Holy Re-Union
Christ's Call for Connection
Dear Friends,
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!
We’re headed into Easter 7, so while the good news of Christ’s resurrection isn’t ending, this greeting is reaching its expiration. Instead, we prepare for the coming of the Holy Spirit – the Paraclete, advocate, the reminder of Jesus’s teachings on Pentecost.
I chose to write last week about the other Gospel passage appointed for Sunday focused on the healing of the man near the Sheep’s Gate. But the other passage was focused on what would follow the Ascension. The disciples and the wider community of Jesus’s followers would not be alone.
The Feast of the Ascension is this Thursday, May 29, but for the last Sunday in Easter, we’ll remain in the before times. We dwell with Jesus in his wish for us and for all who would come to follow him.
A Call For Connection
I have been thinking a lot lately about community and connection. In some ways it is a reflection of what one of my friends has been saying – “we have to go to things that we want to exist” – but it’s also something more than that. It’s not just going to the farmer’s market or the craft store (although I do intentionally support a second-hand craft supply shop). It is specifically about choosing to be part of clearly defined groups nurturing life-giving practices.
I paid my dues and went to a meeting of the New England Lace Group, a collection of folks who share a passion for an increasingly rare assortment of craft practices. I’m an intermediate “tatter” – meaning I make lace using thread and a small shuttle using a distinct knotting technique. Others specialize in bobbin lace or needle lace. We share these skills with each other and with the wider community through demonstrations at events throughout New England.
I show up to sing, online and in-person with Music that Makes Community. That group has been an extraordinary gift over the last 18 or 20 months and I never would have expected that I could lead songs and integrate so much singing into other parts of my life. When Conie came on as Executive Director last year, she wrote a blog post about her vision in which she called for a song leader in every household, envisioning this as something which would bolster communities and that idea has been transformative for me. I want a life full of song.
I’ll go camping later this year with a festival that has sustained itself on a small but beloved community for 50 years. And I think my wife and I arrived to that event a decade ago on the cusp of its reinvigoration. It had been shrinking and aging, but the next generation is showing up.
I’m telling you about all of these places and people because Jesus’s prayer for his followers in this week’s Gospel is all about connection, arguably in two different ways. We are told:
Jesus prayed for his disciples, and then he said. "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
“That they all may be one.”
We are called to be in community, in communion
& “may they also be in us”
We are called to holy re-union with the Godhead that created us and loves us.
I wonder what makes you feel connected to someone? How do you know that someone is going to be one of “your people”? How do you bridge the gap with new people in small ways?
And I wonder what makes you feel connected with God? Particular places? Songs or prayers? The feel of the wind? What can you do to feel more connected with God?
An Intergenerational Call
The call to radical re-union is, critically, a reminder of our work as Christians to be intentionally intergenerational. Jesus doesn’t say that he wants “all the millennials to be one” but rather that all who believe in him will be one. And one of the distinctive things about all of the groups that I described above are all decidedly intergenerational, even if they are primarily made up of adults. In fact, I’m only just reaching the point in many of my communities where I am no longer the youngest person in the room (though often I still am).
In my work, I think of myself as a bridge. I am a connection trying to facilitate the work of making us all one between the youngest people, the children, and the adults, especially those whose children are grown and flown. That means offering programs that meet everyone in a place that makes sense for them.
But I am also struck by the image of the Good Shepherd & World Communion story from Godly Play (told at the link by Rosemary Beales) as I think about this. The way the table stands in the middle of the circle of all who have gathered. A bridge across. A joining of the community.
All that being said, summer, to me, is the perfect time to lean into that intergenerational work beyond the communion table as the normal rhythms of the church slow down. My kick-off offering: Pentecost evening campfire compline and s’mores. My youngest kids may not know what compline is, but even early elementary schoolers can generally follow along such a simple service and well, people do just really like fires.
A Prayer
Loving God, before you ascended, you prayed that we all might be one. Help us not just to come to the communion table, but rather to pursue the work of connection – that we might not just share a common plate or cup but a common heart for your creation. Living into your will for us all, that we may be in each other and in you, just as you are with yourself, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, united forevermore. Amen.
Resource Round-Up
Honestly, I don’t have anything new or exciting this week. And sometimes, that’s a nice place to be. Let everything you already know and do be enough right now.
Peace,
Bird