Asbury First United
Text: John 14: 15-21
"After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, and having great authority", wrote John of Patmos so long ago.
I dreamed that such an angel lifted me and carried me to the heart of our home state.
Down toward Binghamton we flew. The angel carried me along the banks of the Susquehanna, "the crooked river", whose headwaters rise in the Otesaga outside of Cooperstown, and run, through many twists and turns to Binghamton. Near Elmira we passed Mark Twain's summer home, he who said his coldest winter was a summer he spent in San Francisco, that nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits, that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated, and who preached, always do right, this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Such a free voice, like the ones we are meant to have. No freer voice can we hear than that of the Christ in John, equable, serene, powerful.
The angel flew west, and carried me over the banks of the Chautauqua, the cradle of religious fervor, word and music and spirit. A vesper hymn we heard, "Jubilate". It is a vesper hymn that any urban church in the Northeast will sing into the next generation, a hymn to the faithful God as the streetlights come on in our communities, as the evening falls in our cities, as darkness descends. I mean the darkness of poverty-hospitals closing, property values in free fall, school systems in decline. It is twilight in Rochester. We have no control over the setting of the sun. But we can choose or not to sing the Chautauqua hymns, the vesper hymns, and to light a lamp. Where else, for God's sake, would you rather do so? It is our free option so to do. From Chautuaqua Lake we flew on, angel and daydreamer. The Christ of John 14 speaks at twilight, before the cross, and is remembered at twilight, before a cataclysm in John's church.
Now we came north to the Genesee River and remembered those buried near her banks. You can visit their graves on Mount Hope - such a fine name for the place in which rest Frederik Douglass and Susan Anthony and others. The Appetizer group is going to the cemetery today. Few of us go to cemeteries often enough. The North Star no longer circulates, but Douglass' voice, a voice of freedom, still does. Is the progressive spirit in Rochester to be remembered only from seasons of prosperity? Or will we find the double courage to be liberal in years, years that are coming, of penury? With the liberation songs of these honored dead in our ears we sailed on farther north still. 'This the Spirit of Truth…You know Him because he abides in you and will be with you'.
All the way north we went, north toward freedom, north toward the border, and there we saw, nestled against the foothills of the Adirondacks, the permanent grave of John Brown, buried near Lake Placid. Far enough north so that his opponents would find no easy way to invade his tomb. It seems so crystal clear to us, 150 years away from the Civil War, that slavery is an abominable horror, not ever to be countenanced by Christian souls. It makes you wonder, as you look down on the revolutionary's grave, just what liberties, now muffled, just what protections, now lacking will seem self-evident 150 years from now. Maybe in 2150 they will marvel, looking back at us, that there was any question of liberties afforded to persons of homosexual orientation. That society could not protect its youngest from abuse, when the abuse came from religious leaders. That very fragile life, in many forms-prenatal, postemployable, extracultural-- had no victorious champion, no advocate. That the mentally ill would wander streets alone, or be victimized in squalid nursing homes. That Palestinians and Jews could not strike what seems from on high to be a ready deal. That such great wealth could co-exist with such awful poverty. You wonder what will seem so crystal clear to our grandchildren. How good to hear, in the upward call of God to Truth that we are not alone, that we are not orphaned, that we are not to feel like a motherless child! We came close enough to Vermont and its exquisite Green Mountains to imagine the young Ethan Allen seizing Fort Ticonderoga in 1775, as we glided easily across the edge of Lake Champlain. Down below, in New Lebanon, we caught a glimpse of the old Shaker village, the homes of the shaking Quakers who sang with Mother Ann Lee, sang of a simple life, "Tis a gift to be simple". Is Mother Ann Lee the heart of our home state, I asked the daydream angel? "Tis a gift to be loving". I could tell the angel was close to saying yes. Those who love Christ are loved and do love, and so know Christ.
We looked west across the Mohawk, where it bends into the Hudson. Larry Hoffman told us, after he had bicycled from San Diego to Cape Cod, that the single most beautiful place in the United States, for him, was found along the Mohawk from Utica to Albany. We saw in the distance the great baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, that memorial to an American sport, and American "religious" experience. Read our seminary teachers, Evans and Herzog, on the depth of meaning in a sport that celebrates such words as home, safe, sacrifice, team. "Could not the sport that the Babe rebuilt be our heart here", I asked? It is an open space that Christ creates in life…but the angel flew on.
Coming toward Rhinebeck - such a beautiful landscape - we did look down onto the other side of the Hudson. There were cadets in formation, all along the West Point parade ground. One is an alumnus of our UMYF here at Asbury First, Scott Alpaugh. Back and forth they moved, preparing to police a dangerous world, in an uncertain age. (Jan and I had driven back from West Point on September 8 last year and in the middle of a hot and tense argument about life in the ministry along Route 17 we came upon a giant white billboard which read, only, "join the clergy!" Truth is stranger than fiction!) "I am coming to you…"
Down the Hudson we careered, coming upon the George Washington Bridge, and the lights of Manhattan. We could see the steeples of Riverside and Marble Collegiate, and recall the voices of Fosdick and Peale. Down the river we came until at last the angel held up and hovered in the New York harbor. A light wind, a gentle breeze caressed us two. There was a long silence. We looked north toward the changed skyline. Now, I thought, in awesome recognition of the confession of loss and recognition of sin, the angel must have brought me to the heart of the region. Is it there, there in the barely cleansed destruction of September 11? No, the angel asserted, no not even there. You had it right on September 9, folks. Your heart, you at your best, you as you want to be remembered, you as God made you, Christ restored you, the Spirit sustains you, the you underneath the other you stands out in the harbor. This is a female figure and a Christ figure-so offensive to some. This is a patriotic figure and a Christ figure - so difficult for others. This is a pre-modern figure and a Christ figure - so "yesterday" for others still. This is a truly Wesleyan figure and a Christ figure - so untidy for many. This is a religionless figure and a Christ figure - so impractical for some today. But this is where the angel ended the flight, hovering over the harbor:
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
The restless refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the tempest tossed, to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
All of us face our own mortal, personal twilight. We can see that horizon, the last horizon, the one to which God most especially tends, and at whose crossing we most need that Divine Love, all loves excelling. Our community, in a different way, senses dusk. Those who will sing a vesper hymn, will want to light a lamp or two.
Today's Gospel is Christ at night, in the borrowed upper room, on the eve of his crucifixion. Today's Gospel is the community of John the beloved disciple at night, in the face of their utter rejection by their mother religion, on the eve of that most frightening of moments, leaving home. Jesus the Christ stands with candle in hand, He the only truly final Statue of Liberty, He the only lasting Lamp of the Poor. And he speaks, at dusk. Like every great friend, He gives you back your real self. He names you as meant for love, and ready to keep the commandments of love. He promises a Spirit of Truth, so close that he has a sleeping bag stashed behind your couch, abiding, abiding, abiding with you. Love children are not orphans, but have different eyes. You, says He, will see, really see. And you will live, really live. Then you will know, really know. As you keep the commandments.
As V. Frankel said, "there ought to be a Statue of Responsibility along with the Statue of Liberty." In this Gospel, Frankel has his wish. Very simply, our mission is to develop disciples through worship, education and care. You accept your part of that mission by worshipping once a week, by learning in a group once a week, by caring for and being cared for once a week. Like my friend last week who came to worship, went to his adult class, and spent an hour visiting older folks to deliver flowers. And you can do all three on Sunday morning!
I wept to read St. Augustine quoted in the paper last week, in contrast to the troubled church: "When I summon up, before what might be called my heart's eyes, the intelligible beauty of Christ, whose mouth never framed the slightest thing false - then, though truth glows with intensity beyond intensity, unstringing my trembling nerves, yet love of that splendor flames through me, making me wish to renounce all human ties that pull me away from such truth".
This is Jesus Christ, the Lamp of the Poor!
For our time, a few pastoral suggestions about lamps and the poor may be in order. One: Get out of debt. Debt shackles, limits, hobbles. It is the very measure of how much your possessions possess you. Give up…your debt. All debt is bad, much is truly evil. Two: Participate in life by giving of your possessions. Give up…by giving away. Three: Grow in generosity, by percentage, in kind, through creativity. Give up…in increasing measure. Four: Maximize varieties and options in giving. Five: Tithe. Like marital fidelity is to relationship, it is the map, the compass of fiscal love. Give up…with discipline. So, therefore, give up your possessions: debt, self, sloth, doubt, ego. In this way, your life will radiate. You will become, yourself, a lamp of the poor.
And what if all 2167 of us did so? What if we met Jesus, God's Lamp of the Poor, by living individual lives that did shine like lamps for the poor? Then we could live the dream. We would walk in peace and joy along the Village Green of life. Here, take a lantern. It is nighttime. We leave the sanctuary. We walk through the spacious, open welcome area. Then (for this is only a start), we tour the expanded grounds of our ministry. At every turn, in this dream, there is a lamp lit. Look: just here is a new United Methodist conference office, for a combined upstate conference. Look: just here is a pastoral counseling center, which specializes in the needs of women, created and guided by a retired pastor. Look: just here you find a lamp lit on the porch of an Urban Retreat Center, spiritually led by a spirited minister committed to this cause. (And each of these projects tithes from their own budget back to the mother church that created them, thus providing the possibility of further growth. They learned to do so, over time, from the Storehouse, Dining Center, Nursery School, Daycare and others, who were inspired to do so by this sermon! Hey, why not really dream?) Look: just here there is the lamp of the porch of the county wide Wesley Foundation, a center for student ministry. Look: just here a lamp is lit over the door of a Hemispheric Hispanic Ministry Center, from Emmanuel to Amor Fe y Vida. Our lamp leads us further: just here you find a religious drama center, K-12, and an elder care program, and…..Behold Asbury First United Methodist Church, The Lamp of the Poor!
And what Emma Lazarus wrote? Perhaps she had Christ, she had you, she had this church in view:
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
The restless refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the tempest tossed, to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
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