Be careful in Between

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Easter V, Year A
May 10, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
“Be careful in Between.” 
 
We used to say that to one another when making the car journey from Athens, Georgia, where I grew up and the big city of Atlanta, 66 miles away.  Before the Olympics and the great push to have a four-lane highway to Atlanta, we drove there on US 78: a two-lane road winding through the red clay foothills of North Georgia.  Exactly half way between Athens and Atlanta was a little crossroads town called Between – that is how it got its name, from being between Athens and Atlanta.  As far as we know, the town’s only purpose for being was to have one police car, stopping all passers through that violated the sudden 25 mile per hour speed limit.  It was a really nice and shiny police car.  They must have done well.
 
If you told people you were going to Atlanta, inevitably, they would say, “Be careful in Between.”  Even after the four lane went in and we drove four miles north of Between on the new road, people kept saying it.  “Be careful in Between,” became a mantra for watching out for speed traps, and eventually, for just being careful on the journey from home to the big city.
 
It is funny how expressions develop and take on new meaning.  That one is time bound and localized, but it sticks with me because of its deeper meaning.  “Be careful in Between” is good advice even without the original intent of avoiding a speed trap.  Between places are places of transition and change, places of risk and unknowing, places bttween the safety of home and the destination of new promise.  It is good to be careful when we stand at the edges of experience.
 
Normally, we mark transitions with ceremony and rites of passage.  I cannot help but grieve for those who are supposed to graduate this weekend.  All of the ceremony has a purpose of marking the moment, so that the student does not hover in between high school or college and whatever is next.  Even in quarantine, there are virtual attempts at commencements.  John Krasinsky, the actor and comedian who does the “Some Good News” webcast each week, even hosted an on-line prom with some really great musical talent.  People need to mark the substantial moments of life and we are having to get creative in the face of restrictive gathering.
 
Of course, today is Mother’s Day.  It is not a church feast day, but it is a cultural one.  It can be a day of great appreciation for some, and a day of sadness or longing for others.  Nevertheless, we mark this day in light of the reality that all of us were born and became in this world through the labor and love of others.  For sure, birth is one of those between places where pain and worry and joy and new life all come together.
 
The Gospel we read today is really evocative, mostly because it is so often read at another between place.  This is a go to lesson for funerals, and it is spoken when the earth is freshly dug and we are making the transition from loving someone in this world and lifting them up to be loved on the other side of eternity.  That space blends a mix of gratitude and grief.  The words are of comfort and assurance.  They bridge across betweenness.
 
The story takes place as Jesus is in Jerusalem and his arrest and trial and crucifixion is eminent.  The disciples are well aware of the risks that await their friend and they wonder why he has to go toward such a confrontation.  Jesus prepares them, not by saying he will avoid pain, but in showing them how his love will abide with them, and remain in them, as they love like he does.  He tells them not to let their “hearts be troubled.”  He tells them “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  That is present tense.  It is not conditional or dependent on the disciples’ action.  It is not subject to whatever human machinations there are that work against him.  “From now on” he says, “you know God” because “you have seen God.”
 
In meeting with our diocesan clergy and bishops this week, it became clearer than ever that we are far from being able to gather as have traditionally.  I will admit that this realty hit me hard.  Like many of you, I may have been magically hopeful that somehow, this pandemic would blow over with a change in seasons, or that in flattening the curve, we would be able to return to gathering and going out in groups.  It is difficult to see conspiracy theorists are having a field day, and individualists claiming violations of personal freedom.  Sniping and accusing are not of love, and do not help.   People of faith have an important role to play in our response, our calm, and our commitment to using our God given reason to work together.  We can produce targeted volumes of testing.  We can develop therapeutics.  We can create a vaccine.  That is our greatest hope and opportunity to serve all persons, loving them as we love ourselves. That is where our prayer, our energy, and our work can come together.
 
“Be careful in Betweeen”
 
That phrase rings more true than ever in my heart and soul.  When things are uncertain and unknown, faith can erode and humanity can be lured into the madness of power grabbing and self-service.  Jesus brings his disciples together to see the power of love as the long view: the long game of life eternal.  He does not leave them wondering where God is for them.  He shows them in person.  He creates and inhabits a future for all of us, together.
 
When I spent a year as the Interim Rector at Grace Church, Kilmarnock, I was put in mind that there is no such thing as interim ministry.  The people of that parish continued to be church even in the uncertain space of future leadership.  I am grateful that Neal Goldsborough had the same view of ministry here in Emmanuel Church.  You kept on keeping on, praising God, doing the work of the Church, and loving one another.  You were careful in the in between space to keep the Jesus at the center of life.
 
If recording sermons, Zoom meetings and prayers, planned and distanced outreach is how we have to do it, that is what we will do, keeping Jesus at the center of life.  We will need to be creative and intentional.  Being joyful and maintaining a sense of humor is helpful in this space too.  Maybe God is birthing new ways of us being Church.   Even if things are different, we are not in between people.  We are God’s beloved family, now and always.  Amen.
 
Incidentally, the newer and faster four lane from Athens to Atlanta takes a more direct route.  And there is a stoplight at the halfway point.  That place is a little town called Bethlehem.  I am not making this up…