Sunday, June 29, 2014

The Binding of Isaac

“God tested Abraham…. He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering….” This story is a shocking story for most of us. It is especially shocking for us who believe that God cares deeply for us. Called a “text of terror,” the story raises many unanswerable questions. To begin with, why would God ask anyone to kill his own son? Why especially would God make such a demand of a man to whom he had promised that, “I will make a great nation of you?” Why would Abraham actually agree, at least silently, to obey this seeming command, even to the point of actually raising the knife to kill his son? Why would Isaac meekly accept his fate instead of struggling and crying out? Did Abraham “pass” the test? Does the Bible sanction child abuse?

It’s a shocking story. And yet this story is venerated by Jewish tradition and even by many Christian texts. In Hebrew this story is known as the Abedah, the “binding” of Isaac. It has been an important story for rabbinic theology, interpretation, and meditation. It is even incorporated into the traditional daily liturgy, where the focus is not on Abraham but on God and Isaac, and where the worshippers express their confidence that God will intervene to save God’s people.

The gospel writers may well have had this text in mind when they depicted Jesus sending out his new disciples with the warning, as we heard in last week’s gospel reading, that, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me….” The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews, in his role call of the faithful, directly mentions Abraham’s near-sacrifice. “By faith,” we hear, “Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom he had been told, ‘It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.’ He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead….” Similarly, the writer of the Letter of James, in arguing that the spiritual life requires both faith and works, turns to Abraham. “Was not our ancestor Abraham,” he declares, “justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,’ and he was called the friend of God.” With their focus on Abraham, the evangelists and the writers of the letters to the Hebrews and of James clearly intend us to see Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac as an example of unwavering faith in God. Perhaps too the crafters of the Revised Common Lectionary wanted us to see in this story a parallel with Jesus’ own willing self-sacrifice on the cross.

Nevertheless, this is a difficult text for many of us. Atheists point to it as an example of the barbarity of religion. The rabbis and many Christian teachers have struggled with it over the centuries. In his commentary on the text, Daniel Clendinen reminds us that the 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote an entire book on the story.1 In grappling with the story Kierkegaard laid out four alternative scenarios. He suggested that perhaps Abraham decided to protect God by allowing himself to be seen as a monster by Isaac, the servants, and the rest of his family. Or, perhaps Isaac’s life was saved by the sheep caught in the bush, but Isaac was thereafter traumatized for the rest of his life. Or, Kierkegaard suggested, after the deed was done, Abraham prayed for forgiveness for killing his son. Or finally, perhaps Abraham lost his nerve, failed to act, and went back down the mountain defeated and broken. Actually, that last scenario might appeal to us, as we survey the violence committed by religious fanatics or in the name of religion through the centuries and right up to today.

Now, with texts as old as this one we clearly cannot probe too deeply into the motivations and actions of the characters. We cannot read these stories as we would a modern psychological novel. Nevertheless, I’d like to suggest yet another way of looking at the “binding of Isaac.”2 Contrary to the New Testament writers, I’d like to suggest that Abraham failed the test! Four chapters earlier in Genesis, when God had decided to destroy Sodom, Abraham vigorously bargained with God to save Sodom. He even rebuked God, saying, “Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty….” In the end, Abraham persuaded God not to destroy Sodom if ten righteous men could be found in it. If Abraham was able to bargain so skillfully with God for Sodom, we might wonder, why he would not do so for Isaac? We might even wonder whether God expected Abraham to bargain. When he did not, God was forced to intervene through an angel, as God did for Hagar when Abraham sent her into the wilderness.

Did Abraham’s blind consent to sacrifice his son disappoint, even disgust, those closest to him? A modern commentator suggests that the “crucial silences” that follow the story suggest that it did. God and Abraham engaged in lively conversation before the Binding. However, after the angel’s intervention, God never speaks to Abraham again in the chapters that follow. Nor, it seems does Sarah. She too has been talkative, yet we hear nothing further from her. The very next chapter begins with her death in a different place from where Abraham has settled. Did the binding of Isaac cause her to leave Abraham? Finally, we hear nothing from Isaac. Was he, as Kierkegaard suggested, so traumatized by the event that he has lost his speech? In the chapters that follow, Isaac speaks very little, and, it seems, never spoke to his father again. At the end of his life, Isaac even allowed himself to be duped by Jacob, giving Jacob Esau’s birthright.

Even in the ancient world, where wives, children, and slaves were all regarded as the property of the family patriarch, Abraham’s willingness to show his faith by sacrificing his son would not be considered praiseworthy. Indeed, Abraham would have been condemned and convicted for trying to sacrifice a human being. Perhaps then we might admire the Hebrew Bible for showing us that our ancestors in faith, the kings, prophets, and leaders whose stories we share, were all, like us, flawed human beings. As one commentator reminds us, “Judaism does not sanitize its holy texts but presents the heroes as they are, so that we can learn from their deeds – both good and flawed – as well as from their teachings.”

I’m still left with a question about this text. Most of us moderns seem to prefer a religion that asks little of us. Even so, I wonder whether it is also possible to be too zealous in sacrifice, even self-sacrifice. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer in contemporary language we ask God to “save us from the time of trial.” Did Jesus have the story of the binding of Isaac in mind when he added this petition to his instruction on prayer?

And how about our own lives? Retired Methodist bishop Will Willimon tells of teaching this story with his wife to an inter-generational group. His wife asked the children if they knew what the word “sacrifice” means. One third-grader answered that both her parents were physicians who operate on people to help them. When Willimon’s wife asked how that was sacrifice, the girl answered, “And I go to the day care center after school. Sometimes on Saturdays too. Mommie and Daddy want to take me home, but they are busy helping sick people – so lots of times I stay at the center. Sometimes on Sunday mornings we have pancakes, though.” Everyone knew what the girl meant.3

I don’t tell this story to trash physicians. They are some of the hardest working people in our culture. Even so, this story and the story of the binding of Isaac make me wonder whether we sufficiently take into account the impact of our actions on the lives of others. Should we ponder whether the good we might do might adversely affect those near to us? Do we need to discern deeply and carefully what we hear God calling us to do? On the other hand, perhaps the story of the binding of Isaac reassures us, as it surely does faithful Jews. Perhaps it reassures us that God will intervene for us, or, at the very least, that God will stand with us in our darkest moments. The story of the binding of Isaac comes early in the Hebrew Bible. Its interpretation continues into the present. Perhaps it also reminds us that our conception of God and of what God might ask of us continues to grow and change.

In the end, we can’t answer our questions about this story, any more than we can truly understand why Jesus had to die. Ultimately, we are left with the mystery. As we live in that mystery, however, we need not despair. We can take to heart the words of the psalmist, “I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help.”

1. http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml for June 29, 2014
2. Following here Curt Leviant in Midstream (Summer 2010), as quoted in Synthesis, June 26, 2011
3. “On a Wild and Windy Mountain,” The Christian Century (3/16/83), 237-8, quoted in Synthesis, June 29, 2014.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

His Eye is on the Sparrow

Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

Early in the spring of 1905 Civilla Martin and her husband were visiting friends in Elmira, New York. The friends, Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle, were, as Civilla described them, “true saints of God.”1 Although Mrs. Doolittle had been bedridden for many years, and her husband was partially paralyzed and used a wheelchair, the couple “lived happy Christian lives, bringing inspiration to all who knew them.” One day Dr. Martin asked them for the secret of their “bright hopefulness.” Mrs. Doolittle’s answer was simple: “’His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.’” Reflecting on the boundless faith of the Doolittles, Civilla sat down and penned the hymn “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” The day after she wrote it, she sent it Charles Gabriel, who supplied the music.

The song became a great favorite of Ethel Waters, the renowned jazz singer. Her rendition of it in the 1950 film “The Member of the Wedding” is still moving, and she often sang it in appearances with evangelist Billy Graham. The child of a thirteen year-old mother, Waters herself grew up in grinding poverty in Philadelphia. After a Baltimore entrepreneur discovered her magnificent voice when she was seventeen and working as a chambermaid, Waters began to gain renown as a blues artist. During the course of her career, she made many hit recordings, and she also gained fame as an actress. Reflecting her deep love of the song and confidence in God’s care, Waters titled her own autobiography His Eye is on the Sparrow.

All of our readings today remind us in different ways that “his eye is on the sparrow.” Just like the Doolittles and Ethel Waters, we too can trust that God cares for us in the midst of all of life’s challenges. We hear the good news of God’s care right in our opening collect. A prayer that is at least as old as the eighth century, the collect assures us that God “never fail[s] to help and govern us.”

Our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures also reinforces the message of God’s love and care, even for those who have been cast out. As our green paraments and vestments reflect, we are now in the growing season of Pentecost. From Advent through Pentecost we pondered the great events in Jesus’ life. Now in this season we begin unpacking just what it means to have received the Holy Spirit and committed ourselves as disciples of the risen Christ.

Today we begin semi-continuous readings from the books of Genesis and Exodus, the first two books of the Hebrew Bible, that will carry us through the rest of the church year, i.e., until mid-November. A little back story for today’s reading from Genesis. You may remember that God had made a covenant with Abraham to make a great nation of Abraham and Sarah, even though they were childless. Sarah was impatient, and so fifteen years before the events in today’s reading, she had Abraham father a child by her Egyptian slave Hagar. Now, Sarah herself has finally given birth to a child, Isaac. But she is worried that, as the elder, Hagar’s son Ishmael will take precedence over her son. So, as we heard, she forces Abraham to send Hagar away. However, the “chosen people” are not the only ones about whom God cares. God rescues Hagar and Ishmael and makes a promise to them also: “I will make a great nation of him.” And indeed, Hagar and Ishmael flourished, and in due course Hagar arranged Ishmael’s marriage with an Egyptian woman. Today, Ishmael is regarded as the ancestor of Muslims, who indeed would agree that God has made a “great nation of him.”

Our psalm could almost be Hagar’s response to God’s care for her and Ishmael. Lest we miss the message, the psalmist reminds us of God’s care for all who trust in God. Did you hear God’s love as you recited the psalm? “For you, O Lord,” we said, “are good and forgiving, and great is your love toward all who call upon you.” As the psalmist turns to God “in time of trouble,” the psalmist does so with the confidence that God will answer prayer, and that God will “save the child of your handmaid.”

For our Gospel readings during the season of Pentecost, we return to the Gospel of Matthew. Here too we will hear semi-continuous readings through the rest of the church year. Even though Matthew comes first in the Christian Scriptures, it was actually the second gospel to be written down. Matthew dates from some time after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. It was written largely for a community of Jewish Christians. In it, the evangelist’s goal was to reaffirm for these Jews that Jesus was the fulfillment of both the Law and the Prophets. Consequently, in this gospel we often hear references to the Hebrew Scriptures. We also encounter Jesus in conflict with the established religious leadership.

The section of the gospel that we just heard is part of what is called the “missionary discourse,” in which Jesus sends out his followers to begin proclaiming the nearness of God’s reign. In the first part of the chapter, which precedes today’s reading, Jesus commissioned and authorized his disciples. Now he begins to outline the challenges of discipleship – and what the evangelist reports of his instructions are as applicable to us as to them. If you are serious in your commitment, Jesus tells his friends, you must acknowledge that you are not in charge. Ultimately, all efforts to bring God’s reign nearer are in God’s hands, and we do no more than work in partnership with God. While we are to be open and transparent in our dealings, at the same time we must expect that the establishment may demonize us. We might bring about conflict among those we attempt to evangelize, and we may even alienate those near and dear to us. Daunting as it may seem, we may be called to embark on a new way of life, or to turn away from comfortable thoughts and habits, sacred places, and ways of doing things. Indeed, Paul, in his letter to the Christians in Rome, reiterates Jesus’s teaching, suggesting that we are not to remain stuck inside old ways of life, but are to be open to continual growth. And it just may happen, Jesus warns his disciples and us, that we will be called upon, as he was, to give up our very lives in order to advance God’s reign, for “those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

And yet, here’s the good news: we are never alone in our struggles. God is always with us. Jesus forcefully reminded his hearers of God’s continual care in what we have come to call the Sermon on the Mount. Do you remember what Matthew relates of Jesus’ speech after the Beatitudes? Reminding his disciples not to worry about food or clothing, Jesus directed their gaze toward the birds of the air, who are fed by their heavenly Father, and the lilies of the field, so wondrously clothed by God. Now, on the point of sending out his disciples, having warned them of the challenges they will encounter, Jesus uses the same image of the precious birds to remind the disciples of God’s continual care for humans and for the rest of creation: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father …. So do not be afraid, you are of more value than many sparrows.”

“His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.” Down through the centuries, millions of Jesus’ followers have taken Jesus’ reassurances to heart, and have courageously worked to bring God’s reign nearer. Fifty years ago this month, a great upheaval, led by people of deep faith, occurred in the United States. All of a sudden, we became aware of the civil rights movement. Although the U.S. Supreme Court had declared in 1954 that so-called “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional, it was only in 1964 that serious legislation outlawing segregation and discrimination came before the U.S. Senate. While the Senate was debating, college students in droves left their campuses, piled onto buses, and headed south to work with the Congress of Racial Equality to register voters. Most of them came in response to Jesus’ admonition to care for the “least of these.” They knew the risks they were taking, but they also trusted that God would protect them, that his eye was “on the sparrow.” Tragically, fifty years ago yesterday, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, who had joined CORE to help register voters, disappeared after investigating the burning of a church in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The discovery of their bodies in an earthen dam six weeks later roused deep public outrage and likely hastened the passage of the civil rights act.

We too are followers of the crucified one. We too have committed ourselves to his cause. Can we do any less than he did? Can we do any less than the Freedom Summer workers did? Do we trust that “his eye is on the sparrow?” Can we trust in God’s care for us as we follow in Jesus’ footsteps, courageously partnering with God in the bringing in of God’s realm?

1. http://cyberhymnal.org/htm/h/i/hiseyeis.htm

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Transformed by the Spirit

Why are you here? What blew you in through the red doors? Are you here because coming to church is what one does on Sunday? Are you here because you think that God expects you to come, and you want to please and serve God? Do you seek weekly nourishment in the Eucharist? Do you hope that, if you take in Christ’s Body and Blood, you will become more like him? Do you seek strength for the journey, the sustenance you need to keep going in life? Or are you perhaps hoping to satisfy some deeply-felt need for authentic community?

My friends, you are not here for any of these reasons. You are here because the Holy Spirit brought you here. You may even be here against your will. Certainly you have every good reason not to be here. No one will look down on you for not being here, and no one will pat you on the back for rousing yourself and actually getting here. You are here, because the Holy Spirit blew you in through the red doors – for a reason.

Jesus has left us. We obeyed Jesus’ command. We prayed together, and we waited for him to make good on his promises. And then it happened! We crossed over the threshold, and discovered that God’s Spirit is now rampant in the world. But the Holy Spirit is wily and changeable, and she has many ways of making herself known.

Some of us resonate with the violent, life-changing experiences of the disciples in the Book of Acts. We know that in Scripture a powerful wind is often a signal for God’s presence. Remember the opening of the creation story in Genesis. “The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Remember how Jesus tried to describe the Spirit to Nicodemus. “The wind blows where it chooses,” he said, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” For some of us, the Holy Spirit does feel like a great rushing wind, coming into our lives, carrying us along, even pushing us in unexpected directions.

Others of us resonate with the disciples’ experience of being on fire. Fire, too, in Scripture is a signal for God’s presence. Remember the Pillar of Fire that followed the Israelites in their journey through the Sinai. When the prophet Jeremiah felt so compelled to speak God’s word that he could no longer keep silent, he said that God’s urging felt “like fire in the bones.” And when John Wesley felt himself come alive again spiritually at the Aldersgate meeting, he said his heart “felt strangely warmed.”

To others of us, the Holy Spirit comes as a gentle breath, a quickening and an enlivening, a sense of being invisibly, yet inexorably, transformed. Although Elijah had expected God to come in thunder and fire, God spoke to Elijah in a whisper. After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples in John’s Gospel felt Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit into them. “Breathe on me, breath of God,” says one of our hymns. Gentle, easy, yet life-giving and utterly life-changing.

Yet others of us feel the Spirit’s presence in a rush of deep emotion. Ricardo Avila lay prostrate on the floor of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, waiting to be ordained a priest. As the congregation began to chant the Veni, Sancte Spiritus, the traditional invocation of the Holy Spirit at ordinations, he felt tears gush from his eyes, and then he began to sob.1 Others of us experience that emotion as deep joy, joy that makes us so giddy that those around us may be sure that we are drunk – and we are, with the “new wine” that old wineskins cannot contain.

For yet others, the Holy Spirit comes in extraordinary, inexplicable experiences. The fractious members of the Christian community at Corinth suddenly had the ability to speak ecstatically in another language. St. Francis of Assisi heard the crucifix in a country church calling to him. A woman knelt at the altar rail of a strange church and suddenly knew that she was home. Back in his pew after taking Christ into his body, a man knew that God’s Spirit was lodged deep in his own heart. A student sang in a church choir, and all his resistance to the workings of the Holy Spirit melted away.

However the Spirit brought you here, as a strong but invisible force, as a gentle tug on the sleeve, or through a moment in your life you still can’t explain, you are here because the Spirit has brought you here. We are all here because the Spirit has brought us here. As Paul told the Corinthians who thought their ability to speak in tongues made them special, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Spirit.” We are all here, because the Spirit needs us to be here. Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians that the Spirit had brought them together, because the community needed the abilities, talents, and gifts of many different people. All their various gifts had come from the same Spirit, and all were needed and important. Whatever the gifts were, whether they were teaching, administration, preaching, devotion, healing, or working miracles, all these gifts had been given to the community by the Spirit, distributed by the Spirit as the Spirit saw fit. Most important, the Spirit had given these gifts to the Corinthian Christians for a reason: “for the common good,” i.e. to build up the church in that place.

As with the Christian community at Corinth, the Spirit has given the church of our day diverse gifts and talents, all of which the Spirit needs the church to exercise. From a lofty perspective, you might even say that the Spirit has given diverse gifts to the churches. Perhaps the Spirit has intentionally scattered her gifts around. Perhaps every denomination, maybe even every faith community, has diverse God-given gifts and talents, and no denomination or community has all the gifts needed to bring God’s reign nearer. I love the Episcopal Church. I have spent almost all my adult life drinking from its deep well. Even so, I know that we can partner with and learn from Lutherans and Roman Catholics, even Baptists and Pentecostals. In the same way, I believe that the Spirit has scattered her gifts around the various parishes in our diocese. All of our parishes have God-given gifts, but perhaps none of them has all the gifts that are needed to bring the reign of God nearer. And the Spirit has certainly scattered her gifts here at St. Peter’s. All of us have different God-given gifts that this parish needs, and none of us, whatever our age, station, or life situation, is without gifts. The Spirit brought us here, the Spirit has distributed gifts and talents among us, and the Spirit calls on us to use our gifts.

My friends, there is both a mystery and a paradox here. The mystery is this: we don’t know the Holy Spirit works. We acknowledge the Spirit as the third person of the Trinity, with God the Creator and God the Redeemer. We reaffirm our faith in the existence of the Spirit every time we say the Nicene Creed: “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life ….” But we don’t know how the Spirit enables us to let go of old, destructive ways of life, helping us forgive and be forgiven, helping us to put on new ways of living. We don’t know how the Spirit transforms our lives and enables us to do more and more of what Jesus did. We don’t know how we allow the Spirit to grab our hand and take us down a path of ministry we had never before contemplated. We only know that, something has changed, that we have experienced transforming grace, and that we have discovered gifts within ourselves that we never knew we possessed.

And here is the paradox. The Spirit has not given us these gifts for our own spiritual self-aggrandizement, nor so that we may feel at peace within ourselves, nor even as strength for the journey. As one writer has observed, the truth is that the Spirit has given us gifts and talents that create problems for us. In fact, the Spirit may make us profoundly uncomfortable. After the disciples were blown over by the Spirit, they could not go back to their old lives. In the very last chapter of John’s Gospel, Peter, James, and John tried to return to fishing. Jesus caught up with them, and told Peter to “Feed my sheep.” Celtic Christians still use the image of the wild goose as a symbol for the unfettered Spirit. They know that the Spirit, like a noisy and bothersome wild goose, often shakes us out of our complacency and leads us in new directions.

We too are living in this paradox. Having been blown here by the Spirit, perhaps having been blown over by the Spirit, we know there is no going back to what our lives were before, no going back to a life focused solely on ourselves and our own narrow needs. The Spirit calls each of to use our gifts to reach out to people of every language, ethnicity, and social station. The Spirit calls all of us, young and old, women and men, to prophesy. The Spirit calls all of us to use our gifts to bring the reign of God nearer, to partner with God in God’s work, wherever we discern it. The Spirit calls all of us to ask, “Who needs us?” and “How can this parish use its diverse gifts and talents to share God’s love in this community?”

We are here, because the Spirit has brought us here. Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove: descend on us, reveal your love. Word of God and inward light, wake our spirits; clear our sight. Surround us now with all your glory; speak through us that sacred story. Take our lips and make them bold. Take hearts and minds and make them whole. Stir in us that sacred flame, then send us forth to spread your name. Amen.

1. Pentecostal Praise,” Journey with Jesus, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml , June 8, 2014.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Waiting

A delightful cartoon, that appeared on Facebook this week, depicts Jesus surrounded by a cloud and rising upward. Below him, a bearded man is shouting, “Where?? Where?? I can’t see him!!” Pointing to the man is a large arrow which says, “Ascension Deficit Disorder.” Truth be told, all of us suffer from “Ascension Deficit Disorder.” For most twenty-first century Christians, including most Episcopalians, last Thursday was just like any other day. Yet, for most of Christian history, last Thursday, which was the fortieth day after Easter, was a major feast. It is the feast of the Ascension, and it marks a key transition for the earliest Christians in their experience of Jesus’ life among them.

Indeed, the Ascension of Jesus was so important that it is shown twice in the New Testament, once at the end of the gospel according to Luke, and once at the beginning of the Book of Acts. Had we gathered here on Thursday to celebrate the Ascension, we would have heard the lesson from the gospel. Today, we heard the lesson from Acts. And that’s not all. Allusions to Jesus’ ascension occur in the gospel according to John and in several of Paul’s letters. What’s more important, both the Apostles Creed, which we reaffirm at every baptism, and the Nicene Creed, which we say every Sunday, contain the statement, “he ascended into heaven.”

So why is this unnoticed feast important to us? More important, what are we affirming when we say these creedal statements? Are we affirming literally that what most representations of Jesus’ ascension, including this cartoon, seem to be suggesting? Is this one of the “seven impossible things” that Christians are “expected to believe before breakfast?” Are we saying that we believe that Jesus was pulled up into the sky until he vaporized somewhere?

Perhaps we need to remember that the writer of Luke and Acts was trying to express something inexpressible. To do so, he or she used the imagery available at that time. Remember that when these books were written, and well into the 16th century, people believed in a geocentric universe, i.e., one in which the earth was at the center, the stars and planets rotated around it, and that “heaven” was literally “up there,” somewhere beyond the stars. I would be surprised if any of you thought that was an accurate depiction of the universe. Rather, in our century, we have come to understand the vast mystery of the universe, in which earth is no more than a micro-point. We have also come to understand that heaven is not “up there,” and that God is a holy and unfathomable mystery.

What is important is not the imagery that the ancient writers used. Rather, what is important is what they were trying to express with that imagery. So given our cosmology, given how we understand the university, Steven Davis of Claremont University gives us a different and helpful angle of vision. He says, “I do not believe that in the Ascension Jesus went up, kept going until he achieved escape velocity from the earth, and then kept moving until he got to heaven, as if heaven were located somewhere in space. The Ascension of Jesus was primarily a change of state rather than a change of location. Jesus changed in the Ascension from being present in the realm of space and time to being present in the realm of eternity, in the transcendent heavenly realm.”1 In other words, in showing Jesus ascending into “heaven” the earliest Christians were trying to express that Jesus now existed in a realm beyond his physical body, beyond time and space. And yet, even though Jesus existed in that realm, even though he was physically absent from us humans with limited vision, yet he was still somehow present to us, in some new and different way.

Once having had this revelation, once having understood this new reality of Jesus being both absent and present at the same time, the disciples could no longer continue to gaze upward, as if Jesus might parachute back down somehow. The angels rightly challenged them: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” More important, the angels reiterated Jesus’ promise that he would come again. Perhaps too they reminded the confused disciples of Jesus’ promise that they would be empowered to be Jesus’ witnesses throughout the entire world. With the angels’ challenge in their ears, the disciples came back down to earth. They understood that they were in a time of transition, that Jesus’ story was perhaps not yet finished. So they returned to Jerusalem. They gathered together, they prayed, and they waited, perhaps a little uncertain as to what might come next.

Aren’t we too in a time of transition? Liturgically, of course, the days of Resurrection and Ascension are behind us, and Pentecost is ahead of us. Advent, when we focus on Jesus’ promise to return, lies further ahead. In our personal lives, aren’t we also often in times of transition, when we must wait, perhaps feeling confused and uncertain, for God to act? Perhaps we are waiting to get married. Perhaps we are awaiting the birth or adoption of a child. Perhaps we are struggling through the seemingly endless requirements of a degree program, waiting for the credential that will allow us to answer God’s call to a new profession or ministry. Perhaps we are waiting for the results of medical tests or for the end of a prolonged course of treatment. We might be watching a loved one slowly slip away, wondering what awaits him and us when he is physically gone from us.

Sometimes I think that in this century our whole world is in a time of transition and waiting. We are witnessing the weakening of individual parishes and denominations, and the coming of new forms of church. Indeed, the church seems to be migrating away from Europe and North America toward the Global South. What will the church look like at the end of this century? Political changes continue unabated, and we wonder what forms of government and society will emerge in Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria, Thailand, Israel, and Palestine? Technological changes overwhelm us. What comes after the smart phone? What comes after the gasoline-powered engine? What comes after coal-fired power plants? And what will this fragile earth, our island home, look like as the glaciers and polar ice caps continue to recede? “What is God’s plan,” I frequently ask myself. Is Jesus’ second coming near at hand? Is this the time when Jesus will restore the kingdom? And, of course, Jesus’ answer, which is both unhelpful and reassuring at the same time, is the same one he gave the disciples: “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 ….”

And so, what shall we do as we wait in this transition time, as we wait for God to make good on God’s promises. We do what Jesus’ friends did. We do not stand around “looking up to heaven,” seeing if we can figure out, or worse yet, predict, when Jesus will return. We accept the mystery: the coming of the Kingdom truly will be in God’s good time. We gather together with as many of Jesus’ friends as we can find, to tell the stories and to share his presence in bread and wine. We pray. We pray as we can, not as we can’t. All our prayers, corporate and individual, prayers of petition or thanksgiving, prayers of tears and of anger, prayers for peace and for healing, all our prayers are acceptable to God, wherever and whenever we open our hearts to God. All our prayers bind us more closely into Jesus’ ascended life.

We trust that we are not left alone. Two weeks ago, we heard Jesus reassure us, “In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” Last week, we heard Jesus’ promise that, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” And we are prepared to be surprised by the God who may call us with tongues of flames or in the sound of sheer silence.

Most important, we continue to live in hope, with the hope that the reign proclaimed by the risen and ascended Jesus has already begun. Trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit to guide us, we go out and do the work that has been given us to do as best we can, committing ourselves to bringing God’s reign ever nearer. Knowing that even in the “changes and chances of this world” God is with us, we wait patiently for God’s next move.

1. Quoted by Daniel B. Clendinen, “Exalted at the Right Hand of God: ‘He Ascended into Heaven,’” Journey with Jesus, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml , accessed May 26, 2014.