It's hard to believe, but here we are nearly through the season of Lent, already preparing for Passion Week. In just a few short weeks ETSS and LSPS seniors will have survived three years of seminary studies, and we will enter the world transformed, with the intention of proclaiming and naming the glory of God.

Meanwhile, all of us here at ETSS and LSPS live in an in-between time. In-between times are often times of apprehension, times of waiting, and times of fear. Living in the in-between time is not necessarily a good time! They can even be dangerous times when we are tempted to give into our fears, and seek the easy paved path of human glory, and not the challenging slippery trail, which leads to the glory of God. The paved path asks us only to be concerned about appearances, but the slippery trail requires us to openly profess and live our faith.

This afternoon's Gospel selection from John reflects an in-between time in the evangelist's story about the Lord of Glory: Jesus Christ. We are at the end of chapter 12, where a mishmash of ideas and responses and final signs and wonders and soliloquies of Jesus come together in a tangled mess. Many commentaries say about these verses that this is a wrapping up of the first half of the Gospel with the main characters: the believers, the non-believers, and our star: Jesus, having their final say before moving on to the instruction of the disciples at the Passover supper and the Passion of Christ. In-between posturings -- not exactly exciting or easy fodder for preaching!

"Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him" (Jn 12:37). The evangelist wants us to know that signs should have been enough to bring about belief, but despite miraculous proof, some of the people still refused to see -- but that's O.K., because Isaiah prophesied that this would happen. Why was it so important to the Johanine community to tell the story of Jesus with those who were in, and those who were out? Those who saw and believed, and those who saw and rejected?

Perhaps what is going on here in the world behind the text is a sorting out of how the Johanine community ended up living in an in-between time themselves. The community itself was made up in part by Jews, as well as Samaritans and Gentiles, but their place in the synagogue perhaps was not clear. Some believers according to the text were afraid to be put out of the synagogue, and others were not. It's hard to say exactly what was going on in this early Johanine community at the time of the writing of this gospel, some sixty years after the death and resurrection of Christ. One thing is for sure: fear abounds and professing one's belief in Jesus as the Messiah may come with a heavy price.

The evangelist proclaims that in-between times call for decisive action. The Gospel of John, for all its dualistic language that has historically been used to decide who is in and who is out, who is saved, and who is not, can certainly not be accused of presenting an indecisive message to believers.

"Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God" (John 12:42-43).

What does it look like to be a Church in in-between times? How do we remain a true community of Christ in the face of our fears and our quests for human glory over the glory of God?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote extensively about Christian community in his book Life Together. This book was written at an in-between time in his life. He had left Germany in 1933 for England, refusing to participate in the "German-Christian" compromise. Then in 1935 Bonhoeffer accepted a call from the Confessing Church to be the head of an "illegal" clandestine seminary in Germany. During this time he became more sure of the call of the Christian to accept his or her "responsibility as a citizen of this world" wherever they have been placed by God (Doberstien, John W. Intro to Life Together). Bonhoeffer was in the United States briefly in 1939 and his colleagues and friends pleaded with him to stay as a scholar, but he refused, returning one last time to Germany where he would ultimately be imprisoned and executed for his refusal to compromise his calling as a Christian in the face of evil.

Life in an illegal, underground seminary was definitely a time of uncertainty and fear. It was also a time when what makes a community Christian became very clear to the students and professors. Bonhoeffer wrote "Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves" (Life Together 26-27). A "wish dream" is not a bad thing in itself, but when it keeps us from realizing what true community in the glory of God is, then we fall into a pattern of niceness for the sake of niceness, of certainty and pride in our own perspectives, and of seeking approval from one another so that we may bask in our own glorious construct of community. This sort of behavior may reflect the status quo of our society, but it will not sustain a community of Christ, because there is no room for Christ's glory to be revealed.

Today we remember the martyrdom of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4th, 1968. Fear of being rejected by the status quo American Church was not a deterrent for Dr. King. He expected to be rejected, but certainly did not expect to be shocked, saddened and dismayed when the rejection came from his own colleagues. On April 16th, 1963 he wrote an open letter from a Birmingham jail in response to eight prominent "liberal" Alabama clergymen who had published their own open letter earlier that year urging King to allow the fight for desegregation to continue in the court systems. They were concerned that the non-violence resistance movement would incite civil disturbances.

King wrote in his letter from a jail cell in Birmingham: "…I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say that as one of the negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say it as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen…I felt that the white ministers, priests, and rabbis of the South would be some of our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of the stained-glass windows" ("Letter from a Birmingham Jail" I have a Dream 95-96).

How often have we too sat in the safety of the sanctuary, peering out through stained-glass windows seeing that something is wrong outside our community, but preferring to believe that everything is all right inside our community and consequently taking no action? And there is something very wrong going on right outside the doors of this chapel. The local news this past Thursday evening showed a report on hundreds of high school students in the Austin area who left their classes to walk to the state capitol to protest and raise awareness of issues around immigration reform. The students from Del Valle High School walked 15 miles to do this. The media would like us to believe that these students were merely reacting to similar protests they saw happening throughout Texas, in L.A., and other parts of the country.

However, it seems these students were reacting to something much more than other student protests. Illegal immigration to the United States, particularly from Mexico and Latin America, has reached a state of crisis that our society can no longer ignore, and our churches absolutely cannot ignore this reality any longer. In this sanctuary our cross is deliberately placed outside, and when one sits in this sanctuary one must seek to place their body in such a way to see the cross, in order to be reminded of the call of the cross. In in-between times like today we are often silent, and unsure of ourselves, and more concerned about what others will think about us, than we are about what the cross is calling this community to be and do. Why are we silent? Are we also afraid of speaking up and following the Lord of Glory for fear of being thrown out of the synagogue?

The issues around immigration reform are varied and complex and I will not try to present them to you today. But I do issue a call to all of us to wake up! To pay attention to what is going on beyond these stained glass windows! The leaders of the American churches have begun to do just this. Archbishop Mahoney of the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently wrote in an editorial letter to the New York Times that "Denying aid to a fellow human being violates a law with a higher authority than Congress -- the law of God" (3/22/06). He went on to say that the church daily sees the "baleful consequences" of illegal immigration, and does not support it, but rather supports an overhaul of the immigration system in the United States. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church recently published a pastoral letter to be read in all churches titled "The Sin of Racism: A Call to Covenant" (3/22/06). One of the actions specifically called for in this document is to "advocate for compassionate care of the stranger in our midst, and demand just immigration policies."

WE are leaders in the Church as well! As in-between as this time in seminary may feel right now, before we know it we are on our way to the parish and on our way to becoming recognized leaders of the larger community. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King were seminarians once themselves. And when the times in which they lived called for change, they were ready to accept the challenge. Are you ready? I encourage all of us to prepare ourselves for ministry not just in our studies, but as active participants in the Body of Christ in the world. We need to educate ourselves on the laws regarding immigration reform. We should gather together to discuss and better understand these issues. The reason we would do all of this is to make Christ's glory known in an in-between time of uncertainty and fear.

My prayer for us all is that as we enter the time of the Passion of the Lord of Glory that we may not live in fear, but in hope, always keeping the cross in our sight and in our hearts. Amen.