EASTER 7C

 
    Our opening collect this morning reads, in part, “Do not leave us comfortless.”
The collect’s author is referring to this liminal time between Jesus’s ascension and the arrival of the Holy Spirit but perhaps that sentence means more than just this odd time in the church year.
    When children in school, worshippers at a social hour after church and shoppers in a grocery store all get shot because of the color of their skin, their immigration status or just because of the deranged darkness within the shooter’s soul, I’ll admit to wondering if Jesus has, in fact, left us comfortless.
But, of course, Jesus hasn’t, we’ve left ourselves comfortless by somehow accepting this craziness in our country.
By offering thoughts and prayers and then going back to business as usual. That’s not how change happens.
Change happens when people take risks, try something new, stand up for what they feel is right.
All Easter season we’ve been reading from the Acts of the Apostles—-Acts is the travelogue of the early church—Peter and Paul venturing out into the Roman Empire preaching the good news of Jesus and converting people, enflaming their hearts with this Good News. Their work wasn’t easy, lots of people thought they were nuts, others were annoyed at their blathering on about this so-called Messiah and still others wanted them killed for even mentioning that there could be a new way of looking at things, a different way.
The early church grew because of the passion of those early converts, people whose hearts were on fire for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a gospel where the outsiders are brought in, the dismissed are acknowledged, the lonely are embraced. Where the powerful who will do anything to hold onto that power are put in their place, where the status quo is turned over like the tables of the money changers, where the guilty are forgiven and the lost are found. These early followers literally changed the world because of what they beleived and because of how they acted. They didn’t just talk about this gospel of love, they lived it, they Acted on it.
 My friends, is this our Acts moment? I know there are some—maybe many—-of you who wish I would stop blatheirng on about the horror of gun violence, the intolerance of racial hate and the like. But I think that if I don’t keep saying these things we’ll miss our chance….our chance to defeat the darkness that currently enshrouds us. Our chance to act… to turn this country of darkness and hate into a country of light and love.
    A civilized country doesn’t stand by while gunmen kill school kids and teachers and yet we did just that 10 years ago at Sandy Hook and we’re doing it again in Uvale. A civilized country doesn’t stand by while people are murdered at the grocery store because of the color of their skin or in a church or synagogue or mosque because of how they worship God.
    On this Memorial Day weekend the flowers on the altar are given in memory of my Uncle Robert who was killed in the Battle of Anzio during WW2. He died protecting this country from hate and darkness.
Nearly 80 years later the hate and darkness isn’t something “over there,” it is something right here. What are we doing about it?
Jesus has not left us comfortless, he never will. It is time for us to pick up our faith and act on it outside of these doors, before it is too late.
We cannot let Uncle Robert’s death be in vain. Nor can we let Jesus’s death and  resurrection be in vain either.
This must be our Acts moment…because if not us, who? If not, when?
Alleluia, Christ is Risen, the Lord is Risen Indeed. Alleluia.   
Amen.