The Ascension of the Lord
Acts 1:1-11
(homily preached at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, New Harmony, Indiana)
Let’s do something different today
You all have your bulletins
So go to the last bit of our first reading from Acts
Find the part that starts
“When he had said this…
Everyone got it?
Now let’s read that all together
When he had said this,
as they were watching,
he was lifted up,
and a cloud took him out of their sight.
While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven,
suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.
They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?
This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven,
will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
I asked rob the other night as we were preparing to go to bed:
So tell me what you think of the Ascension
And with his impish grin, he said…Well…It is very very uplifting!
It is more than uplifting
It is fantastic! It is fantastical!
Lifted up
On a cloud
Vanishing from sight
Mysterious men in white
I can’t speak for you…but
I have SOOOO many questions
HOW…Exactly
WHERE… Exactly
WHY…exactly
In other words
WHAT…EXACTLY…makes this story real???
Because we
Everyone here...knows what real is
Real happens everyday
It has to do with
-what’s for dinner?
-who lost their job?
-a war broke out where?
-I am having a strange pain behind my eye…
We know real.
So what is real
About the Ascension
Why does it matter
Why is it so important that it is hinted at in the Our Father and made it into our Creed?
I remember an evening…some 15 years ago…Joe, you were a toddler
It was quite a lovely evening
There were about eight of us plus some kids
Relaxing around our supper table
Enjoying a meal together
I don’t remember the occasion…A birthday perhaps
It was late Summer…In the midst of the Food, Wine, Laughter
Suddenly there came…A flash of lightening
And thunder so loud…I knew it hit the house
And then…Darkness…Perfect darkness
And quiet too…Not the quiet of calm
But of a certain lostness…maybe confusion
I found the wall and felt my way to where I knew I kept candles and matches
Flashlights are never where they should be
And we use them so infrequently that the batteries are always dead
I struck the match…And lit the small candle
A simple flame…So small it would have gone
Completely unnoticed…Just a few moments earlier
Such a tiny flame really…
But Now
This tiny flame In the midst of that uneasy darkness…
It Gathered ALL our gazes
This week we find ourselves between Ascension and Pentecost.
Ascension and Pentecost
It reminds me of that Beatles song
You say Goodbye and I say Hello…Hello hello
This week we are between good-bye and hello
We are caught gazing…the text says
why are you standing there gazing at the sky?
Gazing…it is more intense than looking…maybe more like beholding
…With a bit of neediness
For the Disciples
No matter how stunning
it must have been confusing and terrifying really…
This man
Jesus of Nazareth
Who died …And rose …And appeared to his fledgling community
Walking with them…Eating with them…Conversing with them
They touched him…he was present to them
Hmmm…he did it once…he turned bad news into good news…but again???
Like the darkness
That followed that clap of thunder
The community was made ready for something new
For flickers of light…flames for everyone…as we will hear next week
For a power
And a presence
This departure of Jesus
Makes possible a new reality
I can hear the disciples…
I don’t want to go through that again
I will gaze UP in the hope that this isn’t real
That this won’t last
He’ll be right back…
It being mother’s day…the word GAZE captures my imagination
I am thinking of the mother-child gaze
There is so much going on there…In that gaze…
That is why it is the subject of so much art and even in scientific research
We come to know ourselves as part of a relationship…
As human persons…as loved
That gaze is how we are literally Loved into being
It is deep and penetrating
…a life giving gaze
What is it that captures our gaze?
In this time between Ascension and Pentecost
That might be a fruitful question
Gazing is open…It welcomes…It invites…It is vulnerable
But not everything we fix our gaze on is life giving
Much of it is not even alive!
Even if it is good at pretending.
Maybe as we think about what captures our gaze
We might imagine being gazed at!
Can I imagine Jesus gazing at me?
Can I imagine being caught up in the gaze of a loving God
...full of mercy, and love, a gaze that never loses sight of me?
Constantly calling me to life…and love…and joy?
Maybe when the two mystery men called the disciples out
For the direction of their gaze
They were being called out of
fear or grief
Maybe when our gaze gets locked on the wrong object...
fluffy clouds for instance
Maybe that is exactly when we lose our ability to imagine new possibilities
New outcomes
New hope
On that evening
around our supper table
When abruptly all was silenced and dark
That small candle flame attracted everyone’s gaze
Perhaps that is a practice for this week
Between Ascension and Pentecost
To shut it all down
And to not re-boot too quickly
But stay
Stay and wait for the gift of being drawn into the gaze
from the very heart of God
And gazing back in return
Not by looking up…the 2 mysterious men warn
No stiff-necks…
But by looking around
And seeing the Holy Spirit poured out
In the beauty of creation,
and the voice of strangers,
and in the embrace of friends and family…
Two moves…Ascension and Pentecost
Letting God gaze at us
Bringing us to a renewed fullness of life
And setting our gaze toward…
Toward those places and people and situations
Where life is fading
Good practice
between Ascension and Pentecost
And in our meantime
