"Christ In Us" | Pentecost 4a | June 28th, 2020 | The Rev. Dr. Luk De Volder

Good morning. Welcome and peace. Although today we can’t gather for communion together, we have Christ is us!  But what a time to ramp up for our 2020 Independence Day this 4th of July. With so many statues moving into museum spaces, including the Wooster Square Christopher Columbus, we clearly see so much more change happening on top of the already challenging Covid-19 virus. Where is this all going? 

For what it is worth, the undoing racism movement is no longer only an American event. The American prophetic voice has been running around the globe like wild fire. In my country of origin - I now have two home countries :) - the statues of King Leopold 2 have been the target of racial justice calls. His statues are being removed throughout the whole country. As the book, King Leopold’s Ghost, by Adam Hochschild, grippingly describes, Belgium has so much reparation to do, after the trail of death and terror that this King of Belgians left throughout the whole country of Congo, with ruthless and savage greed as the only motivation. 

It is clear that the cultural revolution of antiracism is reshaping our America. And some worry: Will it again be a lot of talk and no change? On this coming 4th of July, it is so important to honor all the good parts of the movements that are running through the country. There are so many citizens who are vocal, courageous, daring to speak up and to work with creative imagination on how our country can become more just in its racial, economic, and social dynamics, a more perfect union. And for the majority of rallies and town hall meetings, all of this is happening in a very peaceful way. Thanks be to God. People wake up, people reach out to each other, people are willing to take risks for the good. American citizens, especially African-American sisters and brothers, are taking an impressive global leadership role. There are many good things to celebrate this 4th of July. 

With so much change happening it is important to observe two things. One, is to take time for a break once in a while. We can’t constantly be on the barricades or swept into the breaking news cycles. Take some time for comedy shows, for cake or cookies or baking or some yummy drinks. OK- Time for a commercial. I love these Belgian cookies. Here they are called Biscoff, in Belgian they are called “speculoos", most of the time even in its cosy version - “spekulaasje”. Meaning there is an intimate connection with this cookie. Almost every Belgian eats them daily, in it’s recommended eating ritual which makes this Belgian cookie so divine: Unwrap, dip in our coffee and enjoy. It is a divine experience.  

The second thing is that in the face of all the change and challenges happening today is to deeply connect with the divine. And if the speculoos can help, great. Jesus is showing in today’s gospel that even a glass of water can show God’s divine grace. What I want to emphasis together with Jesus is that God’s presence, God’s presence in our hearts can be such a source of courage, consolation, and direction in our daily lives. If only we would pause regularly to notice that God is present in our lives, that God is surrounding us, that God is in our hearts like a source of living water, as Jesus said in John 4. This part of our faith is much more important than often is expressed. That Christ is in us. So often this is a part of our faith that is marginalized, reserved for expert mystics, or for specialist spiritual heroes, like monks. But that is such a deplorable situation. Because Christ himself so often emphasized how God is in us. “Christ in us” is a very popular slogan in the New Testament, an expression used more than 160 times.  “Christ in us” is the core of our faith, of our way of life, as Christians. Almost much more important than the bible itself because it is the living bible. Certainly more important than rituals, communion of bread and wine, the church, the church building, is the presence of Christ in us. We are already in Christ. Christ is in us. To find God, go into your heart. Jesus himself said that explicitly: The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth (John 4:21-23). And the spirit is like a well flowing inside of you (John 4:14). 

If there is one spiritual vaccine or immunization that our world and our society needs right now, it is this presence of God inside each one of us, as a well of peace and goodness. While we don’t have physical gathering at church or access to communion,  it is so central to our faith and yet often left out of our conversation, to assert that the power of Christ is already in us.  No, this is not fantasy, nor wish-full thinking. If the resurrection is real, then we are in Christ and Christ in us and we have a source of ever-powerful life and understanding, being seen and heard and understood in all our toils and labors, our ruminating and aspirations. 

Father Richard Rohr spent a whole book on explaining this core aspect of our faith. And our women’s Bible study is reading it. In his book The Universal Christ, he highlights with numerous biblical quotes and examples that we as Christians miss completely an essential part of what Christianity is about if we continue to search for God and the sacred outside ourselves. Thinking we will reach God or grace or forgiveness, if we go to Jerusalem or try to meet the pope or wait for this consecrated communion bread or think that heaven is far far away, at the end of a staircase out of reach for us mortals anyway. There is a long history, and even longer explanation, on why we have been thought that there is such a gap between us and the divine. But already 2000 years ago, Christ specifically did away with this gap and installed a covenant, a connection, a personal presence, a communion, not outside of us, not something we can block with our weakness and sinfulness, but right within us.  

Mark my words: this Christ vaccine will grow in importance in the years to come. And how do we get to this spiritual immunization? Richard Rohr points to the simplicity of a glass of water, a tree, a sunset. Begin with recognizing the divine present in all things around us. Welcome a stranger, welcome someone in need. And the more you can see God in everything and everyone, the more you will discover God in yourself.  

So, in today’s context I like to call this a Christ vaccine, because the power of Christ in us has the power of immunization, of strengthening life and goodness in us in a world where there are too many king Leopold 2s, so much evil, greed, and oppression. Allowing yourself, letting go of yourself into the love and compassion of the divine is us, is indeed like drinking from a living well that no one can take away from us.