| May 20, 2007
You are Welcome to Reflect on this message
On Sunday morning a great division takes place among the American people: some go to church but most stay home. Those who stay home aren't taking a day off. Church is just not a part of their lives. To the majority around here, it must seem peculiar -- to gather in this Meeting House week after week, in the face of a plain, historical wall to declare things we can't prove about a God we can't see! Our word for it is “worship.” We don’t have to justify it, thanks to Roger Williams, but if you do something often enough you begin to count on it. It’s a good habit to have because it’s how we learn where we fit in this world; how we learn who we are and what we're supposed to be doing. It may baffle our skeptical friends and neighbors; going against the grain--proclaiming good news when there’s mostly bad news, trusting the light when the sky’s so dark, continuing to wait on a Savior, when all the evidence suggests that he packed-up and left a long time ago.
Which brings us to this unusual day on the church calendar, Ascension Sunday. From the Mount of Olives over 2000 years ago. There Jesus spoke for the last time, and said goodbye for good. In the 1st chapter of the Book of Acts, one minute Jesus is with them, the next he’s gone; vanishing into the sky like the end of a dream, too good to be true. The Ascension story declares that Jesus of Nazareth is no longer physically present among us. He's past history now, and a memory that still haunts us. Going full circle, the church says he went back to heaven--which isn’t up, as much as beyond. And he went there to finish what he started.
Through him God was born into the world. But the ascension declares he was borne back to God. In his freshly resurrected body, scars and all, to be seated at the right hand of God in glory. At his ascension--Jesus imported flesh and blood into the holy precincts for the 1st time ever. The ascension is so anti-Divinci code; anti-gnostic; which is “in” these days. Because if Jesus ascended bodily into heaven, then flesh and blood is good, not bad. And if it's good enough for heaven, it ought to be good enough for earth. The church rightly ties the ascension to the incarnation, because Jesus not only brings God to us; he also brings us to God! And if that doesn't make the ascension come alive for you, I don't know what will. But it’s not very compelling because it has little to do with everyday experience as we know it. Almost everything else that happened to Jesus makes sense. He was born to a human mother. So were we. He ate and drank, sweat in the day and slept at night. So do we. He loved people, got mad at them, forgave them. So should we. He cried. We cry. He died; we will too. He rose from the dead. Easter gives us hope. But ascending into heaven, to be seated at God's right hand? Well that's where we part company with Jesus. That's where he leaves us standing in the dust, staring into the sky in sheer amazement.
Luke ends his gospel by telling us the disciples returned to Jerusalem with hope. And I expect it’s true. But remember their memory’s still fresh. Running on adrenaline. They even thought he'd be back in a day or two, or next week, maybe the end of the month at the latest. It’s been 2000 years now, and we tend to see the ascension a little differently. Still waiting, we are. But he isn't here anymore, not the way he used to be. Anybody who’s lost a loved one understands it. Except they went down. Jesus went up! Ascension Sunday is the day the present Lord became absent, the day he really left us behind, which is why it’s the most forgotten day of the Church Year. It’s supposed to be observed on Thursday, but I slipped it into our Sunday worship because I think it's important. To celebrate being left behind? Why mark the day that Jesus went out of the world, never to be seen again? Why have funerals? I think you know. We hunger for God’s presence in the midst of his absence. Or is that really the reason, underneath all the other reasons, why we're here? Because we've had too much of God's absence--in our dark nights of loneliness, irrational evil, unanswered prayers. And those things keep a lot of folks away from church. But with ya’ll, is it one reason we come to church...to seek the presence we've been missing.
I think absence is underrated. It's not just something to be avoided, because it can be beneficial. My wife’s away down in Tennessee and I miss her a lot. When somebody important is away from me, it becomes clearer than ever what she means to me. Details that get lost in our togetherness are recalled in our apartness. The quirks that drive you crazy at close range become endearing from a distance. From an enlarged perspective, those are the things that make somebody someone and not just anyone. One thing’s for sure: there is no sense of absence where there’s been no sense of presence. What makes absence hurt is the memory of what was, but no longer is. That part of the ascension we can relate to. Absence is the arm flung across your pillow in the middle of the night -- the lonely spot where a beloved sleeper used to lay. Absence is the kid's room now empty because they grew up and left home, like they’re supposed to do. Absence is the overgrown lot where the old house you were raised in once stood...where everybody laughed and thought their happiness was going to last forever.
Last week I sent a friend a URL of the NY Times article describing Al Sharpton’s debate with Christopher Hitchens about the existence of God. A preacher vs. an atheist. Course I agreed with the preacher. But it upset my friend because it reminded her that she used to believe like Hitchens. So she logged onto our website archives for relief. I swear it’s the truth! I was intrigued and asked her which week did she log onto, so I might use it on somebody else. And she said “Oh any of ‘em will do. I just needed my faith reinforced.” I tried to assure her that the fact that she was upset was a good sign, because you can’t miss what you never knew. It’s the best proof that we knew God once, and that we can know him again. Which helps us make sense of our absence--and especially our sense of God's absence. There’s loss in absence but there’s also hope, because what happened once can happen again. Only an empty cup can be filled. That's why it's only when we acknowledge the bleakness, that things can change.
So it could be our sense of absence that brings us to church in search of God's presence. I don't know. Like a band of forlorn disciples, returning to the hillside from where he departed, like people going to the cemeteries next weekend, because even in the absence, we need a place where we can remember. "Why do ya’ll stand around looking up toward heaven?" That’s what those two guys in white robes said to the disciples on Mt. Olivet, Luke says, trying not to scare anybody. But you can bet they’re angels, sent to remind God's friends that if they wanted to see Jesus again, there's no use looking up!
Better that they should look around instead. Look at each other, at the world, and the ordinary people in their everyday lives, because that's where they’re most likely to find him. Not in the way they used to know him, but the new way; not in his own body but in their bodies; not in outer space, but in inner peace. Because the risen, ascended Lord is no longer anywhere on earth, so that he could be everywhere else instead. And you know, I doubt that anybody watching them that day could’ve guessed that anything momentous occurred when they stopped looking into the sky and began to look at one another. On the surface, it wasn't a notable moment: eleven abandoned disciples standing around with nothing to show for their efforts of the past three years.
But in the days and years to come it would become apparent what happened to them. With nothing but a promise and a prayer, and 2 guys in white clothing, those eleven disciples consented to become the Christian Church. And nothing was ever the same again! Doubters became believers. Followers became leaders, listeners became preachers, converts became missionaries, the healed became healers, disciples became apostles, witnesses of the risen Lord by the power of the Spirit of God. And nothing was ever the same again!
That probably was not the way they would’ve planned it. If they had their way, no doubt they would’ve tied Jesus down, so that he could never get away from them; so they’d know where they could always find him and rely on him as long as they lived. Only that's not how it happened. Jesus left us behind. (There are books about us leaving others behind, but biblical theology has Jesus leaving everybody behind). He ascended into heaven and there they stood, looking up. Then they stopped looking up into heaven and started looking around at each other, and got on with the business of being the church. And once they did that, surprising things started to happen. They began to say things that sounded like him. And do things that nobody but him had ever done. Suddenly they became brave and capable and wise. Whenever "two or three of them got together" it was always as if Somebody else was with them, whom they could not see. They felt the strong, abiding presence of their absent Lord, as available to them as bread and wine, as familiar to them as each other's faces.
It’s like Jesus expanded more than ascended. So that all the holiness that was once concentrated in his limited physical presence, now flew around all over the place! It's what the church calls “Spirit.” The seeds of heaven, flying around, being sown in every field on earth. Yeah, we go to church to worship, to acknowledge the Lord's absence and to seek the Lord's presence, to sing and pray, to be silent and to be reflect upon the upside-down values of Christ. But that doesn’t keep us from longing for the assurance that we've not been left behind? "Then why do you stand looking up into heaven?" Look around, my brothers and sisters. Look around.
Prayer: Forgive us Lord, that we should boast of finding your kingdom anywhere else but within us. Help us not to be navel-gazers, rather let us become effective "witnesses of these things." Push aside the interior clutter in our souls that demand our time, attention, and effort and let us walk with you, informed and empowered by your gracious Spirit. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen. Back |
