The Real World - John 17:6-19

I came of age in the 1990’s, when MTV was on the rise. MTV was a channel on cable television dedicated to pop culture, specifically music and music videos, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that I was obsessed. I rushed home from middle school to catch the daily music video countdown. I knew all of the celebrity dating rumors. And once a week, I finished my homework extra early, so that I could watch my favorite show, that early trail blazer of reality television, The Real World. 

The premise of the The Real World was simple. Seven young adults from across the country with various backgrounds lived together in a house for three months, and their life together was filmed. The show got its name because the interactions and relationships were “real” and unscripted. The candid conversations - and arguments - created a sense of drama that drew us in as viewers. Ironically, in those early seasons, the cast members’ lives were quite removed from what we would consider the real world. This was before cell phones and home computers, so the housemates often missed important national and global news during those three months, and frequently expressed sadness and frustration at being disconnected from their friends and families back home. However, in interviews after recording had ended, many participants reported experiencing a tough transition back into the actual real world. 

It would be several years before I had a comparable experience in my own life, but I would later learn that navigating the transition from one “world” to another is something all of us face from time to time. Summer camp was an early example for me. It was hard to say goodbye to that idyllic week of love and play and head home to something so much more mundane. Those of us who attended residential colleges can also relate to this phenomenon. Being thrust out of academia and into the work force can be tough. Perhaps the most dreaded move between worlds is coming back from vacation, or a honeymoon, or a sabbatical. But these days, we are all experiencing the clunky transition out of quarantine and isolation, back into the world outside our own bubble.

It has its ups and downs. We missed our friends and families, we missed sharing meals, live music, and travel. We missed church! We’re ready to feel free and at ease and connected again. But there are reasons to be hesitant. Many of us wonder how we can be sure we’re safe. Others have found joy and solace in some of our quarantine routines. I imagine most of us do not want to go back to being as busy and exhausted as we were before. So which is the better world, the intentional, slow-paced world of quarantine, or the frenetic world of society and commerce? Is it possible to bridge the two?

Remarkably, our Gospel passage on this Sunday after the Ascension speaks to this very tension. The author uses the word kosmos, or, world, no less than 13 times in this passage. And frankly, all 13 uses are pretty confusing. “I am no longer in the world but they are in the world.” “They do not belong to the world just as I do not belong in the world.” “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” What are we to make of this? Are we meant to embrace or reject the world we find ourselves in? What’s the difference between the world we inhabit and the place that Christ now exists? And again, can we bridge the two? 

Although this portion of scripture comes before the passion and resurrection in the narrative, in our lectionary, this chapter of John always comes between Ascension and Pentecost. And I think this in-between space we find ourselves in can offer a clue about our conundrum of worlds. After Jesus ascends into heaven, the forty day “honeymoon” period of the Resurrection comes to an end for the disciples. Jesus has left them for good this time, and as they grieved that loss, I imagine there was some anxiety about leaving behind the beloved community they had created and going back to the way their lives were before Christ called them. 

But the miracle of the Ascension is that it’s not either/or. Christ has not, in fact, left them for good, but is simply with them, and with us, in a different way. Jesus came into this world to usher in another world: the Kingdom of God. But the time came for his followers to leave the nest, as they say. They knew Christ the human, and it was time to know Christ as a divine guide as they took up the work that he had left for them to do. As Kate told us on Ascension Day, it was time for the impact of the resurrection to spread. 

It was up to the disciples and it is now up to us, to sustain that beloved community, to proclaim the Gospel of Resurrection, and work tirelessly to bring out the Kingdom that Christ introduced. The world we find ourselves in may or may not be everything we want it to be, but we have the power, rooted in Christ, to bring the Kingdom to it. That’s the power of the Ascension: just as Christ was present to, and then redeemed, whoever came his way, we now stay present in the world we find ourselves in, but we never stop striving to make it new. 

Thinking back on that first experience of moving between worlds, I remembered some fabulous wisdom I gleaned from a camp counselor. She told me that if I missed camp when I got home, there was nothing stopping me from treating myself and others as though I were still there, surrounded by God’s love and joy. I don’t know if she knew it, but that was Ascension wisdom she gave me. 

That same wisdom helped those early cast members on The Real World find their way into their own real worlds. It helped me bring the joy of camp back to my middle school. It helped the disciples share the Good News of their resurrected Lord with people all over the world. And it will help us navigate this new world we are entering together. 

Although Christ is with us in a different way, he has not left us behind. As we transition from quarantine to a fuller expression of our common life, we don’t have to leave everything behind. We can bring the best of what we’ve learned with us. Maybe we won’t give up our daily walks, even if we’re back in the office. Maybe we’ll stay in touch with the friends we reconnected with over the past year. Maybe we’ll keep some of the prayer practices that helped us through when things were hard. No matter how we bridge these worlds, our task is the same, to bring the Kingdom wherever we find ourselves. That’s where our ascended Lord awaits. Amen.