Sermon for May 13, 2018 – Ascension Day Lessons
Jesus
said to his disciples, "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." Then he opened their minds to
understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that
the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that
repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all
nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And 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."
Then
he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them.
While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into
heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and
they were continually in the temple blessing God.
Today we are celebrating the feast of the Ascension rather than
the seventh Sunday of Easter. The Feast
of the Ascension always falls on a Thursday – 40 days after Easter Day as the
scriptures tell us. We are a little
literalistic in the setting of the feast day – in my humble opinion. I say that because it means that many people
do not celebrate this important feast. A
feast that is important enough to be part of the consecration prayer in form A
that says “recalling his death, resurrection, and ascension,
we offer you these gifts.” An important
feast that many do not celebrate unless you happen to belong to a parish that
celebrates daily Eucharist – which is
rare outside of cathedrals – or if you read the daily office – a good thing to
do! So today we have decided to
celebrate the feast of the Ascension.
Today is also a day I would love to rearrange the reading of the
lessons. The reading form the Acts of
the Apostles should come after the Gospel Reading. The Acts of the Apostles – the second book – could
also just as easily have been called the Gospel of Luke – book 2, or perhaps in
our age of movies we could call it the Gospel according to Luke – the
sequel!
Our Gospel reading comes at the very end of the Gospel of
Luke. Jesus, after his, his resurrection
has been appearing to the disciples – in various settings. Just before this reading he has traveled the
road to Emmaus explaining the scriptures to two of the disciples and opening
their eyes in the breaking of the bread.
He has appeared to the disciples who, at times are afraid thinking him a
ghost. Jesus keeps showing up post
resurrection to try and open the eyes and the hearts of his followers. And now he appears to them in the flesh one
last time. Jesus again opens the
scriptures to them and declares that, because the scriptures have been
fulfilled they are called to go out and declare repentance to all of the world –
not just to the Jews, not just to the inhabitants of Israel – but to all the
world. Both Jew’s and Gentiles. Not people just like them. But to all the world. To all of God’s beloved children.
Jesus then tells the disciples that they will receive the
spiritual gift that he has promised and while blessing them one final time he
is ascended into heaven. He is taken
away while they are watching him. This
scripture has wonderful imagery and has spawned some wonderful – and sometimes
quite whimsical art. There is a window
at St. Paul’s of Jesus ascending into heaven standing on a cloud. One of my favorite images is carved into a
boss at York Minster in England. A boss
is a key stone that holds the ribs of a vaulted stone ceiling together. This particular boss has heads of the
disciples in a circle looking up at the bottom of a pair of feet – the feet of
Jesus ascending into heaven.
Jesus has empowered his followers to bring the kingdom of God to
fruition. Jesus has fulfilled the law
and the prophets – and left us with two simple commandments in their
place. That we are to Love God with all
our heart, mind, soul and strength. And
that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.
So simple and yet so hard at times.
After this revelation the disciples we hear spent much time in
the temple blessing God. They do not
start a new church. No they go to the
thin place where they experience God – the temple. And this is where the Acts of the Apostles
picks up the story. With Luke telling
Theophilus a summary of the first book – the one we call the Gospel of
Luke. And foreshadowing the feast we
will celebrate next week – the coming of the Holy Spirit to really get the
disciples out of the locked room and working to forgive all nations. Luke then restates the end of the Gospel with
the ascension. But he adds that in the
final encounter the disciples asked a final question. “Was this the time?” Was this the time that God’s avenging army
was going to come and bring the kingdom of God to fruition. Was this the time God would throw off the
Roman Empire? Even after everything Jesus had taught them. Even after the crucifixion and resurrection
they still wanted God to change the world for them. They still don’t get that God wants nothing
more than for us to work to bring that kingdom to fruition. That he is not going to send an avenging army
to do the work. And Jesus also tells
them that the final kingdom will come in God’s time. Not our time.
Jesus once again promises that the gift of the Holy Spirit will
come once he is gone. A radical
gift. That God will give us the presence
of the Holy Spirit to empower us to bring about God’s Kingdom. While it is tempting to go more into the Holy
Spirit I will save that for next week when we remember God’s great gift to
us. The gift of the continuous presence
of God in our lives.
But for now we celebrate that when Jesus was done with his
earthly ministry he returned to the Godhead.
And we can be thankful that our God became incarnate and walked among
us. We can be thankful that God came not
with an avenging army to cleanse the earth.
But God came as a vulnerable baby.
God came and walked with us. God
came and experienced humanity with us.
God came and experienced all of our human emotions. God experienced love, joy, peace, sorrow,
pain and even death. God as fully human
and fully divine experience the best and the worst that we humans have to
offer.
God as Jesus certainly experienced the worst of humanity. The part of humanity that sees the other as
the outcast. The part of humanity that
enslaves others. The part of humanity
that destroys creation rather than builds it up. God certainly experienced enough of the dark
side of our humanity in his death that an avenging army of angels might have
been called for!
But God also experienced the best of humanity. God in Jesus
experienced the love of his mother as a baby.
He experienced the love of good friends.
He experienced the joy of sharing meals together. He experienced the best we have to offer when
we accept the other as beloved. Beloved
of us and beloved of God. And it is that
best that Jesus offers as the fruition of the Kingdom of God. It is this part of our humanity that keeps
God from sending an avenging army. It is
that part that Jesus tells us to keep doing.
We are to keep offering unasked for forgiveness to those who hurt
us. We are to keep welcoming those that
we see as “the other” in our midst as beloved of children of God and as worthy
of our Love just as God loves them. We
are to love, and when necessary offer forgiveness to, the refugee, the
immigrants, the sick, the prisoner, the hungry all as beloved of children of
God. When we are able to do this we see
God’s kingdom come to fruition here.
Now. When we feed the hungry on
this campus through River City food bank we see God’s reign on earth. When we see the immigrant being taught at the
charter high school on this campus so that they can flourish in this country we
see God’s kingdom on earth. When we
worship God in this place Sunday after Sunday we see God’s Kingdom breaking
into our hearts.
I find it sad that these days the messages I hear from some of
our leaders are opposite to the message of Jesus. When we malign the foreigner, the sick, the
LGBTQ, the asylum seeker, women, or any of God’s beloved creation we will, if
we listen, hear God’s sorrow. Our
commission from God is to call out the sin of exclusion, the sin of misogyny,
the sin of various phobias as the sins that they are. And then we are to offer God’s bountiful
forgiveness to those who turn around.
This commandment to Love God and Love each other is not
easy. It is hard. But there is good news here too. The Good News is we are not doing this alone. We have a companion who helps us. A companion who we will celebrate next week
on Pentecost!
Amen
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