So here we are six weeks after Easter and the resurrected Jesus is now heading out again.  Now, I’m a person who likes to get the last word and that’s partly because I must believe that last words are important—or I probably wouldn’t try so hard to get them.  They are the culmination of a conversation, the culmination of our intentions.  So I think it’s fascinating to know that the last words of the resurrected Jesus comes as he gathers with his disciples and he proclaims you “will receive power from the Holy Spirit” and then he gives them an assignment “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” ⁹ And with that he is carried away.  We receive the abbreviated version of the ascension in the final verses of the gospel of Luke that segues into the book of Acts, which scholars believe was written by the same author, so much so scholars refer to Luke-Acts as if they were one.  That Scripture proclaims “then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. ⁵¹While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.^{* 52}And they worshipped him, and^* returned to Jerusalem with great joy; ⁵³and they were continually in the temple blessing God.”

Now we can debate the how did it happen or did it really happen?

Jesus’s ascension is one of those supernatural events that tend to trip people up in their faith.   At one end of the spectrum are the folks who demand a proclamation of belief as an exposition of faith and at the other end of the spectrum are the folks who simply say forget it—that stuff doesn’t happen, so neither did the rest.  I live somewhere in the middle and I suspect that in this room there are people across that spectrum.  You see I am always amazed at the folks that could deny Jesus simply because those who loved him documented his extraordinary nature in extraordinary ways.  That only really becomes a problem when belief in the extraordinary becomes the focus of our faith or a litmus test for being a true disciple.  And I am equally amazed that folks could latch on to the extraordinary events in the life of Jesus and proclaim their centrality with such vigor that they deny the very extraordinary ministry and message of Jesus Christ.

It might help to know that scholars report that “stories of ascensions were told in antiquity about other famous men, for example, Heracles, Empeocles, Alexander the Great, and Apollonius of Tyana.” German scholar Gerhard Lohfink explains that “characteristically the scene is set with spectators and witnesses, before whose eyes the person in question disappears. Often he is borne aloft by a cloud or shrouded in darkness that takes him from the eyes of the people. Not infrequently the whole business takes place on a mountain or hill.” (Gerhard Lohfink, Die Himmelfahrt Jesu)

All of which is to suggest important people have ascension stories, which begs the question do they ascend because they are important or are they important because they ascend?  Since many people appear to have ascended, and it is not the common bond of ascension that makes Jesus important, I can’t help but think Jesus has an ascension story because he’s important and it’s the other things that make him important that we should pay attention to, steering us from the concern about the factuality of the ascension to its meaning.

One thing that that I don’t think it means is that Jesus truly leaves us.  Jesus promises the Holy Spirit and Jesus remains with us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  In the John text the prayer that is shared between Jesus and God is one that affirms the interconnected relationship of God and Jesus and of us with the Divine.  Jesus acknowledges that he may no longer be visible in the world but prays that we might be of one heart and mind and explains that his life is on display in his disciples.  As his disciples today, we are called to bear witness to his life and make sure that the world knows why Jesus was so important.

Commonly, if I am out in the world and people learn that I am a minister I will ask if they have a faith tradition.  It is not uncommon in the South—for people to declare—“I’m a believer.”  Which makes me think of the band the Monkees—but more importantly tells me little about their connection to God.   I know what people mean—and I often respond with you don’t have to confess your faith to me.  I say that because it means very little to me to hear what people believe if in fact is does nothing to change who they are.

Bryan Sirchio is a UCC minister and musician from Wisconsin and in his song called “Follow Me.”  the chorus asks: “Am I following Jesus, or just believing in Christ’Cause I can believe and not change a thing But following will change my whole life He never said, come, acknowledge my existence Or believe in me I’m the 2nd person of the Trinity But 87 times he said… Follow me”

Time and again I am witness to bad religion that allows people security for the simple proclamation of faith but what Jesus really challenged us to do was be transformed that the we might connect with God in the same way he did.

An individual who answered the challenge of discipleship in remarkable ways was Clarence Jordan founder of Koinonia Farms.  In the 1940’s Jordan, his wife and a couple Martin and Marble England attempted to bring a piece of the kingdom of God to rural Georgia.  They shared possessions, chose love over violence, and committed to treating all people with human dignity.  They envisioned an interracial community in the deep South in the midst of the civil rights movement; they paid workers an equal wage despite their race—as it should be.  The farm still exists today and has expanded its ministries to include among others the Jubilee Partners, which is a community that welcomes refugees from war-torn countries and the New Hope House, which assists families with loved ones on death row, as well as advocating the abolition of the death penalty.   Jordan was the author of the Cotton Patch Translations of the New Testament, which was a translation into Georgia vernacular.  He died at the age of 57 in 1969. This is what he had to say about the ascension (minus the Southern accent):

“You know, it’s so much more pleasant to be sky people than it is to be earth people.  It’s so much more pleasant to worship Jesus going away than it is to incarnate him coming after us.  We want the Lord to be in his Holy Temple and let all the earth keep silent before him.  We want to stare into the sky.  But men with blue jeans come and say, ‘Come on, people.  Get your eyes out of the sky.  Get your working britches on.  We got work to do.’”

“Now this is a most significant part of this whole bit.  We’ve got the eleven there.  They’ve been with him through all his ministry.  They know what he did in Volume One.  They are knowing that their task is to be Volume Two.  They are to carry on the ministry of their Lord.”  (The Substance of Faith:  Cotton Patch Sermons by Clarence Jordan, p. 15)

And so it is today…our job, our task, our calling. In recent months there have been folks carried away with the impending second coming of Christ—people sold their belongings, and anticipated the end of the world.  This made for some funny facebook exchanges… but it raised a very serious question about the focus of our Christian living.  In response to this apocalyptic expectation a colleague of mine at the hospital declared ‘why so much excitement about the second coming?—what about the first?”  It made me think it’s a good question—Why can’t we get excited about the first coming of Christ? –so excited that we’d want to go to the ends of the earth to tell folks.

Today’s prayer from Jesus asks God to help his disciples receive the revelation of eternal life that comes when we know God.  Knowing God is not simply something we can understand in our minds—in fact I would suspect that the brain part is something that often keeps us from the heart connection—knowing God is about having a heart connected to the Divine.  That connection is critical to receiving the eternal life that Jesus hopes for us all.   That eternal life that Jesus refers to is witnessed to in his living and the deep dedication of his ministry.  These words in the NRSV which scholars believe provide the most accurate translation to the original text are likely more familiar:  “Holy Father, protect those that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”  Later in this passage Jesus says “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.”  Those words “that they may all be one” are the cornerstone of our denomination.  In the United Church of Christ we proclaim “In essentials–unity, in nonessentials–diversity, in all things–charity.”  In fact, the UCC has no rigid formulation of doctrine or attachment to creeds or structures. Its overarching creed is love.  Love and unity in the midst of our diversity are our greatest assets.  And they are much of what Jesus calls us to witness to.

In this community we invite all people to cross the threshold to full life in the church asking people to worship regularly, give generously, and witness to the ways of Jesus and to what God is doing in your life and this place.  When we initially visioned what it would look like to ask people to commit to this community and to the ways of Christ, we knew that mainline protestant churches were declining rapidly—and because of that mainline protestant churches often fail to ask the people who walk through their doors for much of anything.  So pleased just to have bodies in the pews, these dying churches fail to give people a way to participate in the life of the church because they are afraid they might not stay.  It’s almost amusing—as it seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy.  We need to all pitch in to build community to be a part of the body of Christ, but we don’t want to scare them away by asking them to truly be a part of it.  Well when you set your standards low, people only go that high.  So we aim to be a different community.  And there are those who will be scared off by the invitation—but the invitation is not intended to take away anything from any of us —it is intended to give us a number of opportunities, including the opportunity to find home.  So we ask people to join together on Sunday morning to praise God together, in prayer and song and eat the bread of life and drink from the cup of abundant life that overflows for each one of us who dares to partake.  We ask people to discern their abilities to give of time and talent and treasure, knowing that each one of us has the ability to give in different ways and that all gifts of time and talent and treasure our indispensable to the building up of our community.  And we ask people to be witnesses—just like Jesus did.  We hope that in this space you are empowered to talk about what God is doing in your life with people in our community and people outside of our community.  We hope that you share with people the gift of this place if it has been a gift to you.  We offer the opportunity to share testimony in worship and we hope that we all receive such an outpouring of Christ’s presence in this place that we are able to go into the world and be Christ’s presence everywhere we go.  It’s a tall order—but anything less would cheat us all from building and finding community that truly transforms us and the world we live in.

Listen, there are plenty of Believers willing to talk about Jesus.  They stand on the street corner of Belle Chere and try to convert the sinners, they protest the funerals of fallen soldiers, they profess their vision of family as God’s way.  It’s they who remind me that the greatest danger in not being a witness is that we allow Jesus to be misrepresented every day.

J. Bennett Guess writes “Let’s not mince words — especially on this topic. Most UCC members would rather vacuum the sanctuary carpet than talk with someone else about their faith.”

You see in all our following of Jesus we often don’t acknowledge Christ as the center of our lives, as the impetus for our actions.   Now sure, as a community we do things that are clearly connected to the church and by association, Jesus Christ.  There’s safety in numbers.  But if you get us out on our own we are a lot less likely to let people know that our actions stem from our faith in and dedication to the ministry of Jesus Christ.  We follow Jesus, but often we don’t give Jesus much credit.  And while it may seem like a big challenge, if we do not make known what Jesus stands for, others will.  And how can we blame those who seem to have missed what makes Jesus so important if they never hear anything different.

Awhile back I shared this illustration from Barbara Erenreich’s book Nickeled and Dimed. It’s a favorite book of mine, where she experiences the strife of the working poor by taking minimum wage jobs and trying to live and eat on her wages. While doing this she attends a tent revival because it’s free and she has no money.  While there she struggles with listening to a theology that does little to nothing for the working poor.   She notes that the sole focus of Jesus is on the Cross, which allows these Christians to ignore the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.  She writes. “A crucified Jesus is a Jesus that doesn’t talk.”   In fact a Jesus up the air doesn’t either.  After she leaves the revival, she jokingly suggests she “half suspects to find Jesus around the corner, bound and gagged and tied to a telephone pole.”  Now the crucifixion is a critical event for our faith as Christians, but the death of Jesus seems to be in vain if his message is ignored. And isn’t the result the same as Jesus being bound and gagged, when we refuse to talk about him.

I used to think to be a witness for Christ all I had to do was follow Jesus.  And as important as that is, I know now that is not enough.  A witness-testifies.  A witness gives an account of what’s been seen and heard and experienced.

The national UCC began a marketing campaign years ago called the God is Still Speaking Campaign.  You’ve probably heard Amanda and I use the language of our Still Speaking God.  At the heart of the campaign is evangelism—as a denomination we want to bring the love, mercy and compassion of Jesus Christ to all people and as individuals we have just as great a responsibility.  In my application to seminary I wrote that I wanted to be an advocate for Christ.  I wrote that I wanted people to know that the cause of my actions is that I am “following Jesus.”

So while the ascension may prompt in us lots of questions, I think the question Jesus had in mind, as important today as it was on that hill before Jesus got carried away is—Can I get a Witness?

1 Comment

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  By Marni L. Grant, June 20, 2011 @ 10:29 am

  Thank you.

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