Episcopal Church of the Messiah

Worship Service Sermons

Easter 6,  May 13, 2007

 The Rev. Brad Karelius

Last Bequest

Do you have a Will? Have you thought about what you would like your loved ones to have from your worldly belongings? For most of us this is a difficult question, because we also have to consider that our human life will end. This is why 70% of us die without creating a Will.

When I was a pastor at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Laguna Beach, one of our parishioners was a senior probate attorney in Orange County. He had worked for 50 years perfecting his skills and counseling hundreds and hundreds of people about estate planning. But he of all people died without having a will. His wife lived through two horrendous years trying to patch together their complex assets.

My sister in law lost her father to cancer 7 years ago and her mother died three years ago. They were careful about estate planning with their five adult children. But, as I have experienced with families myself after a death, once her mother had died and the will was public, the cork was out of the bottle of chaos, anger and resentment. Five persons who seemed to get along OK with one another had now declared civil war. Attorneys, court dates, suits and counter suits. Every time I ask about how things are going, I hear more pain.

Maybe these reactions to the money, or fighting over a faded, water stained print of a Norman Rockwell painting are grief focal points for persons acting unconsciously. Or maybe it is about having more money and things. I am continuously surprised at how family members will leap at each other’s throats for the kill, once the loved one has been buried.

In the gospel reading for today, Jesus knows that he is going to die. He shares his bequest, his special gift, with the Disciples. After he dies and goes to be with the Father, the Spirit will help the disciples remember all that he had taught them and the Spirit will continue to teach them in new situations.

Jesus’ bequest is peace, his own special peace. Not the kind of peace that comes and goes, depending on circumstances. But when difficult times come to his community, this peace will help them face fear and anxiety.

Paul knew this peace personally, when he wrote in Romans:

Jesus’ gift of peace is that embrace of God that will never let us go.

How do we know this peace that Jesus gives us?

A couple of years ago I was stuck in a conflicted situation with someone outside of the parish. I could not make headway in the relationship. We kept bumping heads in resentment. I would bring this to my prayers with God. There was something I felt beyond myself that told me everything was going to be OK. I visited my spiritual director Father Gordon and went through the long story of conflict and feeling stuck. He suggested that maybe the other person was reacting out of some deep wounds of their own past and it was more than our interactions. When he said this, something in me recognized this as true, and it vaporized the petrified stance I was taking with the person. His words gave texture to my intuitive feeling about the situation. I believe this is the way the spirit of God can work in us, to bring peace in those places where we cannot make it happen. But we have to give ourselves to this embrace of God to help us, or things continue to be foggy.

What is this peace of God like? Well, we know what it is not like. St. Ignatius calls it "desolation". You know what desolation is: confusion, anger, fear, apprehension, all is lost.

Ignatius imagined the Peace of God to be consolation: those experiences of love, hope, joy. Consolation.

Consolation is not some passing feeling of OK, but a profound sense that all will be well. And when we go back into the storm, tossed about in unpredictable circumstances, the memory of that encounter with God in consolation is our ballast. All will be will. Nothing can separate you and me from the embrace of God’s love.

Perhaps this is what the gift of peace and the Spirit did to the disciples. They had many experiences of consolation, being in the presence of Jesus when he was alive. But they did not understand his teachings. When the Spirit does come to them in Pentecost, the past lights up, they remember those intuitive encounters of love, hope, joy and peace when they were with Jesus. And that knitted together with what he taught them, and it all integrated within them, so that Peter becomes a charismatic preacher and John writes this incredible gospel narrative.

Does it mean that if we have strong enough faith, we won’t feel fear or anxiety or panic or depression? We just have to pray harder. I have shared with you in the past these thoughts from John Macmurry about false religion.

Please turn to page 308. When you were baptized, in some form or other these were words prayed over you as Jesus’ bequest of the Holy Spirit to you:

This is Jesus’ bequest for you: spiritual ballast for the storms of life and the source of inspiration when you don’t have all the answers. Amen.

Source used:

The Relentless Widow, John Shea, pp 139-145.

Persons in Relation, John Macmurray.