A Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter
The Rev. Patricia Gillespie

Acts 1:(1-7)8-14
1 Peter 4:12-19
John 17:1-11
Psalm 68:1-20 or 47

Jesus is gone. Disappeared into the clouds. And the disciples are left standing around looking up.

They are waiting for Jesus to come back so he can tell them what to do. And we wait with them. Waiting for Jesus to come into our lives. Hoping he'll tell us what to do next. Or more likely, what the disciples and we really want is for Jesus to come back so he can do it for us: make our lives good for us, save us, heal us, love us. We wait for Jesus to come back and for him to do what needs to be done.

We talk about offering our gifts of time and talent to build up our church. But for many of us, what we really want is for someone who is "Jesus-like" – a priest or a few committed lay ministers -- to come and do it for us. And suddenly here come those Messengers in white saying, "Why are you hanging around staring into space? – stop waiting for someone to do it for you."

Perhaps we are a bit envious of little Phoebe and Cooper, baptized last week. How good it would be to be like them and have others make our baptismal promises for us. But even our newest tiny Christians, now baptized and sealed by the Holy Spirit, have work to do while they wait and grow – their own special work of ministry Cooper and Phoebe, like all babies including the one born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, were sent to help us learn us something about love. For now that is one of the gifts the Spirit has given them so that they can do Christ's work in the world.

But most of us are not baby Christians. We don't have others making our baptismal promises for us. So the messengers dressed in baptismal white are telling us to stop standing around, to get busy. They're reminding us that Jesus sends us the Holy Spirit. And that the Spirit gives us the gifts we need to be Christ right here in this the world, to do what needs to be done.

But this is scary. The arrival of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our church is frightening. It means life, but life means change and growth. And so we are afraid, like the disciples staring up at the cloud. We want it like it used to be. So we stand around looking up and hoping that Jesus will come really soon and take care of things.

And instead Jesus gives us the promise of the Spirit. But the coming Spirit is an unknown, and that too is frightening. We, like the disciples, are tempted to run away, to leave Jerusalem and the church and to look for something safe and familiar.

But Jesus said to wait for the promise – the promise of the Spirit.

It's scary because at some level we know a biblical truth about the Spirit. We learned it from Mary of Nazareth. We see it in the prophets and the apostles as well. The truth is that when you say "yes" to the Spirit you get pregnant.

Being a Christian means being pregnant with the Holy Spirit. How's that for a Mother's Day gift? You are full of the Spirit, preparing to bring Christ to birth in the world! Pregnancy is not always easy. There may be hope and great joy, there is also much waiting and very likely some suffering. Many pregnant women find that it's often easier if you keep busy. In the same way, spiritual pregnancy -- that is, being Christian -- is also a balance between activity and waiting.

Listen to the advice in today's readings: Peter tells us to "entrust [our]selves to a faithful Creator, while continuing to do good." Our first reading from Acts suggests that we devote ourselves to prayer while we wait. Our gospel reading answers the "what would Jesus do" question when Jesus makes that clear that the way he glorified the Father was by finishing the work God gave him to do (even when that meant suffering). And that part of that work was to make God's name known.

Like it or not, we too are given work to do. It has to do with the promises in our baptismal covenant: Like mothering, it has to do with life and growth, like Rogation Days, it has to do with staying grounded here in the earth rather than gazing wistfully at the sky. That's hard work.

The good news is that in our baptism, we, like Phoebe and Cooper, have been given the tools to do the work. We each have been given a spiritual gift – a gift to use to do the work God has given us to do, a gift to use to be Christian, and together to "be Church." We use our gifts to do God's work here in this world: the digging in the messes of our lives together, planting words of love, and preparing for the harvest. Today, on Mother's Day, think of the times you have seen a mother, perhaps your own, touch a dirty mess in her child's life with such love that something beautiful results. That is an act of faith. The power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promises his followers is that kind of love.

Following Jesus means saying "yes" to the Holy Spirit, just as Mary of Nazareth did. Following Jesus means being pregnant with the Spirit right here in this earthy, spring world. It means waiting in prayer, loving like a mother, and working to bring Christ to birth in the world.

Because Christ WILL come again.