It’s about you – It’s about me – It’s about us
Faith is one part hope, one part imagination, and in many
ways beyond explanation. Give it to Luke – Luke gives us not one, but two
imaginings of just how the Risen Christ Jesus departed once and for all. One
view at the end of the Gospel and one at the beginning of Acts. We call it the
Ascension. In both he gives final instructions which instructions make clear
that his Ascension ultimately is all about us. It’s all about you. It’s all
about me.
The genius of Luke is that he, or she, tries to make the
final Act of the Gospel, and the first Act of the Book of Acts appear to be
about Jesus, with not one, but two possible scenarios of just how the Christ’s
departure from this world may have looked like. Luke goes so far as to imagine
the resurrection, the appearances, first to two companions on the way home,
then to them again along with the rest of the crowd of disciples in Jerusalem,
and finally his departure all on the same day: Easter. Then Luke imagines in
Acts that the Risen Christ went on an appearances tour after the resurrection
for the Biblical period of forty days (which means more than one lunar cycle),
and THEN took off for parts unknown, but assumed to be at the right-hand of God.
So, which was it? All in one day? Or, forty days later? Luke
knows what we all know – nobody knows. Nobody knows any more than one day the
tomb was empty and people experienced him walking down a country road, breaking
bread at a table, and eating fish to try and convince the often clueless disciples
to at demonstrate that ghosts don’t eat fish! At the end of the day, it does
not matter if it was one day, or forty, or even more, because the story as Luke
tells it is not about Jesus. It is a story about us. About you. About me. And,
what we call the Ascension is a hinge, a moment in time, between one period of
time and another – it is that moment between the time of Jesus and the time of
what has come to be known as The Church.
The Ascension is a Rite of Passage. Jesus had done all that
was possible to do over several years to not simply demonstrate, but rather to
actually live what it means to be created in the image of God his Father. The
God of the Covenant who is repeatedly depicted as merciful, compassionate,
forgiving, and caring. Jesus came to show that these qualities of God his
Father were not abstractions, but rather ways of Being that are meant to shape
the fabric of our lives. Lives that hope for mercy, compassion, forgiveness and
care, but lives that often have a difficult time Being merciful, compassionate,
forgiving and caring. Even worse, we often run away from those who try to love
us out of such God-like qualities. Which is what I suspect is meant by the
“sins of the world” – our resistance to God’s love for us which is mediated by
others just like us. Sometimes we just do not allow ourselves to believe that
God might really love us. Which is why God sent us Jesus as God’s little
demonstration project!
It’s like the other day when I looked out at our pool which
has been drained for repairs. I thought I saw something huddled against the far
side and went to get a closer look. It was a fledged Mocking Bird who could not
fly out. I got the skimmer net hoping he might hop on so I could lift him out,
but instead he ran away to the other side of the pool where, lo and behold,
there was another fledge also stranded. And who also ran away from my attempts
at rescue. I was getting frustrated, and they were good at escaping my best
intentions for them. It struck me all of a sudden – this must be what God feels
like trying to rescue us and embrace us with all of God’s mercy, compassion,
forgiveness and care. Jesus even said God his Father is like a Mother Hen
trying to gather all her chicks under her protective wings. Three get under her
wings, and two more squirt out! Jesus experienced this all first-hand. “Who said
you could heal a blind man on the Sabbath?” they said. “Who said you could
allow people to pluck grain to make some bread on the Sabbath?” they said.
Jesus must have felt frustrated with all the resistance to God’s love for every
single one of us.
Enter his final words. His final play. His final plan to
rescue humankind from itself and gather us back under the Mother Hen God’s
wings. His final instructions after eating some fish go like this, "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."
It’s brilliant! Get the recalcitrant chicks to gather one
another back under the wings of our merciful, compassionate, forgiving, and
caring God! We are to be witnesses of these things: repentance and forgiveness,
which is turning back to God and accepting God’s love. God works through us.
Scenario Two in Acts – Forty days after the resurrection
from the dead, once again he is with the disciples – and they want to know when
he will overturn Rome and restore the monarchy of King David. ‘He replied,
"It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by
his own authority. But 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." When he had said this, as they were
watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.’
Translation: you will be my witnesses to the ends of the Earth! You will be
given power from on high. And as I have said elsewhere, you will continue to do
the things I do, and greater things than these! Brilliant once more! Note,
however, they just stand there gazing into the sky until two characters dressed
in white chide them: Don’t just stand there, get going and do what he said.
Do we get it? God is going to do God’s work of mercy,
compassion, forgiveness, and care no longer through one man, but through all of
us together. Knowing that we cannot do it all by ourselves, God will endow us
with powers to succeed. And people will say when we feed them, or welcome them,
for care for them out of God’s love and forgiveness, they will say, “You must
have been sent by God. I thought I was on my own all this time, and here you
are to rescue me, and accept me, and serve the Christ that is in me, and love
me in all the ways that make me feel whole again!”
Instead of Jesus being God’s one-man demonstration project,
Jesus commissions us all to be his Body on Earth – what the Episcopal Church
calls the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (DFMS). DFMS is the official
name of the church first adopted by the special General Convention of 1821 and
incorporated by the New York State legislature. In 1835 the General Convention
adopted a new constitution which made membership in the society no longer
voluntary but inclusive of all the baptized in the Episcopal Church. We are all
domestic and foreign missionaries. This is exactly what Jesus had in mind on
that day he Ascended to return to the household of God’s merciful and
compassionate and forgiving Love. Jesus imagined that together we could reach
out in Love to rescue more of the whole world, empowered by his Father’s love.
The Feast of the Ascension is about you. It’s about me. It’s
about us. It’s about Being the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. It’s
about being the Love that is all around! It’s about accepting God’s power of
Love and loving others – all others. All of the time. To the ends of the Earth.
It’s a miracle. As one wag put it, God’s wrath is God’s relentless compassion,
pursuing us even when we are at our worst. It will take imagination to do this
work to which we are called. And hard work. But we will finally Be, finally
act, as if we are truly created in the image of God.
Oh yeah, about those fledged Mocking Birds. I devised a way
to trap them between the net and the soft vinal side-wall of the pool and
gently, slowly, brought them up to safety, much to Mother Mocking Bird’s relief!
It feels good to reach out and rescue others – for it rescues a little
something inside of ourselves at the same time. Amen.
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