Where Would We Be Without Her? a sermon based on Acts 1: 1-11, preached on May 12, 2024

Hal McClain told me last week that the night Martin Luther King, Jr. died, Hal was in Nashville, Tennessee. Because he’s Hal and because at that time, he was a young, carefree college student, he ignored the total curfew mandated by the National Guard, and with two friends, he was driving around the city, until he was pulled over by an armored personnel carrier. I tell you this story because I want you to think with me this morning about what happens when the great leaders leave. When Dr. King died, the nation erupted in riots, and the Civil Rights Movement slowed down. Some would say it never regained the momentum that it once had. Martin Luther King, Jr. who brought together leaders from the big six: the NAACP, the SCLC, the Congress On Racial Equality, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Brotherhood of Sleep Car Porters, and the National Urban League, left a leadership hole so large that no one else could fill it, so these organizations, several of which still exist and have gone on to do important things, have not been unified since the day he died, which reminds me of what happened after my mother-in-law’s aunts died. When Sara and I were first married more than 20 years ago, her favorite holiday was Thanksgiving. She couldn’t wait for Thanksgiving because the entire family on her mother’s side would drive to Knoxville, Tennessee to the street where the aunts lived. All four of these sisters had homes on the same street, so when the cousins came to town, they could run from yard to yard until the Thanksgiving meal was served in the oldest sister’s house. There was no wine because she was a teetotalling Methodist. The dessert was something they just called “yum-yum.” That’s how good it was. It was named after the sound you made while eating it. Surely your family has or had similar traditions, but such traditions sometimes require a leader to keep them going. What happens when the great-aunts die? Does the family still come together? In our case, no. Those aunts died, and no one calls the family together. Sara still loves Thanksgiving, but without the aunts, it’s not the same, for in this life, there are people who bring us together. They bring unity. They help us cooperate. They insist that everyone come to Knoxville for Thanksgiving, and no one drink wine, and today we can drink wine at Thanksgiving dinner, but there aren’t nearly as many seats at the table because the aunts who brought the extended family together are gone. On this Mother’s Day, I’m thinking about those people in our lives who have played such an important role that in their absence, things kind of fall apart. Where would we be without her? You may feel that way about your mother. Or maybe you’re thinking, had my mother been different, I would have saved a fortune on therapy. I don’t know what you think about Mother’s Day, but think with me about Jesus, who called Himself the mother hen. Before He was crucified, He looked over the city of Jerusalem and said in the Gospel of Matthew, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often have I desired to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…” In our second Scripture lesson, the Mother Hen lifts off, leaving a brood of disciples to figure out what to do without their great leader. He ascends into Heaven. There is no tomb containing His body, for Jesus ascended into Heaven, the book of Acts tells us. Now that He’s gone, what will happen with His disciples? What will happen with the great religion He started? What happens when the great leaders leave? I’m no great leader, but when we left Columbia, Tennessee to move here nearly seven years ago, I remember so well a phone call I received from our friend and real estate agent, John Hill. John sold us our home in Columbia when we moved there. A couple days after the announcement went out that we’d be leaving there to move here, John called me and said, “Joe, everyone has been so sad that ya’ll are leaving. It’s all I’ve heard about for two days, but now they all want to buy your house.” Sometimes, when someone leaves, it’s hard to see her go, but after a while, you’re thinking about how nice it would be to live in her house. Maybe when the leader leaves, his lieutenants jockey for position. If you look to the fourth verse of our second Scripture lesson, you’ll see that “he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.” “The Holy Spirit is coming,” He told them. “Just wait here.” That’s no small order. “Just wait,” He said, but when you were a kid, did your mother ever give you that instruction? “I’ll be right back,” is the opening line of all the great stories that end in chaos, for maybe with her gone, we took the opportunity to gain some independence. To step out on our own. To do things our own way. Some are so anxious to take over once the great leader leaves that they abandon all the lessons of love that he taught, becoming ambitious and ruthless, yet when we jockey for position, are we honoring the ones who came not to be served, but to serve? I’ve just recently heard about a tradition shared among the members of the Habsburgs who ruled a massive European empire for 700 years. When a member of the family dies, still to this day, the body is taken to Vienna. After a requiem mass at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the funeral party carries the deceased to the entrance of the crypt where the leader of the procession knocks on the door. Hearing the knock, a voice on the other side asks: “Who desires admission?” The leader of the funeral procession describes the titles the deceased held: “It is Otto of Austria, former Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, Prince Royal of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia, of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and Galicia; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow; Duke of Lorraine, and Salzburg; Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, Modena, and Zadar; Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol; Prince of Trento and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Istria; Count of Sonnenburg; Lord of Trieste; Grand Voivod of the Voivodship of Serbia.” Those Habsburgs were impressive, but upon hearing the magnitude of the territory that the deceased ruled over, the voice on the other side of the door says: “We do not know him!” and so the leader of the funeral procession knocks again. The voice on the other side of the door asks: “Who desires admission?” The leader of the procession then announces the accomplishments of the deceased: “This is Dr. Otto von Habsburg; President and Honorary President of the Pan-European Union; Member and Father of the House of the European Parliament; Holder of honorary doctorates from countless universities and freeman of many communities in Central Europe; Member of numerous noble academies and institutes; Bearer of high and highest awards, decorations, and honors of church and state made to him in recognition of his decade-long struggle for the freedom of peoples, for right and justice.” Hearing that, the voice on the other side of the door says: “We do not know him!” and so the leader of the funeral procession knocks again. A voice on the other side of the door again asks: “Who desires admission?” For a third time, the leader of the procession answers, yet this time the answer is different: “It is Otto, a mortal, a sinful man!” Finally, the voice on the other side of the door declares: “Let him be admitted.” Last Sunday, I stood with the young men and women who, upon completion of their Confirmation Class, declared their faith as Christians, some for the first time publicly. One of them was my own daughter, and what I realized was that those young men and women who are raised in this church, they will go on to earn titles and to gain authority. They will go forth from this church to do great things, and yet the greatest title that they will ever hold they have already obtained, for there is no greater distinction than to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. This is the great title. To be baptized and claimed, forgiven, and redeemed, to confess Jesus as Lord, to be one of His disciples is the best that any of us will ever do, and yet the minute the Savior ascends into Heaven we, His disciples, continue our arguing over who will sit at His right hand because sometimes that’s just what people do. We want big titles. We want to do things our own way, and yet, will the titles, will the accomplishments, will the prestige, make us any more loved than we are already? Lately, every night at 8 o’clock, the Evans family sits in front of the TV in our sunroom to watch an episode of Young Sheldon. The main character in this TV show is a child genius. He’s tested into high school, and even though he’s 9 years old, Sheldon clearly knows more about calculus and chemistry than his teachers. He’s amazing, yet it’s his mother who is the true star of the show. Sheldon’s mother doesn’t seem to care how smart he is or how well he does on tests. She’s not most interested in what he’ll go on to do in the world. She loves him absolutely already. To her, he is precious. He is worthy, not because of what he’s done or what he will do, but because this is the way of love. My friends, how will we honor the love that we have received from God? Will we jockey for power? Will we work ourselves to death, attempting to gain approval and status? This morning, our first Scripture lesson came from that great disciple who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus and came to understand Him so clearly, so precisely. As the Apostle Paul pondered his own death, these were his words: I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe. When we recognize that in Him, we have already inherited everything, there is no need to strive for more. Remember the love of God and those who have embodied it to you and honor the Savior who ascended into Heaven by living as He did. We honor the One who will come again, not when we jockey for status or puff ourselves up; not when we give up on the movement or split into factions, but when we claim that same spirit of wisdom and revelation that He gave us. We honor Him when we remember that we are already more than conquerors, through Him who loved us. Thanks be to God. Amen.