The 1^st United Methodist Church of Napa

May 28, 2006

The 7^th Sunday of Easter – "Ascension Sunday"

Scripture Readings:

New Testament – Acts 1: 1-11¹

¹In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning ²until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. ³After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. ⁴While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; ⁵for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

⁶So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” ⁹When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ¹⁰While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. ¹¹They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Gospel – Luke 24: 44-53²

⁴⁴Then [Jesus] said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

⁵⁰Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. ⁵¹While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. ⁵²And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; ⁵³and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

"What on Earth Are You Doing for Heaven's Sake?"

Some years ago a clergyman told the story of a rabbi who one day announced to his congregation that the messiah had come. Of course the members of his synagogue were shocked and began to protest in disbelief, because hunger, warfare, disease, homelessness, and all kinds of abuse and suffering were still going on, challenging this rabbi's sanity. To all of this his response was, "Yes, yes, I know. We're still working out some of the details."³

From our perspective the rabbi was right: the messiah has come (and gone), and we've been left to work out the details. Our job as the body of Christ, the church, is to let everybody know that he has come and then to carry on, as best we can, doing what Jesus was doing. As unbelievable and anachronistic as the legend of the "ascension" is, it still could be used as a reminder to us of the real power that you and I have been given. Now it's up to us to be living the kind of lives that we're supposed to be living in his name.

If those first disciples didn't get it; maybe they just weren't detail people! Luke seems to suggest that they were more interested in the big picture (and the important roles that they were to have in it!): restoration of the kingdom to Israel – with all of the triumphs and trappings that that would imply. Is that why they got it wrong?

Jesus had been telling them all along that he wasn't looking for administrative functionaries or political assistants, but for witnesses – the word martus in Greek implies people who would take the time to proclaim to the rest of the world what they'd seen and heard about Jesus.⁴ So why are they standing around looking up into the sky? Jesus has told them that he'd give them everything that they needed to be able to do what they needed to do.

The situation hasn't changed. As we give ourselves over completely – with open hearts, open minds and open doors⁵ – to the work of being Christians, we will experience the presence and power of Jesus in our midst. That's what the "ascension" is about – and that's all that it's about. As we will experience next Sunday, on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was let loose in Jerusalem. But even Jerusalem couldn't contain it. It's bigger than Israel. It's bigger than Judaism. It's even bigger than the church and its version of Christianity.

Because of this day, not only are we commanded to pray for peace, but we've been empowered to do something about peace. Not only are we to pray for the hungry, but we've been empowered to feed them. Not only are we to pray for the oppressed and the victims of violence, but we've been empowered to end such cycles of captivity in ways that will bring a kind of shalom⁶ that is far beyond anything that the world has ever offered or known before.⁷ To be a Christian means that wherever we find signs that the love and teachings of Jesus have not been acknowledged, we're to be witnesses and workers until they have.

So there must've been at least one troubling and recurring question in the hearts and minds of those who heard the story of Jesus from these first disciples: "Where is your 'risen Lord,' this Jesus of Nazareth? You tell us that he spoke to the women in the garden, that he visited you in a room behind locked doors, that he ate fish with you on the beach, walked from Jerusalem to Emmaus and broke bread with you. When can I meet him, grasp his hand, talk to him? Where is he now?"

How would you answer those questions?

For five years Deanna had been the only grandchild and the center of attention at family gatherings. Her favorite times had been those times that she'd spent with her grandfather, who spent hours playing all sorts of games with her, teaching her to ride a bicycle and roller skate, but especially, telling her stories. After the first of her cousins was born, Deanna was jealous and a bit disappointed to see that her grandfather was equally attentive to his new grandchild.

But, sadly, a few months after her second cousin was born, Deanna's grandfather died. During the family gathering that followed after the memorial service, Deanna was nowhere to be seen. Searching the house, her father found her upstairs next to her cousin's crib. "Where have you been?" her father asked her. "I'm telling the new baby some of grandpa's stories," she replied, "because he's not here anymore to do it himself."

A grandfather's love and his stories lived on in a little girl named Deanna; and it wouldn't be long before a cousin understood those stories – and that love – as well. "You are witnesses of these things."⁸ The full revelation of Jesus, as the Christ, didn't seem to make sense to his followers, until he leaves them – bodily. Only then are they inspired with meaning, only then do they begin to understand that his mission was meant to be embodied in them.

For all children, I think, the sight of a lost kite or cherished helium balloon soaring up into the sky brings desperate tears and a wrenching sense of loss. The moment when that string slips out of a tiny hand generates a level of hurt and astonishment not unlike those same feelings experienced by the disciples when Jesus was taken away from them. In that instant the thing that had seemed the very essence of hope and possibility, of power-by-association, of joy…can't be seen anymore. It's gone, moved beyond even their imagination's capacity to grasp it. Now what? You don't get another Jesus as easily as you can another balloon!

One preacher (who must love the ocean as much as I do!) expressed the meaning of the "ascension" for himself in terms of how the tide came and went across the shoreline. Jesus had swept into the lives of his followers like the sea sweeping across the sand. Then he left like the receding tide. But he had changed them, just as the tide changes the shoreline, making things look different, rearranging the sand, the shells, even the tiny sea creatures that live along the shore. The tide changes things in other ways: it brings food for marine crustaceans, which in turn become food for sea birds, while still leaving space for people to launch their kayaks, or walk between the lines of sprawled out sun worshipers and the ever moving sea.

Okay, so it isn't perfect, but it's better than balloons!

"Men of Galilee," the messenger asks, "why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" Becoming a sign of the creative power of God let loose in their midst demands that the disciples begin to look at the world around them, instead of up toward the sky ("It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's…!). They've got to do that in at least two ways. First, they've got to celebrate the signs of God wherever they happen. It reminds me of the lines from Paul's letter to the Christians at Philippi:

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, take account of these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.⁹

The overwhelming presence of God is revealed, more often than not, in very ordinary ways – from a summer thunderstorm to a spectacular sunset, from the sound of the wind in the redwoods to the silent shout of life that is a blossoming dandelion, from the utterly delightful giggle of a child to the tears of a lover's joy at receiving an unexpected gift – it's all good; it's all of God.

The second way for us to become signs of the creative power of God let loose in the world is to look out for those who are on the margins – indeed, some of whom have even fallen out of sight. We've got to become the transportation bringing groceries to the homebound, the eyes to read for those who cannot see, the voice crying out against injustice for those whose voices have been taken away.

All of this looking around instead of just up does a really strange thing to this event that we celebrate today and to the characters in it. The ascension didn't just happen in front of those disciples, it happens in us, his disciples now. What these scriptures lessons are meant to do for us is to bring us in touch with who we are and what we're called to do right now. We're the ones who've got to quit staring open-mouthed up into the sky and look at the people and things that are just a little closer at hand.¹⁰ I've wondered how Luke, the storyteller, might express what we've read today in more contemporary language. How could I rephrase his advice so that we might hear it again, but as if for the very first time? How about putting together two clichés and making it a very pointed question: "What on earth are you doing for heaven's sake?"

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