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May 24, 2009
Acts 1: 15-17, 21-26; John 17: 6-19

As I read the scripture readings for today, I kept picturing a hammock. Now where, you are sure to ask, was the hammock in today’s scripture lessons? You have the readings listed in the bulletin. I invite you to go home and reread the text. However, you are going to find that are you read the verses, you will need to ask me once again…where was the hammock?

The hammock is present in the time suspended between two times. This morning, I hope to help you find that thread…  

I would like each of you to imagine a hammock. Now picture your hammock hung between two stable points. Make sure that the two points are anchored in something solid. For today’s reflection, where you decide to hang your hammock is not important. The size of your hammock is not important. What you choose to do in your hammock is not important. But there are features in how you approach the hammock that ARE important.  

I smile each time I watch our Labrador Retriever, Jake, jump into the hammock we have set up in our garden. He enjoys taking naps with me suspended above the ground. He has also learned that he can’t just jump up into the hammock without thinking about what he is leaping into. If he jumps in too quickly, the netting flips over, and Jake ends up on the ground. Being a dog with four slender legs, he has the added disadvantage of slipping through the holes in the netting if I do not place a blanket on the hammock for him. For Jake, he needs to take time to think about the landing before he can curl up, suspended in time, and rest.  

So…where would you hang your hammock? Would it be suspended in the garden in your backyard? Would you prefer to have a sturdy metal frame for lying in your hammock? Or are you more adventurous, and prefer to hang your hammock between two trees in the woods? You don’t need to raise your hands, but I wonder if any of you thought about seeking shelter, and hung your hammock in the coolness of a small hut? Does the hammock, suspended in air, give you a sense of calm? Or, does the hammock, with its open weave and unsteady motion, invoke in you a sense of upheaval; or even a feeling of nausea!?  

Today we find ourselves suspended, as in a hammock. Anchored on one end to the past, we are often unsure what is holding up the other end of our rope. The comfort that we use to find in our hammock has been rocked.  

Some of us have lost jobs. Others have had wages and benefits cut. Others live with the uncertainty of layoffs which loom in the near future. Some have been unable to find jobs for months. Most of us have been hit by financial losses in retirement plans, fluctuating gas prices, increased food costs. We may feel like we have fallen out of our hammocks with a “thud.” Our place in the world has become a place of upheaval.

Intertwined and knotted up with these outward changes we have also been shaken up by unforeseen diagnoses. There is the threat of a new strain of the flu virus. Worse yet there are those forbidding words: Cancer. Heart disease. HIV/AIDS. For some the struggle is within our own bodies. For others it is watching a family member or friend wrangle with the havoc a life altering disease brings to day-to-day activities. We may feel like we have gotten stuck in the open weave of our hammocks, and that our lives are tangled up in endless medical tests and fatigue. Yet others of us have been on that road in the world ourselves, and are now emboldened to walk that same path again with our friend that is newly diagnosed.

Here, as we sit in our own time between time, suspended in a moment of seemingly uncharted experiences, we are like the apostles and followers of Jesus that were gathered together in the reading for today. Sure, we are separated by culture and time, but on this day the apostles were also suspended between two life changing events, and they were trying to figure out what they should do next.  

I now need to take a moment and fill you in on the events that occurred in the past week in the life of Jesus and his followers. To do this, we need to look back at the verses immediately preceding the gathering in Acts. There, the apostles were gathered around Jesus, and they were asking him a barrage of questions. They were expecting that God would soon be changing everything on earth. Heaven on earth was surely at hand! Instead, Jesus responds by telling them to go and teach others about the Good News that had been revealed to them. Jesus tells them to go and be a witness to this change on earth. Luke then describes to us an unearth-like event. Jesus becomes enveloped in a cloud and is taken upward, out of the sight of the apostles.

So what are the followers of Jesus to do now? Today they find themselves suspended. They are anchored at one end to the past with Jesus, but they must have been unsure as to what was holding up the other end of their rope. What was going to happen next? The comfort that they found in their faith could easily have been rocked.  

Today, two thousand years later, we have the advantage of also reading ahead in the scriptures as the following events unfold. Next week, we will celebrate the unrestrained presence of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost. But that is then. This is now. Today we come together with our ancestral witnesses. Here we are, suspended with them between the ascension of Jesus and the extravagant arrival of the Holy Spirit in a roar of wind and fire. There is a perception of being suspended. This is where the hammock can be rocked with a mighty upheaval.  

Yet the hammock of the apostles and the other followers of Jesus was not rocked. Slowly, these men and women that were first-hand witnesses to Jesus’ life; today, in this small gathering of around one hundred; these people are beginning to get it. They are beginning to get it through their heads that they are the next phase of God’s work in the world. Their world had just been turned upside down. Again. How did they know what to do next?

There, in a time suspended between time, in a time suspended between two unlikely events, we receive one of the models for our life in the church today. Today, two thousand years after the apostles gathered with the followers of Jesus and talked about what to do next, we find ourselves following several of the same actions. Listen again to an excerpt of these words from the book of Acts, as Peter says:  

      “…one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that Jesus {was with} us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when {Jesus} was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.” So they proposed two…Barsabbas…and Matthias. Then they prayed and said, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship...” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.”

Do any of the actions of the gathered group of followers sound familiar to you? There is prayer and there is a discernment, or a seeking out, of God’s will. In a few weeks the General Synod of the United Church of Christ will be gathering in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Every two years General Synod convenes to address the business of the national church, approving the operating budget and discussing a variety of resolutions, generally focusing on issues of social justice. This year, the delegates to General Synod will also be voting on a new General Minister and President for the UCC.

The Rev. John Thomas has served in this role since 1999. Last year, Rev. Thomas was at my home church in McFarland and led us in worship as we celebrated our 30th year as a congregation. Following the worship service my husband Steve and I drove John Thomas to the airport for his flight back to Cleveland. Steve, who was raised Roman Catholic, asked Thomas to explain how the UCC selects it General Minister. After Thomas’ response, Steve asked, “and was a puff of white smoke released following your election?”

No, a puff of white smoke is not released following the election of a new General Minister. And no, “lots”, as in the traditional sense in the book of Jonah and in the book of Acts will not be cast either. But “yes,” a lot of prayer and reflection, seeking God’s will in the process has already taken place over the past several months. After a national search, the Rev. Geoffrey Black has been nominated to become the next General Minister and President of the UCC.  

Then there is the search process underway here, at Memorial, for an Associate Pastor. Again, we find ourselves following several of the same procedures of the earliest followers of Christ. No, I don’t mean that we are going to reinitiate the casting of lots. For the people two thousand years ago, following a prayer that invoked God’s presence, the casting of lots or drawing straws was a true way to determine God’s will. To us it is a process of chance, a roll of the dice. Yet we do make a purposeful effort to discern, or seek out, a sense of what God is leading us toward today. Through prayerful consideration at church council meetings, a pastoral search committee has been formed. The search committee will seek out input from each of us as they put together a profile of the church for potential pastoral candidates. It is through this dialogue that we will work together to better understand God’s will for our church.  

(and…I would venture to guess that a puff of white smoke will not be released following the call of the new associate pastor at Memorial…)

How do we seek out God’s will in our own lives? We often pray together, but how often do we get together to listen to other voices to gain a more complete understanding of God’s will in our own lives? At the beginning of June, Cheryl Porior-Mayhew is coordinating a resource and support group for those that have been impacted by a change in their employment status, the Job Seekers Together. This will not just be a support group, or just any opportunity to network, but also a chance for those involved to maintain a sense of whose they are in God.

So here we are, suspended for a week between two times, between Jesus being taken from us once again to the overwhelming return of the Holy Spirit. I encourage you to take this week and spend a moment in your hammock, whether your hammock is imaginary or real, inside or out. Find a place of comfort anchored in the solid presence of God. Look up into God’s creation. Find the thread that connects you to God. Approach your connectedness to God in prayer, and seek God’s will in your life. Amen.