The Power of Gaze*

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