May 20, 2012
Up, Up and Away
- John 2:1-21
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
So what do you think of the sermon title? Up, Up and Away just seemed appropriate after I read the two passages from Luke/Acts about Jesus’ ascension. Actually it’s the title of a 1967 song by the Fifth Dimension – which means half of you here today have never heard of it. But it was a very popular song when I was just beginning to listen to pop music. These stories also made me think of how I would paint a picture of the ascension. I think I would paint clouds in the sky with Jesus’ legs peeking out of the clouds – sandals on his feet of course! That would be an interesting picture! Clouds, feet and sandals. But I tell you, these ascension stories really baffled me. Jesus just levitating up into the clouds? It almost makes me think of Mary Poppins heading up into the sky propelled by her umbrella.
Jesus’ ascension brings up so many questions. How high is up? Is that where heaven is? If Jesus ascended into heaven, can we still find his body up there? These are not just questions children might ask – these are questions I would ask - and if children do ask these questions what answers would we give them? I know that Teri and I were relieved that the Time with Children today could focus on Teacher Recognition rather than on these questions of cosmology, theology and Christology. Are the answers to these questions found in the bible? Not really, or not in the precise way we would like.
Most of us don’t conceive of a three-leveled or three tiered world with earth in the middle, heaven above and the netherworld or hell beneath. The Tuesday morning bible study ladies – my favorite theologians – believe that hell and/or heaven can be on earth, can be a part of our lives right now. But most of us continue to think of heaven as an existence – if not a place – that transcends our present existence.
Others questions I have about these stories - How high is up? It is beyond our comprehension. Is that where heaven is? Could be, as long as we don’t limit heaven to special dimensions. If Jesus ascended into heaven, might we still find his body up there? Now that is a question for us to ponder and discuss.
A few years ago I preached a sermon about heaven. It was very theological. I did a lot of research for it. Nobody liked it. Even I didn’t like it. But in the 21st century, with so many scientific advances, “heaven” as a specific place where God reigns and people go when they die has lost some of its power – even though we don’t really like that idea. Even if it doesn’t seem logical that we, or Jesus, or anyone goes “up” to heaven, I do believe that nothing separates us from the love of God and that somehow God is with us in this life and the next – whatever that next life is and wherever it is. Polls show that nine out of ten Americans believe in heaven, regardless of their religious affiliation, and 85 percent of us are convinced that we will personally go there.
Think about all the books written about heaven. I enjoyed reading Mitch Albom’s book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. It was engaging and even made some sense with my theology of God’s actions in our lives and the effect others have on the paths of our lives. Then there is the book Heaven Is for Real by Todd Burpo. Todd’s son Colton had a near death experience and told his dad the story of having been transported from the operating table into heaven. Little Colton described to his dad details of his great-grandfather who had been dead for over 30 years and told him about a sister who died in a miscarriage that he had never been told about. He also encountered John the Baptist and saw God and Jesus sitting on enormous thrones. Heaven, Colton said, is “for real.”
Tom Long – Presbyterian minister and preacher extraordinaire – is a little skeptical of Colton’s claims. He has a hard time with the boy’s claims of a blue eyed Jesus and his description of the pearly gates. Rev. Long came away from the book thinking that perhaps Colton was carried in an out of body experience to a biblical wax museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. (Don’t you just love that – a biblical wax museum in Gatlinburg?) But the book’s popularity tells us something. Even if a place “up there” where we go when we die doesn’t make much sense to us anymore, especially in the 21st century where we know more about space and physics and the cosmos – in moments of need we find the hope of heaven irresistible. No matter how farfetched heaven seems, no matter where it is – up or out or even here – we need heaven. Even though the bible tells us so little about what happens after we die or what heaven is, most of us have expectations of seeing generations of our loved ones again in some sense of time and place. We have expectations of meeting and getting to know God more fully. We have expectations of meeting Jesus, of being welcomed home. Our faith teaches us about the hope of eternal life and so we logically look for some place to live that next life after we die.
Today we are celebrating what is known in the church as Ascension Day. But somehow I feel like the ascension of Jesus is about more than his vertical locomotion toward the heavens like a character in a science fiction movie. As important as it is to our theology and creeds that Jesus ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty to intercede for us, and as interesting as it is to try to figure out what and where heaven is, somehow I feel like the message of the ascension is really more about the disciples and us. The ascension is the event that changes the locus of Christ’s work and ministry from Jesus himself, to those who follow him. Jesus is no longer here to preach the good news, heal the sick and feed the hungry. The mission now falls to the disciples. And to make the job even tougher they are to take the ministry global – “to the ends of the earth.”
Being given a mission is not new to the disciples, but for the first time they are on their own. While the Spirit is coming to help and empower them, they are still responsible for being witnesses to Christ. It’s like the two men in white robes were saying to the disciples that it’s time to stop staring at the clouds and get busy! They are saying the same thing to us. We have work to do. We have a commission to fulfill. From now on we are the body of Christ. We are called to proclaim the good news. We must embrace all people with the merciful love of God. We are called to be the hands, feet, eyes and voice of Christ to the ends of the earth. We may wonder where Jesus went when he physically ascended into the clouds, but we don’t have to wonder about who is to carry on his ministry for him – we are.
There is one more aspect of these ascension narratives that I believe is applicable to our lives. These are also stories of waiting, about being in an interim time, about life after someone significant is gone, and about experiences of uncertainty. Jesus has said the Holy Spirit would come to the disciples – but not just now. The Spirit was not yet with them. Our celebration next Sunday of Pentecost will help us understand the power of the Holy Spirit – given to the disciples and given to us. But at this point the disciples are left wondering and waiting , trusting that the Spirit is coming, but not sure when. They have been given a commission, but aren’t really sure how to carry it out. Has that ever happened to you?
I can easily connect with experiences of being in the midst of uncertainty or expectation. We crave resolution and often want to turn the page to the next chapter of our lives – get out and get going – which is what Jesus is eventually calling us to do – but sometimes we are also asked to wait. To wait in that uncomfortable space we know as between spaces. To wait until we are prepared, or educated or empowered. We know this kind of time – the loss of a loved one, unemployment, broken relationships, the summer before leaving for college, waiting for a baby to be born, itching for a cast to be removed, awaiting the results of a biopsy, watching as a loved one slips away to Alzheimer’s. We have all experienced “between” space.
So many aspects to this story. A call to action, but a call to wait for preparation first. A savior who somehow ascends into the clouds – something we can’t imagine or understand – but needing to hear that the risen Christ is now with God looking out for us.
The physical rising of Christ into the sky still baffles me, and I can’t really picture a place up in the sky that I can call heaven, but somehow I know that heaven exists. Or at least that I need it to exist! There are so many voices out there telling us what heaven is and isn’t. I guess I don’t worry about that too much, because these scriptures tell me that whatever and where ever heaven is, Jesus is there. But I do appreciate another book I read about heaven – it’s Christopher Morse’s The Difference Heaven Makes: Rehearsing the Gospel as News. Morse researches the gospels and observes that heaven is mainly “not about blue skies or life after death.” Rather heaven is the life that is now coming toward us from God, the life “of the world to come,” a life that actually overcomes our present age. The opposite of heaven is not hell, but is instead the “world that is passing away.”
In Acts, when Jesus is “taken up to heaven,” this is not a spatial claim – and it certainly tells us nothing about what or where heaven is – but Jesus going up to heaven is an announcement that Jesus has been taken up ‘into the very life that is now forthcoming toward us.” Heaven is God’s unbounded love breaking in to every situation, stronger than any loss, even death. As Rev. Long says, we don’t go to heaven; heaven comes to us. And this makes sense to me – we don’t go to heaven; heaven comes to us. “In sum,” Morse writes, “we are called to be on hand for that which is at hand but not in hand, an unprecedented glory of not being left orphaned but of being loved in a community of new creation beyond all that we can ask or imagine.”
And if heaven comes to us, then we as the church – the only body Christ has left on the earth – we are called to share that good news with others. After a period of waiting and preparation, we are called to be witnesses to that love, that heaven, and to tell everyone “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1: 8) Christ has set before us the work of bearing witness to him and to God’s unbounded love wherever we are and throughout all the world.
I close with a rewording of today’s Centering Thought in the bulletin. We are called to remember that Christ has no body now on earth but ours, no hands or feet but ours, no eyes to see the needs of the world but ours. Ours are the hands with which to bless everyone. Ours are the feet that Jesus uses to go about doing good. And ours are the voices that share about heaven – God’s unbounded love breaking into every situation and coming to us – coming to all of us. May it be so. Amen.
Resources:
America, The National Catholic Weekly, “Jesus Where Did Jesus Go?” by Dianne Bergant, May 19, 2003
Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol 2, Ascension of the Lord.
The Christian Century, “Heaven Comes to Us” by Thomas G. Long, April 25, 2011