St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday Sermon – Sixth Sunday of Easter – May 29, 2011
“Jesus’ Action: On the Move!”
Text: John 14:20,21

There is moving, and there is moving.
First, there is moving that’s ordinary; routine; nothing amazing;
getting up in the morning, getting going, moving from room to room;
or later in the day moving from field to field. Moving that’s
also ordinary, nothing special is finishing up one grade in school
and moving on to the next; or finishing up another year of school
activities moving on to a busy schedule of summer activities.
Morning by morning, month by month; we all have things to do that
keep us moving; nothing surprising, nothing out of the ordinary.
Second, there is moving that is a bit more uncertain, more
dramatic, more demanding, more challenging. This would be moving
away; not moving across town but moving across the state or across
the country or out of the country. A major move is one that involves
some anxiety, some mixed emotions. That’s because a major move means
leaving, separating, saying good-bye, letting go of; not just moving
around, but moving out or moving suddenly because the world around
you has fallen apart. What a mess of sudden, unexpected moving
has come about for families & individuals who are the victims of
terrifying storms, intense tornadoes, high water, massive flooding.
Moving through it all, moving on, are not words easily spoken.
Third, there is one other kind of moving that is the most awesome,
most amazing moving of all and that is God moving! God not moving
around, God not looking down; but God moving in; God, if you can
believe this, God moving in me & God moving in you.
Says this short little song about God & love & you & me that we
haven’t sung for a while, but we sang it again this morning:
Wher-ev-er love is, God is there too.
God is in me ‘cause I love you!
Wher-ev-er love is, God is there too,
God is wher-ev-er Love is!
Cute little song some might think. But in the Gospel reading for
this 6th Sunday of the Easter Season, this is the truth that Jesus
seeks makes known to His troubled disciples.
But what does Jesus tell them? Yes, He tells them; He’s leaving
them, but he’s not really leaving them. Yes, He tells them, though
he will no longer be physically with them or close to them He will
always be present for them.
What a great mystery, what a great miracle, when Jesus leaves yet
He never leaves, when Jesus is our risen & ascended Lord yet He is
always present; not only with us but in us. How is this possible, we
ask? One of Jesus disciples, not the Judas who betrayed Him, but the
other Judas, asked the same question.

“Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to
the world?
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and
my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home
with him.”
See the disciples sitting with Jesus at the table. See Jesus move
to wash each disciples feet; see Jesus eating, speaking, breaking
bread, loving, caring for His disciples. Jesus knows what’s about
to happen to Him. Jesus tells His disciples who sit very still &
very close to each other this is the last Passover He will celebrate
with them. Talk about sudden storms, sudden upheavals, suddenly
every-thing different and not like before. Close to Jesus, gathered
with Jesus on the night He was betrayed. Next day Jesus condemned,
crucified on a cross, dead and buried.
It’s not anything the disciples were ready for. It was as if their
lives had suddenly shifted into neutral! Would they soon be shifting
into reverse; going backward?
But it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to them. Jesus
assures them, “Since you love me” (which they obviously did) and
since you are trying to obey and follow me” (which they were, some-
times well, sometimes poorly) I will be with you, in you.”
It is one thing to say that the Holy Spirit – God the Holy Spirit
– is given to the church; that God works through the church and with
the church. But here Jesus says that through the work of the Holy
Spirit Jesus is actually in each believer; Jesus in me & Jesus in you
The love, the light, the power by which God is visibly present in
Jesus -- that same love, same light, same power that enabled Jesus
to preach & to heal -- that same love, same light, same power that
entered & filled & moved Jesus’ disciples out into every corner of
the world to preach & to heal, that same love & light & & power of
God is God the Holy Spirit working in us, moving in us, God in me and
God in you.
Just as Jesus had God the Father present with Him and in Him, so
Jesus promises that we through the gift of the Holy Spirit, will have
God the Father present with us and in us. In a world full of routine
mornings & repetitious evenings; in a world full of new beginnings &
sudden endings, losing & rebuilding, moving & adjusting, in a world
where there often are so many loose ends & harsh realities, God is
not above it all or beyond it all, but wherever love is God is in me
and God is in you.
And that things stories like this can be told.
A teacher approached her pastor to tell him that a friend had
asked her to help three days a week in a mentoring program in the poorest
part of town, an after-school program that provided food, fun, and
tutoring for kids from some of the most marginalized & dysfunctional
homes in that town.

The teacher also told her pastor she had been a school teacher
most of her life, but didn’t think she would be good at this sort of
thing. She thought she deserved a rest. Surely her friend could get
someone who was better qualified than her.
The teacher had a few other reservations but she decided to give
it a try. Before she began this new work, each afternoon she sat in
her car and offered a little prayer. “God, you got me into this. Now
please, please help me through this. Do whatever YOU want done here
today. Amen.”
Well, to the teacher’s surprise, helping children who really
needed help went well. She quickly moved from three afternoons a week
to every weekday afternoon. In fact, one afternoon after she had
worked with one of the little boys in the program, a boy with whom
she spent most of her time trying to teach him how to do better in
math, when their time together was over the boy looked her in the
eye, smiled, and said “Thanks, God, You really helped me today.”
Of course, the teacher is not God. And, I can tell you for a
fact that I most certainly am not God even though there have been
times when some of the children who come up for our “Mom’s Moment In
Worship” have gone back to their parents and said something like, “I
don’t mind a cookie or a piece of candy, but please tell God that I
like chocolate best of all.”
No, a helpful teacher isn’t God, a white-robed minister isn’t God,
whether you’re a perfect parent or not you’re not God. But wherever
small children, aging parents, pastors, teachers, mentors, advocates,
care-givers know the love of God in Jesus Christ and share love, are
love, that, says Jesus in today’s Gospel reading, is where God is.
That is certainly the gist of what the apostle Paul wrote to his
dear Christian friends at Ephesus, and this is written to us too.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every
family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches
of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through
his Spirit in your inner being,
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith –
that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to
comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth & length & height
& death, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now this is not really a pat on the back for you; nor is this
something I want to go to your heads, but I truly think what the
apostle Paul is describing has happened to you and me, unworthy &
undeserving though we are. I firmly believe there are times when I
say something or you say something that is just what you need to hear
or I need to hear; and it’s as if God uses me or God uses you to be
in just the right place at the right time with the right word to say
the right thing that needs to be said, as if God Himself were saying

it. Even if you & I have our doubts & misgivings about that, it is
still the presence & power of God, it is the light & love of God in
Jesus that is God Himself, God’s Spirit working in me & through me,
in you & through you.
Of all the routine moving that goes on with us day in, day out;
given all the major moving & changing & weather messing things up &
the economy shaking things up & the harsh realities of the devil, the
world & our own sinful flesh never easing up, given all that, praise
and thanks be to God for this amazing, humbling, mind-boggling,
gathers us and is good for us this Sixth Sunday of Easter – that
Where-ev-er love is, God is there too, God in me and God in you!