who have already made their journey to the Father. Some are struggling with their own feelings of being an orphan. There are those listening who have found comfort in their grief by cherishing their memories of their mother and all the things she has taught them, through word and example. For them, how to resonate this passage can be, how powerful the words of a savior who says, “I will not leave you orphaned”. I will be there; you will be in me and I will be in you. Your journey is mine, your tears are mine as well.

Jesus told his disciples that if they loved him, they would keep his commandments. It’s a daunting task to think that I as a preacher need to summarize now the totality of what Jesus taught and said in some satisfactory way. But if I was challenged too, on that very evening Jesus taught and commanded his disciples richly. And in a way that would surely be fresh on their minds. He challenged them to become washers of each other’s feet. He takes off his outer robe and washes their feet and tells them to live a life of doing the same. And we so often misunderstand the point that Jesus was trying to make. We think it’s a model of heroism, the single, self-sacrificing servant leader. We so often forget that Jesus is the only hero we could ever need. Jesus doesn’t command an individual to wash all feet after he has gone to the Father, he commands them to wash one another’s feet. See the difference? Jesus is calling them to become a community who cares for each other and trusts each other enough to be cared for. That’s so often the harder part, isn’t it? Being the one who accepts care.

The second commandment he gives that night is like the first, but the perspective is pushed back further. He calls his disciples to love one another as he loved them. That this, this community of mutual abundant love should be how those in the world know that they, that we, are followers of Jesus. And what could evangelize better? What could show the light of Christ more to a world that desperately needs it? Words? This love is deep, is intimate. It dwells in friends grilling soup, it dwells in hospital rooms where daughters and sons gather to tell stories and sing songs their mother’s loved. It dances in the families celebrating today, but as intimate as it is, as indwelling as the Spirit is, it cannot be contained. It explodes outwards!

It flows outwards from those who with gentleness and compassion give account to those who would listen of the hope they have inside them. It flowed outwards from a hill outside Athens where deep philosophical issues are discussed and capital cases decided.

It flows from mothers to children to the world, it flows from an empty tomb to the ages.

My Story

“I belong to Westminster because of the splendid worship services, the caring pastor and the faith in action programs…. Westminster made me feel like a welcome part of the church family and allows me to share ‘time, treasure and talents.’ It is a very warm and inclusive congregation with great leadership.”