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Ascension: En Absentia

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FootprintsFIRST LESSON:  Acts 1: 1-11

This passage begins with the first major issue:  Who will do it now?  Who will restore the Kingdom of Israel and restore God’s Kingdom?  But there is an underlying clear assumption that what Jesus began his successors will continue.  The assumption has nothing to do with duty or responsibility, but with sincere devotion to the truth that Jesus conveyed and the deepest desire for that truth to continue being spread throughout the world.  This assumption plays heavily into the way that the Book of Acts is constructed.  It has to do with the way the church and the people of the church pattern their lives after the life of Jesus Christ.

The phrases “through the Holy Spirit” and “the apostles whom Jesus had chosen” introduce that continuity and also introduces a partnership, a community if you will, that is being formed.  The Book of Acts begins with the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the Gospel of Christ and with Christ’s Passion, death, and Resurrection.  The Resurrection of Jesus is a theme of enormous importance for this book.  It testifies to Jesus’ faithfulness to God and confirms him as Lord and Christ.  Acts simply says that Jesus “appeared” to his disciples over an extended period of “forty days”.  There are differing opinions as to what these “forty days” represent.  It may have been a way to fill out the calendar between Easter and the Ascension.  In Old Testament writings, forty often refers to a period of preparation (such as forty years) during which God fully instructs people for their future work.  Essentially, Jesus gathers his followers after Easter to prepare them for their future without him.  His leaving is not abrupt; he has prepared them for his departure.

What we are told here is that waiting for God to act is an individual’s project, but it is also a community project.  Waiting with others is an act of solidarity.  They were joined together in a specific place to await God’s action.  But waiting on the Lord to act is not a passive activity.  They waited by praying, studying together.  Prayers are not offered to solicit God’s benefaction, which they have already experienced, nor to ensure that God would fulfill what is promised them.  Praying demonstrates the importance of unity and the resolve in accomplishing that to which God calls us to accomplish.

When we proclaim the Ascension as part of the Gospel, we are not, as Ronald Cole-Turner says in Feasting on the Word, saying that we believe that Jesus ended his earthly ministry with the equivalent of a rocket launch.  It is, rather, a belief that Jesus Christ ascended to glory.  It is inextricably linked with the Resurrection.  As Jurgen Moltmann put it, “Jesus is risen into the coming Kingdom of God.”  He is raised in power and in glory.  The Ascension is the gathering up of all who are in the Presence of God.  Our lives are suddenly swept into something larger than anything we can possibly imagine.  No longer is Jesus our personal teacher or our private tutor or just our personal savior.  The Kingdom of God is at hand.  And through faith, we, too, are made whole.  The absence of the earthly Jesus leads us to search for a God who is present in the world.

 

1)      What is your response to this passage?

2)      What does it mean to speak of the “absence” of Jesus and the idea that that leads us to search for God?

3)      Where do you find yourself in this story?

 NEW TESTAMENT:  Ephesians 1: 15-23

This passage and the verses that precede it begin with sort of a thanksgiving prayer report.  But lest we spend too much time breathing our collective sighs of relief and thanksgiving, the author (possibly, but not definitely Paul for most scholars) claims that all this would not be successful if the church does not become known to others as a place of faith and mutual love.

This is sort of interesting—the letter begs the question as to how our churches become known for their faith in Jesus.  Is it a matter of reputation or a matter of publicity?  The phrase “with the eyes of your heart enlightened” describes the result of wisdom.  During this time, baptism was typically described as “enlightenment”.  In essence, it is a way of seeing God’s light through the darkness of the world.  But the letter warns its readers not to return to that state of darkness.

The concluding section of this passage is often recognized as the development of a creedal formula.  The audience already knows that Christ serves to mediate God’s gracious blessings from heaven.  Ephesians treats this exaltation of Jesus rather than the cross as the focus of God’s saving and redemptive power.  Ephesians probably does this to drive home a more permanent victory in Christ.

This idea of enlightenment is an interesting one when we think about The Ascension.  Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams tries to explain it in this way:  imagine what it is like when you first wake up in the morning.  When you put on the light, all you are conscious of is the brightness of the light itself.  Only gradually do your eyes adjust sufficiently to the light that you are able to make out other objects.  After a few moments, however, you cease to be conscious of the light itself, and start to see what else is in the room, as it is illumined by the light.  The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, says Williams, show him to have been like that initial morning light; at first Jesus’ resurrected self was so blinding that the disciples could be conscious only of him.  The ascension, however, is that moment when the light itself recedes into the background, so that Jesus becomes the one through whom we see the rest of the world.  (From Feasting on the Word, David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., 2009, “Ascension of the Lord: Ephesians 1: 15-23 Theological Perspective”, by Joseph H. Britton, p. 510-512.)

The whole Resurrection is a restatement of authority, a revisioning of power.  It changes everything.

 1)      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

2)      What does the idea of “the eyes of your heart” being enlightened mean for you?

3)      What message do you think this holds not just for us as individuals but for our churches today?

 GOSPEL:  Luke 24: 44-53

In this passage, the verb for “opened” is the same that was used in the Emmaus story when their eyes were “opened” and the Scriptures were “opened” to them.  But the message of the Scriptures is, of course, not self-evident.  Here, Jesus opens their minds to understand the Scriptures.  Here, the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness of sins is opened to all—to all nations.  The mission, then, will begin in Jerusalem and extend to all nations.  Jerusalem has up until now been the center and focus of the Gospel.

The Lukan Gospel is the only one that chronicles the departure of Jesus.  The Ascension both closes the period of Jesus’ ministry and opens the period of the church’s mission.  The final words of the Gospel lead us to an appropriate response to the gospel of the one who saves, sends, and blesses us.  The disciples received Jesus’ blessing with great joy, they worshiped him and praised God, and they began immediately to do what he had instructed them to do.  Here, then, is the completion of the Gospel drama, the narration of what God has done for us, the challenge of Jesus’ teachings, and the model of those who made a faithful and joyful response.  It is our new beginning.  It is our turn.  Essentially, Jesus has given us the “footprints” in which to walk.  It is not about legislation or rules or “what would Jesus do”; it is about incarnation, about becoming the embodiment of Christ.

Thomas R. Hawkins says it like this:

 For forty days after the resurrection, Jesus remained among the disciples.  He taught, encouraged, and patiently prepared them for what was to come.  “Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them.  While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.” (Luke 24: 50-51)  Suddenly, the disciples were without their guide, their teacher, and their leader.  They no longer had an authority figure in their midst to tell them what to do.  Someone “at the top” no longer could explain everything to them…

They experience an expansion of being, an empowerment.  This empowerment authorizes them for ministry and mission.  They preach the gospel to every race, nation, and tongue already assembled in Jerusalem for the pilgrim feast of Pentecost.  It is an empowerment sparked by acts of inclusion rather than exclusion…Mutuality rather than subordination is the mark of the spirit’s empowerment…

When I was about 13 or 14, my father asked me to ride along with him as he cultivated a field of corn.  It was a tricky job.  The sharp blades of the cultivator had to pass between the rows of corn.  If we had veered a few inches to the left or to the right, we would have plowed out four rows of tender young corn plants.  The John Deere Model 70 did not have power steering, so holding the tractor and cultivator in a straight path was not always easy. 

After a few rounds down the 20-acre field, my father asked me if I would like to try driving.  Reluctantly, I sat down behind the steering wheel, popped the clutch, and took off down the field.  Steering was harder than it looked.  Forty feet of corn, in a four-row swath, were plowed out before I had driven five minutes.  My father gently gave me a few suggestions as I went awkwardly—and destructively—down the field and back.  After a few more rounds, my father asked me to stop the tractor.  I thought he had endured all the pain he could.  The carnage in the corn field was overwhelming.  He would tell me to stop.  I obviously was not controlling the tractor and cultivator.

Instead, my father dropped to the ground and said he had some chores to do in the barn.  I was to finish the field and then come in for lunch.  All morning long, in my father’s absence, I plied my way back and forth across the corn field.  Huge sections of corn were torn out, roots exposed to the drying sun, and stalks prematurely sliced down.  But by noon I learned to handled the tractor and the cultivator.

My father’s absence was a sign to me that he trusted himself and what he taught me.  It also signaled that he trusted me.  His absence was empowering rather than disabling.  It authorized me to trust myself and trust what he had taught me.  I would never have learned to cultivate corn had I worked anxiously under his critical eye, hanging on his every gesture and comment.

That is the meaning of Ascension and Pentecost.  Jesus’ withdrawal becomes an empowering absence.  It is a sign that he trusts what he has taught us enough to set us free.  He refuses to allow us to depend upon him.  We cannot cling to him but must learn to discover his authority among ourselves.  Thus, he tells Mary not to cling to him but to return to the community of his disciples. (John 20:17).  This sense of empowerment and authorization is exhilarating.  It is like tongues of fire.  We name that experience the Spirit of the Living God.

We honor Jesus’ absence when we refuse to become little authorities, trying to fill up Jesus’ absence.  We honor Jesus’ absence when we help others experience the Holy Spirit through mutual collaboration rather than by making them passive, dependent, or subservient to our authority. (From Building God’s People:  A Workbook for Empowering Servant Leaders, by Thomas R. Hawkins, (Nashville, TN:  Discipleship Resources, 1990), 7-9)   

 1)      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

2)      What does this “Holy Absence” mean for you?

3)      Why is that difficult for us to grasp?

 Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

The noblest prayer is when [one] who prays is inwardly transformed into what [one] kneels before. (Angelus Silesius, 17th century)

 

The ultimate goal is to transform the world into the kind of world God had in mind when God created it. (Harold Kushner)

 

As Annie Dillard once put it, “We’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build our wings on the way down.”…I don’t think transformation of any kind at all happens in this world of ours without some effort, some cost, and the willingness to leave something behind…But I think that when we begin to build our wings, it makes a difference in the world around us not because we seem dramatically other than who we once were, but because what we begin to offer back to the world is a little closer to what the world actually needs. (Kathleen McTigue, from “Build Your Wings on the Way Down”, 2006)

  Closing

 Let me bathe in your words.

Let me soak up your silence.

Let me hear your voice.

Let me enter your quiet.

Let me tell out your stories.

Let me enclose them within me.

Let me be the spaces between phrases where you make your home.

Amen.

(Jan L. Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path, p. 96)

Proper 26A, Ordinary 31A: Crossing Over

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OLD TESTAMENT:  Joshua 3: 7-17
The Jordan River, February, 2010
This passage is in essence Joshua’s commissioning.  After Moses’ death, it is Joshua’s calling to lead the people.  He is the successor to Moses and the chosen of YWHW.  And now it is Joshua that leads the Israelites across the Jordan and into a new land.  The crossing of the Jordan was indeed significant.  After all this time, all this wandering, all these years of uncertainty and trepidation, they were crossing over.  It was as if it was all starting to make sense.  And yet there had to be some uncertainty there.  I mean, it wasn’t a perfect situation.  The leader that they had trusted for so many years had been replaced by another—one about whom they were excited and yet he was untested.  They didn’t know how things would go.  And, “Promised” or not, this was a new land, a new place.  Change was all around them.  So in this passage, God “exalts” Joshua.  In essence, Joshua has a resume’ to present to the people.
But coming into the land, there seems to be a problem.  There are other peoples living there.  Now, the idea of driving out those who were there before them is bothersome for us, to say the least.  I guess we could chalk it up to historical and cultural context.  Or we can read the sentence again and consider the context in which it is written and see it a little bit differently.  The text doesn’t say that God is killing these “others” or blowing them up.  The text says that the living God will drive from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, etc…etc…I don’t know.  Maybe it’s a way of saying that the Lord will lead you to live with these people and still remember who and whose you are.  Maybe God is promising that, as compared with the times of slavery in Egypt when you were completely swept into a culture and a way of worshipping that wasn’t yours, that this time, in this land, the Promise of “Chosenness” will hold.  God will figuratively drive from before you the ways of the Canaanites, the Hittites, etc…etc…In THIS land, you will be who you are called to be.  And, as a reminder, God calls Joshua to direct the entrance of the Ark of the Covenant into this land.    
There are a lot of instructions in this passage.  There was a definite intention to get this right.  You see, it wasn’t just any old box that was being carried into this place.  This was the Ark of the Covenant.  It held the holy scrolls and, in essence, the holiness of these people.  It was the tangible reminder of who they were.  It has been painstakingly carried with them for all those years.  Some would surmise that the Ark finally had a home, a stable place where it would always be.  Now we don’t get this from this small part of the larger story, but the twelve men that were chosen from the twelve tribes were not just fodder for the parade.  In the next chapter, these men piled up twelve large boulders at the very spot where the priests had stood with the Ark of the Covenant as the waters stopped flowing so that the people could cross over on dry land.  The stones were part of their identity.  It was these twelve tribes coming together and claiming who they were.  And the Ark that they had carried for years was a reminder that God’s Presence had always been with them, delivering them, redeeming them, and showing mercy.  They are not “locking in” the Ark of the Covenant.  (In fact, perhaps the place itself is not as important to God as the reminder to tell the story.  If the PLACE was important, then I don’t think it would have been moved and destroyed so many times in the centuries that would come after this.)  They are embracing it as God’s Presence among them.  They are claiming their identity as part of this universal priesthood of all believers.
And so, now, the entire nation crosses over the Jordan.  They enter a new life, a life of Promise and hope, a life to which they have journeyed for years.  Now it is time to live into this new life. 
a.      What is your response to this passage?
b.      What do you think was meant by the notion of “driving out” others?
c.       How can this passage speak to us and to our time?
d.      What image of God is present in this passage for you?
NEW TESTAMENT:  1 Thessalonians 2: 9-13
Remember that in our previous readings of Paul’s letter to the church at Thessalonica, Paul exhorted them to be strong, to hold on to their faith, even in the midst of conflict and persecution.  We are told that the Thessalonians accepted what they heard not as a “human word” but as “God’s Word.”  And yet, the letter also affirms that the Word is at work in the Thessalonian church as believers.  Essentially, this Word of God is not just floating up in the air somewhere, but becomes incarnate in this world, becomes the Living Christ in this world as believers in it live it out in their life and in their work.  This Word of God was heard as a witness to God’s work in the world, to God’s work in Jesus Christ.  It was a witness that was heard from Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy who also spoke words of encouragement just as they proclaimed the Word of God.
On some level, some of this passage could almost be taken as Paul’s touting of himself and his compatriots who witnessed to the people. There are some commentators that think that perhaps Paul was responding to previous criticism (of which we have read before) that he and his companions preached for their own gain—either financial or to achieve a higher status within the society.  This is once again a reminder that that was not the case.  Paul is working to structure a case for his and his disciples’ integrity.  He is saying again that he has done everything he has done and everything he can do to encourage these believers in the faith.  And then he is affirming them for accepting the words the way they were intended—not for ill-gotten gains but as a witness to the Word of God that should be lived out in their lives.
In a previous reading from the First Letter to the Church at Thessalonica, you’ll remember that Paul talked about a “mothering nurse” as a nurturing care toward the people.  Here, he uses the image of a father with his children, laying out a relationship that includes guidance and integrity.  They are both relational images.  It reminds us that living out this witness is about living in relationship with God and with one another, encouraging each other, loving each other, and guiding each other in the faith.  It is also a reminder that as children of God, we are all related, all inter-connected.  Take that a step future and it can also be taken as a reminder that everything we do affects others.  How many times to do we provide encouragement or guidance when we don’t even realize we are doing it?  How many times do we provide compassion and nurturing when we don’t even think about it?  (And, I suppose, how many times to we neglect to provide those things because we do not realize how someone is looking to us for direction?)  It’s more than just being a “good example”.  It’s realizing that everything we do and everything we are is done within this community of which we are a part.  Witnessing to and living out the Word of God means living in relationship with one another.
In the commentary, Feasting on the Word, Susan Marie Smith writes that “finally, Paul says to the Thessalonians that God ‘calls you into his own kingdom and glory’.  God calls us as a people.  The faith community is invited into the reign of God.  Professor Morris Weigelt in an address at Nazarene Theological Seminary (May 9, 2009) has expressed our corporate nature in this clever way:  ‘We can no longer ask, ‘Who am I?’ We must rather ask, ‘Who am we?’’  Will the congregation claim this invitation to unity, and to live proleptically (that means “with anticipation”) in God’s realm even now?  It is not just the leaders who are called (ekklesia), and who are sent (apostallein).  It is all the faithful.  In a church no longer with the easy superiority of Christendom—that is, a church not unlike that of Paul’s day—perhaps the people need to be reminded that the Thessalonians were folks just like us.  It is we who are called to proclaim and to live the reign of God.”
a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?
b.      What does it mean to you to “witness” to the Word of God?
c.       How can this speak to us today and the way we relate to one another in our own society?
d.      What does it mean to say that we are the ones called to proclaim and to live the reign of God?
e.      What does it mean to claim that we do that “with anticipation”?
f.        I asked this in our discussion of a previous reading of Paul’s writing:  What sort of letter would Paul write to our community or our society?
GOSPEL:  Matthew 23:1-12
Once again, we have a passage with Jesus confronting the “powers that be” of the first-century Jewish society.  Keep in mind, though, that Jesus was Jewish.  (Contrary to what we sometimes allow ourselves to think, Jesus was never a “Christian”!)  So with that said, this sort of becomes a family conflict.
But Jesus begins by acknowledging their power and authority.  “Sitting on Moses’ seat” implies that he saw them as the ones in the position of teaching and interpreting the Torah and that they were to be followed.  But then he quickly tells his hearers not to do what they do.  Apparently, what they were teaching and how they were living were not aligned with one another.  Jesus claims that they are interpreting Scripture in a way that it was not mean to be interpreted and were, in essence, laying needless and unsupportable “burdens” on those who followed them.  They were interpreting Scripture in a way that was never intended.  For instance, the interpretation of what should happen in order to observe the Sabbath or ritualistic purity codes might have been impossible for the poor to follow.  The Pharisees were interpreting Biblical law in such a way that further marginalized the marginal in the society and in many ways made religious practices abusive rather than transformative. 
Jesus then takes on the Pharisees desire for honor and status.  They want to put themselves in a place of honor and wear elaborate prayer shawls to call attention to themselves and how “holy” they are.  What Jesus was saying was that the honor, the prestige, the place of status should all belong to God.  We are all disciples, all students of the teachings of God and we are called to humble ourselves before God.
Once again, it was a reversal of the norm.  These learned rabbis were used to being on the top of society.  They were used to having their teachings heard, probably even memorized and put to heart.  They were used to being exalted.  And now Jesus is saying that it is humility that is the greatest, that one who recognizes his or her place before God and exalts God, will, indeed be a witness to the Word of God.
As for burdens, if we truly “take on” the yoke of God’s word, then the law will live itself out within our lives.  It will not be looked upon as a burden or something that we need to do to “prove” ourselves worthy of God.  And if there are those who are expecting others to somehow do specific things to “prove” their love or their worthiness of God, then they just don’t get it.  It’s not about us; it’s about God.  God is God; we are not.  Jesus was in no way being “disloyal” to the Torah; in fact, he was being true to it.  Jesus’ notion of the “Law” was not burdensome; in fact, it was life-giving.  It brought freedom rather than constraint; it brought love rather than rules; it brought life rather than death.  It, again, is a reversal of the norms of this world.  And Jesus probably was NOT “anti-Pharisee” the way some of us would like to believe.  They were part of his “family”, remember.  And they had probably started out with good intentions, wanting to serve God, wanting to help others understand the Torah.  But somewhere along the way, it became about them rather than about God.  It probably happens to the best of us!
Rick Morley says it like this:  The faith that Jesus taught has immediate implications. It’s about today, and it’s about tomorrow. To hijack the message of Jesus and turn it into getting us something at some time down the road is to turn Christianity into a narcissistic cult. And that’s the very opposite of the faith that Jesus teaches. It’s not about us. It’s not about accumulating wealth nor stability for ourselves, it’s about us loving God and our neighbor with all we have and with all we are. (From “Going to Hell, Getting Saved”, by Rick Morley, also available at http://www.rickmorley.com/archives/1082?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=its-not-about-me-a-reflection-on-matthew-231-12. )
I think this passage provides a good check of our own religion, the way we practice and live out our faith.  I guess if I were to put it simply in the context of my own Christian faith tradition, I would say that “religion without spirituality” is practicing the religion about Jesus.  It sounds good, but it doesn’t have any depth, no engagement.  And “spirituality without religion” has a good possibility of becoming the religion about myself.  I think they need to come together—both spiritual religion and religious spirituality.  Then one will have the opportunity to practice the religion of Jesus.  I think that is the way we get out of ourselves and become one with God in a real and authentic way.  You cannot practice religion for religion’s sake.  That would certainly be the death of your being.  You need to somehow breathe life into it.  That’s where spirituality comes in.  Together they are religiosity on life support—a practice of faith, an embrace of the faith community, a recognition of one’s call to help and serve others, all with the Spirit of God, the life of your being, breathed into onself. 
a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?
b.      What does it mean for you to think of the Law, the Torah, the teachings of the faith as “life-giving” rather than binding rules?
c.       How can this passage speak to us today and the way religion is looked at in our society?
d.      How would you respond to the increasingly-popular claim of being “spiritual but not religious.”?
Some Quotes for Further Reflection:
We must love them both, those whose opinions we share, and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it. (Thomas Aquinas, 13th century)
It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have to our real work.  And when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. (Wendell Berry)
Christianity is not being destroyed by the confusions and concussions of the time; it is being discovered. (Hugh E. Brown)
Closing
Close with prayer.
Lord God, your love has called us here, as we, by love, for love were made; your living likeness still we bear, though marred, dishonored, disobeyed; we come, with all our heart and mind, your call to hear, your love to find.
Lord God, in Christ you call our name, and then receive us as your wown; not through some merit, right, or claim, but by your gracious love alone; we strain to glimpse your mercy seat, and find you kneeling at our feet.
Lord God, in Christ you set us free your life to live, your joy to share; give us your Spirit’s liberty to turn from guild and dull despair, and offer all that faith can do, while love is making all things new.  Amen  (Brian Wren, 1973, “The United Methodist Hymnal”, # 579)