Category Archives: Sermons

Ascension Sunday Sermon – Acts 1:1-14

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DISCLAIMER: I believe sermons are meant to be heard. They are the word proclaimed in a live exchange between God and the preacher, and the preacher and God, and the preacher and the people, and the people and the preacher, and the people and God, and God and the people. Typically set in the context of worship and always following the reading of scripture, sermons are about listening and speaking and hearing and heeding. At the risk of stepping outside such boundaries, I share sermons here — where the reader will have to wade through a manuscript that was created to be spoken word. Even if you don’t know the sound of my voice, let yourself hear as you read. Let your mind see as you hear. Let your life be opened to whatever response you begin to hear within you.
May the Spirit Speak to you!
RevJule
______________________
1 June 2014 – Ascension Sunday
Acts 1:1-14

Click here to read the scripture first: Acts 1:1-14 (NRS)

If this sermon were to have a title, a good one would be: Ascension??? . . . What’s it all about? Where in the world did he go? And what are we supposed to do now?

So the Ascension of the Lord:  what’s it all about?

If any of us grew up Roman Catholic or Episcopalian, you probably could school the rest of us about Ascension Day, as it’s such an important part of those traditions. It takes place every 40th day of Eastertide, always two Thursdays prior to Pentecost Sunday, the fiftieth day of Eastertide. And it’s considered one of the main high holy days. In fact, in Roman Catholicism it’s a Holy Day of Obligation. Or a day in which everyone better be at mass or else! . . . Legend has it that as early as 68 A.D., or just a generation after his death and resurrection, the first followers were celebrating the day the Risen Christ ascended. That kinda makes sense because not only would that have been about the time first followers would have been passing on the mantel to the next generation, but also because those would have been difficult days when things with Rome really were heating up – the Jerusalem Temple was about to be demolished entirely. Reassurance of an ascended, sovereign Lord would have been a growing comfort. Ascension Day might have been observed as early as the First Century A.D., but we only have written documentation of such celebrations beginning in the Fifth Century A.D. – by the time both the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds were around (www.officeholidays.com/countries/Europe/ascension_day.php).

Either way, in the good old days, some very interesting customs took place to mark this holy day feast. Often the paschal candle (or Christ candle) would be extinguished. It was a way to symbolize that ascension was the end of Christ’s work of reconciling us to God and one another. His life, death, resurrection, and ascension completed the task. . . . Blessing of the first fruits often was a part of an Ascension Day celebration. People would bring the first harvest of their grapes and beans for the priests to bless. . . . Sometimes Ascension Day included a procession into the sanctuary like a parade with torches and banners as a way to commemorate Christ’s ascension. I love the descriptions of priests suddenly raising a figure of Christ high above the altar all the way up through an opening in the roof. Kinda reminds me of a “Jesus Christ Super Star” production where an actor with flowing blond hair and pristine white robes is lifted up on one of those stage harnesses to float off above all the spotlights. . . . And while I’m really not sure what this next Ascension Day custom has to do with the ascension of Christ, I’ve read that in England churches commonly would beat the bounds on this day. Sources report that “Members of the parish (would) walk round the parish boundaries, marking boundary stones and hitting them with sticks. According to some, it was once the young boys of the parish that were hit with sticks instead of the stones.” The logical explanation to this was that “knowledge of the parish boundaries was once important, since churches had certain duties such as care of children born out of wedlock in the parish. (Thus) one of the purposes served by beating the bounds was that of warning the young men of the parish that (quote) any sexual misbehavior ought to take place with women who lived outside the parish” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Ascension). Isn’t that great? We Christians certainly can come up with some wild rituals! . . . But in some ways a good ole’ beating of the bounds might be a wonderful reminder to us that we have responsibilities to and for those living in the shadow of our sanctuary. Like this territory and the people of it are ours. It’s our job to ensure they know and experience the good news of the work of our crucified, risen, and ascended Lord. It’s our mission to tend to their spiritual needs. Can’t you almost picture Christ, returned to the Triune God, now saying things like: “check out that church community, God. They really are at it in their own backyard!”

Which brings us to where in the world did he go? Now, I gotta be honest. We had a little fight about this in the pastors’ lectionary study I’m a part of. I kept asserted that I worry that too many of us are concrete literal thinkers. When we hear about ascension, if we buy it at all, don’t we too often picture the human figure of Jesus sitting somewhere up in the skies alongside however we picture God the Father to be? I worry that we don’t get the metaphorical understanding of the creeds’ words that “Ascended into heaven and is seated on the right hand of God the Father” (Apostles’ Creed/Nicene Creed) was language used to speak of the Risen Christ being the right-hand one of God, the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe – the beloved ambassador or trusted emissary of God sent on a very special mission. We don’t always get the metaphorical, military-like language (common to that day) that the Risen, Ascended Christ is the one who successfully has completed his impossible mission even as he’s begun another. When it comes to ascension, I worry that too many of us concrete literal thinkers, if we pay attention to it at all, just get caught up in a view of the victorious Christ risen from the earth into the sky now to rest up on a cloud somewhere right alongside God; as from afar, they wait to see how badly on our own we might mess it all up.

Of course, a more seasoned preacher in our pastors’ bible study assured me that we 21st Century Americans don’t think that way. He assured me that we don’t see the world as the three-tiered cosmos of our biblical ancestors who didn’t yet know the earth is spherical, like a ball, instead of flat, like unleavened bread. Certainly Presbyterians in the pews, my preacher companion told me, know God isn’t just further up there than the astronauts have gone because it’s land here where we are, the fires of hell under below our feet, and heaven above where God and the angels reside – which was the ancient three-tiered view of the world. Rather, we know that this earth is one part of an amazing galaxy, in this incredible universe, where God is everywhere – in us, among us, and beyond us! Ascension up, as Acts of the Apostle’s describes with the words: “as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9), is more like the Risen Christ taking our humanity into the eternal heartbeat of God. Having lived as one of us here among us, the Risen Christ, who is God too, brings who we are fully into the Godhead so that we are in a new communion with our God forevermore. That’s why ascension matters – because in Christ, we’re united with God in a way we’ve never quite been before. At last we can get on not just with worshipping our Lord as one to lift high on a pedestal. But in emulating him as the one lifted up as the Way. The Path. The Proto-type. The Hero in whose steps we walk.

Which leads us right into what we are supposed to do now. Acts of the Apostles is believed to be something like the sequel of the gospel of Luke. And the ascension of the Lord opens Acts, just as it had closed the book of the gospel of Luke. This writer wants us to know that while the one born of Mary, raised in Nazareth, ministered primarily in Galilee before his trek to Jerusalem that got him killed and raised again – while Jesus the Christ played the leading role in the gospel of Luke; in Acts, it’s going to be his followers. Or the Holy Spirit of God working through his followers in the same way the Holy Spirit of God was working through Jesus all along. He kept telling his followers, like the gospel of John records (John 14:12), that it’s better that it happens this way so that we will do greater things than him. What we’re supposed to do now is fulfill the mission he passed on to us.

I love that Acts opens with the apostles hanging out with the Risen Christ on the Mount of Olives, again overlooking Jerusalem. I’m sure the view was a bit chillier this side of crucifixion and resurrection. As the disciples stood on the same spot from which they first entered the city, pre-Passover; they easily could recall all the Holy Week events. They hear him saying something about being baptized not with water like John the Baptist. But they just want to know if it’s all about to be over, the whole kingdom of Israel restored. Giving them something else upon which to focus, the Risen Christ says: “It’s not for you to know the times or periods set. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem (yes, the dangerous city where they put the Lord to death), in all Judea and Samaria (the provinces that don’t necessarily like such Galilean outsiders), and to the ends of the earth (which includes worlds you can’t even image – people so very different from you who may not even recognize their hunger for the Holy)” (paraphrase of Acts 1:7-8). They were hoping it all was about to be over. But it was just the beginning! . . . Instead, it’s a tall order he’s giving them. And according to how it got recorded in Acts, it is an order. You WILL be my witnesses from this spot right before you, unto ever-expanding circles beyond.

What we’re supposed to do now is get busy. Or rather wait for the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, next Sunday, and then get busy! As he’s lifted up like Enoch and Elijah – two other righteous ones of God whose feet supposedly left this earth in the same way. While Christ is taken out of the-kind-of-sight they’ve been having of him since before and after his resurrection, the apostles have to have another message to get them to stop just standing around gawking up at the skies. They’re assured he’s coming back in the very same way. As they are standing on the Mount of Olives, the words must bring to mind for them the prophetic visions that the triumphant Son of Man will come down from the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem to reclaim it all as God’s own. . . . Acts records that they finally go back into Jerusalem and they stay together. Praying and waiting for this empowering gift that will infuse them with the courage and energy, determination and clarity to emulate the one now lifted before them. To be about the business of carrying on his mission even if it means standing before the powers that want him dead, engaging those so totally different from themselves, and journeying into the wild unknown. . . . Any who claim the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ as Lord and Savior are to get out there to fulfill the mission he’s entrusted to us. Do the greater things he told us will be done by the Holy Spirit through us!

The Ascension of our Lord: I hope it’s gone from ??? to !!!

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2014 (All rights reserved.)

“In” — John 14:15-21

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DISCLAIMER: I believe sermons are meant to be heard. They are the word proclaimed in a live exchange between God and the preacher, and the preacher and God, and the preacher and the people, and the people and the preacher, and the people and God, and God and the people. Typically set in the context of worship and always following the reading of scripture, sermons are about listening and speaking and hearing and heeding. At the risk of stepping outside such boundaries, I share sermons here — where the reader will have to wade through a manuscript that was created to be spoken word. Even if you don’t know the sound of my voice, let yourself hear as you read. Let your mind see as you hear. Let your life be opened to whatever response you begin to hear within you.
May the Spirit Speak to you!
RevJule
______________________
25 May 2014 – 6th Sunday of Easter
John 14:15-21

Click here to read the scripture first: John 14:15-21 (NRS)

School years are ending this week. We’re in the midst of celebrating those who have sacrificed their lives for our country through the armed forces. And tomorrow marks the official acceptable time of changing over to our summer shoes and purses and white pants, right? . . . It’s all got me thinking about a boy who I have been watching become a young man. He came out carrot-top from the beginning with a beautiful mane of red hair that clearly was inherited from his grandmother. His looks favored her when he was young so much so that you could put baby pictures of her alongside him at the same age and swear he was the spitting image. It was as if you were looking at the exact same child. . . . Over the years, it’s become evident that he’s his parent’s offspring. He likes to ask questions. And push boundaries – as does his mother. He has fallen in love with singing – almost at the same age his mom did. He’s not afraid of going out into the world to discover where he fits – as both his parents kinda did. It’s easy to see them in him. You who are parents, grandparents, aunts, or uncles certainly have observed this phenomenon up-close in your own lives. Children so often carry the characteristics of their parents. At the same time, children get into their parents. It’s been easy to see this too in the boy I’ve been watching grow. A little bit of who he is has gotten in to them. Because neither his mother or his father ever played a violin – as he does masterfully, or took up soccer, or had anything to do with Boy or Girl Scouts. This boy has expanded their world as he’s gotten them listening to symphonies, and cheering on a soccer team, and even getting into things like earning badges and completing an Eagle Scout project. It’s kinda how it happens, right? Children reflect their parents. And as they grow, parents’ lives end up shaped – whether they like it or not – by the unique being that their child is. They are in him as much as he is in them.

It’s good to ponder the process a bit because it may be one of the closest analogies to give light to the message of the gospel of John which we hear today. . . . Chapter 14 of John is just the beginning really of Jesus’ very long speech to his disciples. It may feel a little bit of a rewind as this text puts Jesus and his disciples back together at a supper right before he goes out to the garden of Gethsemane to be arrested and crucified. We’re six Sundays into the season of Easter, but the gospel of John points us back to before all that action began. The words of the gospel of John that we heard today happen at table after he’s washed every last one of their feet – including the feet of Judas who would betray him, Peter who would deny him, and the rest who would scatter and flee. Often referred to as the Farewell Discourse, this section of the gospel of John starts with a reminder that Jesus (knowing that his hour has come): Having loved his own, he loved them to the end (John 13:1). . . . Things are about to go awry. Their world is about to be destroyed; their hearts crushed as the nails are driven one by one into his hands and feet. Out of deep love for those who are about to feel 100% abandoned – alone, Jesus speaks. Such beautiful words like: “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1). And “I will not leave you orphaned” (John 14:18). He knows this horrific night will shatter them. Like an emergency room chaplain trying to comfort the bereaved who just heard their loved one didn’t make it; Jesus is trying to tell them it’s all going to be all right.

Of course, just telling them it’s all going to be all right would have gotten him an F in seminary Pastoral Care class. Because you’re not supposed to say it’s all ok when the worst tragedy hits! You’re not supposed to reach for empty platitudes about tomorrow is another day. All the pastoral care gurus tell you, you’re just supposed to be. With one in their grief. Alongside. A presence that can sit together with another in their pain so that they do not feel alone. That’s about all we can offer in such moments of the most intense grief – and it’s really all that’s needed: being with. Because as a person has to walk through that dark valley, the presence of another can be their strength. Their comfort. The light that can shine for them until their own world turns from grey into color again. All the casseroles in the world won’t do it – though the casseroles might be one way of enacting what Jesus ends up promising here.

He takes out what always have seemed to me to be mind-boggling words. On and on he goes about loving him and keeping commands and another Advocate and living and finally: “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). If we had to draw it out, like in a game of Pictionary, it might look something like Russian nesting dolls – each one being in the next and all of them being one together. Or maybe even the fish that is in the water, but the water’s in the fish too through its gills and the composition of its body. . . . What Jesus’ is trying to say to those about to be adrift in a turbulent sea of grief is that, look: can you see the parents in the boy? Can you see the boy in the parents? . . . We’re in a relationship here. That’s the promise he gives to those who love him. Those who feel like he’s abandoning them in his death, resurrection, and eventual ascension; he wants them to know that he will be in them, just like he’s in God and they are in him. . . . We’ll be in Christ; as he’s in God and they’re in us.

It’s doubly needed, this word of presence – of Christ being in us as Christ is in God because it’s believed the gospel of John was written to Christ’s followers right around 100 A.D. About two generations after Christ’s death and resurrection, and just a couple decades or so after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Things were getting tough for the first followers of Christ around that time because Jews were trying to figure out what it meant to be Jews after their Temple was destroyed (again) in 70 A.D. And followers of Christ’s Way no longer could rest on Temple worship alongside certain practices at home, as they did after the first Easter. These two groups were deeply on the way to becoming distinct religious movements. Those first hearing the gospel of John really needed to know that before his death and resurrection Jesus promised his disciples they would not be alone. He was not leaving them orphaned as he told them to carry on in the mission he began. In fact, some of the gospel of John’s theology of the Risen Christ is coming through here. As we live in him – keeping his commandments; doing the things he did; the Risen Christ lives in us. Through us. The world can see that we’re the spitting image of him: apples that haven’t fallen far from the tree, isn’t that what is said sometimes? You can see the parents in the boy! The characteristics of Christ – which, Jesus in the Farewell Discourse wants us to know, are in fact the characteristics of the Triune God. Those traits of Christ shine through us because he’s in us; even as we’re in him. Just like he’s in God and God’s in him – does that make sense? His image is reflected in us – if we’re keeping his commandments.

The Apostle Paul’s metaphor from Colossians comes to mind. In chapter three he says that those of us who know ourselves raised with Christ are to put on certain clothes. As if each was a separate piece of our wardrobe we were putting on in the morning: a shirt of compassion, socks of kindness, trousers of humility, shoes of meekness, and spruce it all up with the accessory of patience. We put on each garment of the characteristics of Christ as we ready ourselves to head out the door for our daily walk. Of course, the difference here in the gospel of John, is that it’s not like clothes on the outside. It’s Christ in us – from the inside out and us in him. The parents in the boy as much as the boy is in the parents. Which is not to say that Christ changes because of who we are; but more to say that because of the unique skin of who each of us is, Christ takes on all sorts of wonderful forms in this world. He lives through so many more amazing gifts and abilities each one of us is and has. It’s kinda beautiful that he and his ways get lived out through children and youth and adults alike. That those things of compassion and kindness and humility take form through those of us who are right-brained and those of us who are left-brained. Through the feminine and the masculine. Through those who connect well with younger people and those who tend the aging best. He lives in us; and we live in him!

How can that not spur us on in good days and in darkest valleys? How can we not be motivated to live out his commands – knowing that we’re not alone in that process. It’s not on our own efforts; Christ is in us. We’re in him; just like he’s in God and God is in him. They’re in us. Just get out of their way and let those traits – the characteristics of Christ that are in us come pouring out. Which might be something we have to grow into; something that unfolds deeper and deeper through the years so that those around us recognize Christ in us a little bit more day by day just as we see those parents in that boy as he grows.

What good news. A gift from our God! The Risen Christ in us and we in him!

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.
© Copyright JMN – 2014 (All rights reserved.)