Easter 6 - Do not let your hearts be troubled

 Acts 16:9-15; Rev 21:10, 22–22:5; John 14:23-29

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

I wish it were that easy. As much as I try not to “let” it happen, my heart is troubled. A year ago, as part of my work with the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, I did a deep dive into the membership numbers of our denomination, along with looking at the numbers of pastors, and the numbers of congregations. I knew all these numbers were going down—we all know that, but I wanted how much exactly. And here’s what I found.

From 2015 to 2020, so pre-pandemic, in the four western Synods of the ELCIC—BC, Alberta and the Territories, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba––the number of ELCIC members declined by 3.5% year over year. And math being what it is, the total loss of members for that time period was over one third. We shrunk by a third in just five years.

But membership doesn’t tell us everything, so I looked at actual attendance numbers. Across the four Synods, attendance dropped by 54%. And remember, this is pre-pandemic. I’ve been sitting with these numbers for a year, and they still shock and trouble me.

Now what was interesting, and this is just a side note, is that the number of pastors declined at the same rate as the number of members. But the number of congregations basically stayed the same. It turns out that we don’t have a shortage of pastors, we have a surplus of congregations. Congregations themselves are getting thinner and thinner, but not closing, and so the same number of pastors are still needed, even though the number of actual people they serve is fewer. It feels like a shortage of pastors, because of how many congregations don’t have one, but the ratio of pastors to ELCIC members is actually constant. Not that that is any comfort to members of those individual congregations that don’t have one.

So, like I said, my heart is troubled, and here comes Jesus saying, don’t let it be troubled, I’m giving you peace, it’s all good. I know he’s right, but gosh it still feels hard. I yearn for that peace, but the reality is staring me in the face, and I find Jesus’ words hard to follow.

What I really want is what we hear about in this week’s reading from Revelation. Right on the heels of last week’s beautiful vision of no more crying or mourning or death, we have this glorious promise of the city of Christ, where the trees with twelve fruit means there is no more hunger, the river through the middle means there is no thirst, and open gates because of no night means that there are no wild animals or brigands to threaten the city dwellers. Everyone is at peace, their bodies are at peace, and their spirits are at peace. God comes down to be with them, Christ lives in their midst, and their hearts are not troubled by anything.

That’s what I want. I think that’s what we all want. We want that city, with Christ as its center, to come down and be among us. And it may be that I lack imagination, but it is hard for me to believe this will happen, for real. I don’t know how to hold the reality we live in with this vision that is promised.

When one of my kids was little, like four years old, they asked me, “Mommy, how can Jesus be on the moon and in my heart at the same time?” And I was like, what? And they said, “Jesus is everywhere, so Jesus is on the moon. And Jesus is also in my heart. How?” And I remember being very grateful to their Christian preschool, for making real for them both that Jesus is everywhere and Jesus is in their heart.

I wonder, in this time when our hearts are troubled, if perhaps we might think of the city of the Lamb as in Revelation coming down to dwell, not on earth per se, but in our hearts. Might we imagine, and even believe, that the glorious city of God, with everything necessary to feed and water our spirits, to protect us from clouds of despair so that our hearts can remain open to those around us, and to give us a peace despite our troubles, will come down and even is right now coming down into our hearts?

It seems to me that in these troubling times, when Jesus tells us not to let our hearts be troubled, he isn’t telling us to ignore or deny that times are troubling. Instead, perhaps he is calling us to let him come into our hearts, bringing his peace—God’s peace—with him, to be there in the centre of our troubled hearts. He is calling us to let him in, not as a denial of the seriousness of the situations we find ourselves in, not so we can go around saying, “everything is fine!”, but so that he can face our troubles with us, so he can nourish us and give us strength to live with them, so that he can protect us from being overwhelmed by them. “My peace I give to you, I do not give as the world gives.”

So let’s take the opportunity right now, for the next few minutes, to open our hearts to let Jesus come in. Now, I know this isn’t very Lutheran, we prefer to let Christ come into our heads, not so much into our hearts, that’s more of a Pentecostal or Pietist thing to do, but I think we can try. So I’m going to invite you to sit up straight, shoulders back, chin up, (and of course, you don’t have to do this if it’s too much). Wherever you are, whether you’re at home or here in the church, go ahead and just kind of settle into that position. And if you’re at home, you are more than welcome to get down and lie on the floor. (You can do that here in church too if you want, why not?) And now I invite you to take a big breath in and out. And as you breathe out imagine the troubles in your heart just settling down, calming down, and then breathe Christ in. And we’re going to sit here for a moment. And remember that we’re all doing this together, and we’re imagining the beautiful city of God, with Christ in its center coming into our hearts. And Christ is filling up our hearts, and shining so brightly that there is no more night, and feeding all those tiny pockets that are yearning for peace, and Christ is building up some protection against hopelessness, and despair, and evil, so that they can’t enter. With every breath in, just keep imagining your heart opening up and Christ coming in.

If you feel at peace, even for a small moment, know that this is the peace of Christ, the peace that passes all understanding. This is the peace that Jesus gives to you, that Jesus leaves with you.

And if you didn’t feel any peace, that’s okay. I invite to keep trying, every day this week, even just five minutes a day, wherever you find yourself (maybe not in your car waiting for a red light to change), but really anywhere, and let Christ into your heart, and eventually, sooner or later, he will come. This I believe.

The peace of Christ doesn’t mean we deny the reality we live in. But this peace does let us live with the facts of our reality without being troubled. Which frees us to act in hope and trust to create a new future. I’ll remind you, since we are in Easter, that resurrection life never looks like the old life… Christ’s future that we are acting for is not going to look like what it did before, we are never going back to pre-pandemic times or to the good old days … but again, do not let your hearts be troubled by that. Because Christ is here, in the heart of every person here and at home, and Christ will bring us through this moment to the next, and the next, and the next. But we don’t have to wait for the glory of Christ to be revealed, it is revealed now, in our hearts, and it is also real. Thanks be to God, amen.