You Will Be My Witnesses

“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.”

It was Ascension Day this past Thursday. Believe it or not, Ascension Day used to be a major feast day in the church. It was always forty days after Easter, thus always on a Thursday. As a major event in the life of Jesus, Ascension Day has inspired much beautiful artwork and many lovely hymns, a few of which we are singing today. Well into the twentieth century, many Episcopal parishes observed the day complete with a festal Eucharist and, of course, a potluck. Now Ascension Day is a largely forgotten feast of the church, especially in Protestant churches. And it’s a brave priest who would suggest that people ought to come for worship on a Thursday evening in spring. There just too much else going on!

Yet we shouldn’t overlook the Ascension entirely. Remembering it was important enough to Jesus’ earliest followers that the author of Luke-Acts described it twice, once at the end of the gospel and the second, what we just heard, at the beginning of the book of Acts. What we heard today actually comes at the end of a recap of the gospel story, as if the author wanted to make sure that his or her reader fully understood Jesus’ life’s work before beginning to reflect on the outward movements of his followers. What’s more, Paul also mentions the Ascension several times in his various letters. And of course, we affirm our faith in the reality of Jesus’ Ascension every time we say the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed.

And just what are we affirming in those creedal statements? Are we saying that we believe that Jesus was pulled up into the sky until he vaporized somewhere? It’s important to remember that in the ancient world, and well into the 16th century, people believed in a geometric universe, in which heaven was literally “up there.” The evangelist was trying to express something inexpressible, and so used images common to his time. We have a very different cosmology. We understand the vastness of space and time. Steven Davis of Claremont University reminds us that, “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.” In other words, in showing Jesus ascending into “heaven,” Jesus’ earliest followers were trying to express their belief that Jesus now existed in a realm beyond his physical body, beyond time and space. And yet, even though Jesus existed in that realm beyond time and space, he was still present to us, in a new and different way.

Perhaps it’s not important that we know exactly what happened on that day. What is important in this story is Jesus’ answer to his friends’ question. They had asked him if he were now going throw the Romans out of Israel and become a king like David. Did he give a straightforward answer? Nope. Instead he told them that God would empower them, and that they would be his witnesses: to their families and clans, to their friends and acquaintances, to their enemies, and, eventually, to the whole world. What could this mean, to be his “witnesses?” Jesus’ friends were puzzled and confused. Wondering what would come next, they returned to a familiar place, the upper room. They invited in Jesus’ women followers, his mother and brothers, and no doubt assorted other friends. Then they began to pray. Tune in next week to hear the answer to their prayers!

Of course, if you were here last Pentecost, you already know the rest of the story! And, if you know anything about the ongoing history of the church, you know something of what has transpired since then. After last December, you might even know something about how the Holy Spirit has been at work in this place. And, unlike those first followers of Jesus, we have been baptized, we have affirmed our faith in the statements of the Apostles Creed, we have made some significant promises, and we have rediscovered the Spirit’s power within ourselves. We too profess to be Jesus’ followers. Do we hear his words addressed to us? If so, hear him say them to you: “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.”

Wait, this could be dangerous! Do we even want to be his witnesses? We’ve been hearing the first letter of Peter all during Easter tide. That letter was written to a community that was being persecuted because of their witness to Jesus. Today, we even heard the writer remind them there were forces that were ready to harm them as the persisted in being Jesus’ witnesses. It’s not a coincidence that the word “martyr” is a Greek word that means “witness.” Am I ready to be a “martyr” as a follower of Jesus?

As we cautiously say “yes,” we still might ask, in the 21st century, to what are we called to witness? Lots of people have given lots of very good answers to that question. Here are mine. I believe that we are called to witness to our commitment to Jesus by being transformed from single atoms to members of a web of love. Relying on God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are called into membership in a new community, the Body of Christ. As one cell in that Body, in this place we are called to create a community bound together by our belief in Jesus’ shared life with God and by our participation in that life through our commitment to Jesus.

We are called to witness to the reality of God’s love for us by creating a community with a particular shape. First of all, we are a community that welcomes all comers. Gone are the days when St. Peters – or any Episcopal parish – ministered only to business people and professionals, when the few blacks around were relegated to the balcony – or preferably their own parish. Gone are the days when women could set the altar but not preside at it. Gone are the days when anyone not comfortably heterosexual stayed in the closet. We are called to be a community that transcends ties of blood, nationality, gender, sexual identity, or any other human marker. We are called to remember that God’s love extends to the ends of the earth – and beyond and ultimately embraces the entire creation.

Second, we are called to be a community that engages in prayer and ministry together. We may live in a culture that celebrates every tub on its own bottom, but as followers of the one who brought people together, we acknowledge that we are part of a web of love. We are part of community in which people care for one another. More important, we acknowledge our need to pray and work together, and we understand that prayer and ministry are not mutually exclusive but rather mutually enhancing, the one necessary for the other. Like Jesus’ first friends, we too are called to pray, ponder and reflect together in that upper room on what God calls us to do next.

Third, we are called to remember – and to remind those around us – that we are a counter-cultural community. We witness to our belief that the life that Jesus modeled, together with the promises that we made at our baptisms, promises to treat all with dignity and respect and to seek justice for all, call us to a different kind of life, a kind of life that may be at be odds with the prevailing culture. At the same time, we are not to disengage from our culture. Monasteries and convents are wonderful places for those who are called to the kind of life they offer. We may not even be able to form intentional communities that benefit our neighborhoods, but we are still called to witness to our faith in Jesus by taking his love out into the world, always grounded by our prayer and our trust that God empowers any work we may do. We witness to our faith in Jesus by reminding ourselves and those around us that we encounter Christ on two altars: the first in this sanctuary and the other in the world, in seeking to bring peace, justice, and healing to those who need our care and to helping, through our political, social, and economic decisions, to heal the corner of the world in which God has placed us.

Pentecost is coming. Our yearly celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost reminds us that we are already empowered by God. In our celebration of Pentecost we also renew our commitment here and now to be witnesses of Jesus’ power and his call of us into loving community. With God’s help and grace, we become a community that prays and ministers together and that seeks to model its social, political, and economic life on Jesus’ teachings. May it be so.