Passing the Light

Passing the Light  Acts 1:6–14  John 17:1–11

Watching the Olympics can be agonizing.  You know how awful it can be when a gymnast falls or doesn’t land a flip well; or when a speed skater slides across the ice or a runner trips and tumbles.   One of the worst is during a relay race, when a country’s team is striving to work together flawlessly to complete the race.  How miserable it is when a runner fumbles the hand-off and the baton spins and falls, wiping out crucial seconds.   Making a hand-off, passing something down can be a tricky business, and must be done well.  

Jesus does a hand-off in both our scriptures today, passing on the promise of God’s presence, the Spirit, and the light of his vision.  He brings the disciples into prayer at the Last Supper, asking God to guide them, and affirming that he has passed the gift along, saying: “Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you.”  (Jn 17:8)  He unites them to God, as he and God are one. In the story of the Ascension, Jesus promises them the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower and inspire them, sending them out to the ends of the earth.   Just as God breathes life into all things, so Jesus breathes life into the church – sending us out filled with power and life and truth.

I just watched the first Matrix movie again after many years.   What is fascinating about it is the journey of discovery that Neo, the main character makes, waking up first from being a small time computer hacker and dealer, to realizing something is off or strange in the world he lives in, leading him to questioning the reality of his entire universe.  Finally he is offered a choice by his mentor and leader, Morpheus: the blue pill or the red pill.  The red pill would give Neo the truth – unvarnished, the real deal, no matter the consequences.  The blue pill would allow him to completely forget everything that he’d experienced and questioned, so that he could live without a clue in the matrix again.  He takes the red, of course, meaning that he wakes up completely, outside of the arificial matrix, but into a life of danger and deprivation.  He is handed down a powerful teaching and way of life – leading to difficulty, but also to truth – which is more valuable than comfort. He wakes up with a new orientation toward life, grounded in what is, rather than illusion.

Churches are in the business of handing down truth, legacy, vision and light of Christ.  The result can lead to greater suffering and hardship, because the Christ-life makes us question assumptions passed down by society, and often guides us to live at odds with values that lead toward cruelty, death or selfishness.  But this gift of light is a great legacy.  Generation after generation this truth is handed-off from parent to child, from teacher to student, from pastor to congregation.  Sometimes it is done well; when those who come next ‘get it’ and run with it – radiating the light and grace and peace of Christ to illumine the world.  

But sometimes that baton is dropped, the message gets garbled, the seed falls on rocky soil and doesn’t grow, or the vision becomes distorted like a fun-house mirror.  Consider how the church took on the mantle of the Roman Emperors after Constantine in 312 AD, and how the message of the church changed from worshiping the servant ‘good shepherd’ to the cross painted on soldier’s shields to be carried into battle.   Consider the Inquisition or the trappings of the church with its gold and jewels and standing army.   Consider ways that the church has excluded women, those who are different or labeled as rejected, outcaste.    

We are meant to pass down the light of Christ.  Our youth group has a game called “Woman of Wisdom.”   The game goes that a girl is sent out with a lit candle into the dark (we usually play out in the back cemetery).   The idea is that each person needs to find the ‘wise woman’ and light his or her candle from hers, and then get back to the flagpole without having the candle blown out by someone or by the wind.   First you have to find the light, and then you need to transport the light back home.   This is something we each strive to do in our lives. Parents and families pass down their flame, their traditions and values from one generation to the next.  Teachers do this to students, coaches to teams, friends to friends, elders to children.   

Our scripture lesson today speaks of Jesus passing his spirit on to his disciples.  In scripture usually a teacher chooses one student to pass the mantle to.   Moses chose Joshua.   Samuel chose Saul, and then David.   The prophet Elijah passed his powerful spirit down to his disciple, Elisha.  

What is surprising is that Jesus does not pass his title and power down to one person.  He does not choose Peter or John or James.  He passes his Spirit on to the church – to all of us – to all of the disciples.   The Holy Spirit is not owned by one of two people – or even a select group.   The Spirit resides in the church. The flame burns within the whole body.  Jesus is present when two or three are gathered, not just one.  Jesus asks God to bless the whole church, that they might be united to each other as he and God are one.  “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”  This is the motto of the United Church of Christ, seeking unity in faith.  This is what we pass on in this church – this vision of inclusivity, mutual respect and love.  This is what is passed down to us in Holy Communion.  We pass along what is essential, life-giving and loving.

Sitting on my Grandmother Hazel’s enormous veranda on a gorgeous spring or summer day was a joy.   On weekends as a teenager, my father would often send me to my Grandmother’s house to do projects: weed a garden, clean out a shed, haul old boxes from the basement or clean out gutters.  Hazel’s house was a rambling Victorian stucco home, right on the park in New Britain, CT; and it was filled with antiques: Tiffany lamps, carved wooden furniture, vases and gilded picture frames.  

After my two great-aunts went to live in nursing homes, my grandmother was left on her own to tend the big house that her father had built, almost a century before.   Though there was lots and lots of work to be done to keep the place up, my grandmother would make me stop working after an hour or two, and we would sit down to lunch or a snack, and she would talk.  She was lonely, and having me there was a treat – not as a servant, but as a listening ear.  She would pass down to me her stories and her remembrances of life in her early years with her parents, and that town from the turn of the past century.  My grandmother lived to be 102, and so her stories took me back to a time before electricity, before automobiles, before moving pictures, before the rush of our age.    I felt as if I was receiving rare and precious glimpses of another era.

One of my favorite places in the world was my grandmother’s attic.  Squirreled away up there were untold treasures, waiting to be uncovered: top hats, tarnished swords, bags of marbles, toys from the 1800’s, a Victrola record player with a huge horn speaker and records from the 1920’s.  I found an Indian Head penny up there once.  In the attic over her garage I found two large boxes filled with photo negatives made out of glass; sadly a few years later they were gone – stolen by a neighborhood kid, probably. The black coat with tails that I wear at Colonial Thanksgiving is from that house – owned by my Great-Grandfather, who was exactly my size.  Now I only have one furniture piece from that house – a beautiful burl-wood dresser with a framed mirror.  As I was moving this dresser from the house, after Hazel’s passing, I heard a jingle, and out rolled two dimes: one from 1854 and another from 1856.  (I took them to the Red Bank coin shop, and he said he’d give me $3 for each of them…)

Passing things down from generation to generation is not always as easy as it seems.  Things get lost or damaged; they lose their luster or become out-moded, or we don’t have room to store them.  We drop the baton; we don’t make the hand-off.  The past fades, memories evaporate.  The beautiful home built by my great grandfather is now a shell of what it was; the porch torn down, many of the windows boarded up.  

What has been passed down to you from previous years or generations?  What memories do you have of your ancestors, or from your hometown? What do you regret losing?   How have you passed your blessings, your skills, or your spirit down to others?  

         Communion is a time when the gifts of God are passed down to us, when we take the light of Christ into our hearts.   In the simple substance of bread and cup comes the spirit of God’s grace and love.  We discover unity as we join together in silence and in reverence to receive this gift.   We discover hospitality and love that God gives freely and with grace.   Let us receive this gift, this legacy, this light, this truth, and allow it to illumine and grace our lives.  Then let us pass this light on to others in service and with love.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.