(Due to an error, this sermon was not previously transmitted. This text was sent prior to the start of Annual Conference) Annual Conference 1998 Sunday morning, July 5, 1998 Orlando, Florida Preacher: Robert Alley Sermon title: “Going with a Promise” Scripture text: Psalms 89, Matthew 28:20b, John 14:16-18, Hebrews 11:39- At the age of 10, I received my first bicycle as a Christmas gift. When did you receive your first bike? Was it one of those large metal bikes with wide wheels, like mine? Or was it the more recent variety made of smaller metal and narrow treaded tires? Mine didn't have any hand brakes or varied speeds, only the speed created by my feet peddling and the strength of my leg muscles braking. Maybe you had a bike like that. What was it like when you first started to ride that bicycle? My parents went out with me along our driveway where I could step off the bank onto the bike. My father steadied it as I got on. Then as I started to peddle and it began to move, he moved with it to help keep me balanced. We did that quite a few times until I began to get the hang of it. I even fell off several times before I could keep it steady. The presence of my father meant a great deal in those beginning attempts. How did the presence or absence of another person make a difference as you learned to ride a bike? Several years ago, our family acquired its first home computer. I had one in my office for several years prior to that. For my son and daughters, a computer is like a new toy - to be used and experimented with in any way possible. For my wife, a computer is an essential piece of equipment in her work as an office coordinator. They all know more about the operation of our computer and its possibilities than I sometimes feel I ever will know. I learn the basics of what I need to use the computer; but my experimentation has been limited. When I get in trouble, I call for someone from the rest of the family. Their presence and assistance provide a ready resource. I've also discovered there are manuals for people like me: Microsoft Works for Dummies, for instance. So I spend some time with them. It helps to have a manual that clarifies the process and puts the computer operation in language that a layman like me can understand. The presence of a family member or a computer guide book makes a great difference in the increasing computer tasks that life and ministry require. Within 2 hours, this Annual Conference of the Church of the Brethren will vacate this arena. For many of us, our going seems uppermost in our minds - where - how - when. Some of us may continue to vacation in Florida; some may travel elsewhere; eventually, all of us will journey to the place we call home. Within a month, we will again worship in those thousand gathering places of the Brethren. There we will face the routine spectrums of delight and distress, sorrow and celebration, hostility and peace. There we will meet the people and the conditions where we also trust that God will not be ashamed to be called our God. This week, we have listened to words of faithfulness. In decision-making, in worship, in study, in dialogue, in fellowship, and a variety of other ways, we have aimed toward being faithful to all that we know of God. We have tried to discern how our faithfulness provides a context in which God is not ashamed to be called our God. Now as we prepare to leave Annual Conference, the challenge for us is to go aware of God's faithfulness to us and be unashamed to be called God's people! Remember who goes with us! "I am with you always until the close of the age!" Jesus told his 11 disciples. (Matthew 28:20b) When the biblical patriarch Jacob was wrestling with the decision of whether to move to Egypt where his son Joseph was living, God spoke to him: "I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again." (Genesis 46:3-4) When Moses was visited by God at the burning bush and given the awesome commission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, God said: "I will be with you." (Exodus 3:12) When the Jewish people were challenged to return from exile, God said: "Do not be afraid, for I am with you." (Isaiah 43:5) When the prophets announced the coming of a messiah, they identified him as Emmanuel - God with us. Jesus became that Emmanuel as understood and proclaimed by the early church and subsequent generations of Christian believers. God is the one who goes with the people. The Hebrew people identified the presence of the Holy as a "shekinah" glory - the promise of the never-failing presence of God. This presence of God filled the temple as a divine light. When God became Emmanuel, this light resided in Jesus as the never-failing presence of God. When Jesus ascended to God after his resurrection, he promised to be with his disciples always until the end of the age. This gift of holy presence was foreshadowed by Jesus' instruction about the coming Holy Spirit: "If I do not go away, the Spirit cannot come. But if I go away, I will send you another Comforter who will be with you forever." In the Spirit, God would always be present, unlimited by space and time. Throughout the stories of the early church recorded in Acts, the Spirit is identified as the source of life, conviction, hope, and the work of Jesus' people. When that early church faced its seasons of persecution, the writers of Hebrews and Revelation identified the hope of Jesus' people in the God who was with them. "'I will never leave you or forsake you.'" (Hebrews 13:5) Verses in Rev. 21 read: "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their god, they will be his peoples and God himself will be with them." Nothing is more disheartening or lonely than being where no one is present to see, to care, or to share the burdens and delights of living. No parent, sibling, or friend to steady and guide the learning biker. No family member, colleague, or manual to direct the ignorant computer user. No one to hear the pain or to give words of encouragement and hope. We understand the reality of loneliness and the absence of power to meet the demands and struggles of living. Having experienced the presence of God in the decision-making, worship, fellowship, and service here at Annual Conference, how will we find that presence when we disperse? As we leave this gathering of Brethren today, we go with a promise. "I will be with you," says the Holy One. When we engage in peacemaking initiatives within our communities and respond to conflicts in families and churches, God says "I will be with you." When we raise funds for disaster relief and serve as volunteers on disaster projects, God says "I will be present." When we respond to the call, the education, and the opportunities of pastoral ministry, God says "I will be with you." When we dedicate new church facilities and remodeling to better serve our congregations and communities, God says "I will be with you." When we wrestle with personal decisions of vocation, education, marriage, retirement, parenthood, death and illness, God says "I will be with you." When we go to Nigeria, Sudan, the Middle East, or other international sites, God says "I will be with you." When we share the stories, the decisions, and the hopes and dreams from Annual Conference, God says, "I will be with you." Our God is Emmanuel - with us! How will we know this Holy Presence as we go? Look first to the great cloud of witnesses. Witnesses are powerful testimonies to presence. From personal experience and from their association with others, witnesses bring reality to the forefront. We live aware of the millions of people who have served and worshipped God over thousands of years. Their journeys in faith, their strength in persecution and hardship, their struggles in faithfulness help to give us confidence in their experience with the Holy Presence. While the text from Hebrews certainly refers directly to witnesses who are deceased, we may also look to the cloud of those still living who bring their stories, struggles, and service to enlighten our living with God's presence. Who are those persons, some living, some deceased, who make the promise of God's presence real for you? What do you learn from them? How does their experience of the Holy give evidence of God's love relationship with us? Each one of us needs at least one saint as a mentor for God's promise to be present with us. I have found one of these in the late Henri Nouwen, a catholic priest who taught at the University of Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard before going to share his life with mentally handicapped people as pastor of Daybreak, a L'Arche Community in Toronto. Nouwen has written of his love relationship with the Holy in over 25 books including The Living Reminder and The Wounded Healer. Having read some of them and having heard him speak, I find his experience of God's presence to sharpen my own sensitivity to that presence. We experience the presence of God through the faithfulness of those who have loved God and those who evidence that love today. How shall we work at our relationship with this Holy Presence as we go? Part of that work happens as we peel away the facades of our own self-centeredness. As in any relationship, our experience of God is tempered by the lens through which we behold the other person. Our trust, behavior, and sensitivity all play an important part in our consciousness of God. In his book Discipline and Discovery, Albert Edward Day writes: "God is not real to most of us because of the condition of our consciousness. He is closer to our minds every moment than our own thoughts, He is nearer to our hearts than our own feelings. He is more intimate with our wills than our most vigorous decisions. If we are not aware of him, it is not because he is not with us. It is, in part because our consciousness is so under the sway of other interests that it cannot turn to him with the loving attention which might soon discern him." The Hebrews writer compares this work to the runner removing everything superfluous to a race. What do we need to remove to let our consciousness receive God's loving attention? Did you ever encounter a friend on the street with his eyes looking straight at you and yet not seeing you? You walked right into him before the alien look on his face changed into one of recognition. Then he confessed that he had been so absorbed in thought about some other matters that he had not been aware of you, until your intentional collision with him. You were there, yet he did not see you. Though actually in your presence, he was nevertheless as unconscious of you as if you did not exist. Wouldn't it be a rather poor life to be only aware of people when you collided with them, or were brought to consciousness by some decisive act of theirs. It is just as tragic a life that becomes conscious of God only when events shatter its habitual thoughts and dreams and compel it to recognize God's presence and activity. "What makes life splendid is the constant awareness of God. What transforms the spirit into his likeness is intimate fellowship with him. We are saved--from our pettiness and earthiness and selfishness and sin--by conscious communion with his greatness and love and holiness." (Quotation from Discipline and Discovery by Albert Edward Day) But God is present in reality no matter how unreal our practices and our ponderings imply. God is forever trying to establish communication; forever aware of the wrong directions we are taking and wishing to warn us; forever offering solutions for the problems that baffle us; forever standing at the door of our loneliness, eager to bring to us such intimacy as the most intelligent living mortal could not supply; forever clinging to our indifference in the hope that someday our needs, or at least our tragedies will waken us to respond to God's advances. The Real Presence is just that, real and life-transforming. So as we go from this conference, we go with the promise of God 's presence most of all in Jesus - the One who is the greatness and love and holiness of God. God sent Jesus to both lead us and to complete God's presence in us. As Redeemer and Coach for our living, Jesus becomes our guide and our companion on the way. Jesus Christ gives us the assurance that God is present to forgive our self-centered living. Jesus transforms us into the image of God's creative and caring love. So go with a promise - "I will be with you" as you continue the work of Jesus, peacefully, simply, together! Amen.