Seventh Sunday of Easter

Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26

         

The location of my home often gives me reason to drive through the Plaza at least once a day.  On Saturday evenings in the spring and summer, it’s not uncommon to see a street corner preacher at one of the busier intersections.  There was one last night who I saw down at the west end near the Unity and Christian Science churches when I left to do the grocery shopping.  By the time I got home, he had moved a couple of blocks down the street where the crowd was larger.

          His message was predictable for a street corner preacher – that Christianity is the only way to a relationship with God.  While I was stopped at a red light he worked his way through all of the other religions one might choose and why they were inferior.  Then he started in on the part about what was going to happen if you didn’t have a relationship with God.  I have no personal experience with that variety of Christianity, but I’ve been told the people who offer that message to others – be Christian or suffer eternal torment – truly believe that they are doing the world.  They believe that they are rescuing their friends, neighbors and complete strangers on the Plaza from what could be terrible harm.  I’m willing to acknowledge the depth of their commitment and the sincerity of their belief.  But their message is off the mark.

          On this last Sunday before Pentecost we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension.  The actual feast day was last Thursday.  Churches with weekday services observe it on the actual day and a handful with large congregations may have special services, but for the most part we celebrate what has come to be known as Ascension Sunday.  The gospel stories about Jesus’ ascension are in Luke and Mark.  They are rather vague descriptions of Jesus gathering with his disciples, giving them a charge and a blessing, and withdrawing away from them until he is out of their sight.  Through the years artists have worked with this verbal imagery to bring it into the tangible realm.  We have an ascension window at St. Mary’s – one of the oldest in the building on the lower west wall of the nave.  Its point of view doesn’t include a lot of context.  Other depictions of Jesus’ ascension –paintings or stained glass windows - show the disciples looking upward in fascination at a pair of feet that appear just inside the upper border of the images.   The idea is strange to us.  Whatever we may gain from enjoying its literal interpretation through art, forcing our minds to believe it actually happened that way is superfluous.

          What we can do is try to understand what this story could mean for us as Jesus’ followers, many centuries after the events described in the gospels.  I think we’re on the mark if we understand it as a way in which Jesus entrusts his mission and ministry to his followers.  He remains with us in spirit and by example, but we are now his eyes and ears, his hands and feet, his compassion and advocacy in the world.  That suggests that our role and our mission are something very different than threatening people with eternal torment if they don’t believe the same things we do.

          In the gospels Jesus appears to his disciples on a number of occasions after his resurrection.  In those stories he interacts differently with them from the way he does before his crucifixion.  The post-resurrection appearances are brief and intermittent.  The gospels describe his followers as having difficulty recognizing him.  He is different.  Jesus continues to teach his disciples in these appearances but the teachings are directed more toward what they will need to understand for their own future ministries in his name.  He is no longer among them from moment to moment, showing them how to do the work.  He has left them to pick it up and continue on without him.  The story of that ongoing work continues in Acts of the Apostles – the sequel to Luke’s gospel.

          With these stories, Jesus shows the apostles what resurrection is.  As Jews, they would have understood resurrection as an event that encompasses all of the people of God.  It did not occur precisely as they imagined it would, but they are, indeed a part of it.  In some sense, they and we are to be resurrection.  We are to do all that we can to overcome injustice, draw life from death, and forgive and transform the lives of those who do harm, all with God’s help.  Could that be what Jesus’ Ascension is about?  It wouldn’t be about threats of punishment for believing the wrong thing or fantastic story that we gloss over because we have trouble making sense of it.   It would be Jesus entrusting to us his work and telling us to BE resurrection with the sense of his spirit among us.  Who would we be as community and as individuals if we really believed that to be true?