Sunday, May 4, 2008

Sermon 7 Easter - Ascension Sunday May 4, 2008

7 Easter A - Sunday after Ascension Day - 4 May 2008
Acts 1:6-14; 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11; John 17:1-11
James V. Stockton

Of the geometry with which God has blessed us it may be that the circle is the most pleasing of shapes that people see and most satisfying of concepts that people encounter. This proposition may be one worth keeping mind as we reflect upon one of the complexities of our faith. “The church that forgets the absence [of Christ] inevitably misunderstands and misconstrues [Christ’s] presence.” So writes theologian and historian Douglas Farrow in his book Ascension and Ecclesia. Farrow’s point is that Christ’s ascension is, and must be, far more than “only a lesson designed to put an end to the disciples’ expectation of further ‘visitations’ from heaven.”

Christ’s Ascension is a core and basic tenet of Christianity. The orthodox doctrines of the Church, as represented in both the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed, describe Jesus’ ascension into heaven as something on a par with those other aspects of his life and ministry that are definitive of Christianity itself. Along with his conception by the power of the Holy Spirit, his birth by the Virgin Mary, his passion and death under Pontius Pilate, and his mighty resurrection from the dead, Jesus’ ascension into heaven is right in there with the rest.

Here, then, is where the geometry of the thing might be helpful. The point of the Ascension of Jesus is that what was begun is now complete. Certainly what was begun in Jesus, in the incarnation of the Christ, this is completed. Yet, there is more than this that God has begun. And this means that there is a greater circle, if you will, that is represented in Jesus’ ascension, encompassing a wider meaning than people might first perceive.

“I have made your name known,” prays Jesus, “to those whom you gave me from the world.” It is a prayer that Jesus offers to God on his final night with them before his arrest and execution. And perhaps as we do today, perhaps as our fellow Episcopalians and many other Christians around the world do today, perhaps the disciples also remember this prayer that Jesus once offered on their behalf, as they turn from the mystery of his ascension into heaven. “Holy Father,” Jesus prays, “protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.” Jesus prays for them because, even though they do not realize it on the sad night on which he prays, nor do they realize it yet as he blesses them atop Mount Olivet before disappearing from view, yet Jesus knows. Jesus knows that he is leaving them in the midst of a world to which they no longer really belong.

And Jesus knows that, soon, the disciples will realize it themselves. “Lord, is this the time?” they ask Jesus. It’s a very reasonable question; it’s a very linear question. ‘You have been raised from the dead; you have shown yourself to us repeatedly, you have confirmed for us that you are the Christ of God.’ “Now,” they ask him, “is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” It’s a linear question. And so, it is a worldly question. And for this reason, Jesus must tell them, “It’s not for you to know.”

A story tells of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw and young man whom he meets at a dinner party. The young man launches into a monologue describing his observations and opinions concerning innumerable topics. He drones on and on, with on one else nearly as fascinated as he himself. Unwilling to restrain his wit any longer, Shaw interrupts. “I do believe,” he says to the young man, “that between the two of us, we know everything in the world that there is to know.” “Really?” asks the young man. “And how, pray tell, would that be?” “Well,” says Shaw, “you seem to know everything except that you are an incomparable bore. And I know that!”

What is humanity’s to know, and what is it that is not ours to know? Within our venerable Anglican tradition, there is an approach to faith that is described as a three-legged stool. It originates with 17th century Church of England theologian Richard Hooker, and, in my humble opinion, we have yet to plumb the depths of his insight. Hooker proposes that Christian faith is well supported by a godly triad whose first leg is Scripture, whose second leg is Reason, and whose third is Tradition. And despite the tendency of some ideologies to make appeals to tradition in order to support practices that are rooted in unchallenged prejudices, nevertheless, thanks be to God, Anglicanism still ranks Reason ahead of tradition. It is Anglican, it is Episcopalian, thus, I think we may rightly argue, that it is simply inherently Christian to appreciate this fantastic capacity to think, to question, to wonder, to theorize, to test, and to think it through again. It may be given to us to know, or it may be given to us not to know. But it is always given to us to want to know.

The disciples want to know is this the time. Jesus wants them to know something far more important. And Jesus wants them to want to know that it is something not ‘out there’ in front of them somewhere; but something closer, something nearer to the point where they began. When the disciples start out with Jesus, they do not know him. They think they know him; they think that he is a wise man, they wonder if he is a prophet, and they hope that he is the one anointed and appointed by God to put their people back at the top of the hierarchy of world order. From our own perspective of nearly 2000 years afterward, we know that Jesus was not literally any of these; we know that the followers of Jesus did not, in the beginning, know Jesus.

Now, as he prepares to leave them in death, Jesus he prays for his disciples in a particular way. His disciples have come to know him at least well enough that though they remain are in the world, yet they, like he, are now no longer of it. That life that is of the world and the life of Christ in the world do not communicate long with one another before one begins to give way to the other. <>Two people uniting as a couple, have no absolute need to do in the context of a life of faith in God, a life in but not of the world. People celebrating the life of a love one who has recently died, have no absolute need to do in the context of a life of faith in God, a life in but not of the world. But sometimes, in times of joy, people do seek God’s blessing in a context of a life of faith. Sometimes, people do seek God’s consolation in times of grief in the context of a life in but not of the world. This indicates, I suggest, Christ’s call to his followers to create such intersections of cooperation and distinction, where people may bring their experiences of the linear progression of their lives into contacts with eternity and with the life of God.

“In the Bible,” writes the scholar Farrrow, “the doctrine of the resurrection slowly emerges as a central feature of the Judeo-Christian hope. But if it can stand for that hope, that hope itself is obviously something more.” “…it is not too bold to say,” he continues, “that the greater corporate journey documented by the scriptures continually presses…toward the impossible feat of the ascension.” <>At his ascension, Jesus promises his followers that soon they will be blessed with the Holy Spirit of God, as he himself was blessed. For he knows that they, like he, that we like he, are now be in the world, as a symbol of life begun, ended, and perpetually residing in God. Today, you and I have completed a circle. We have returned to find Christ Jesus where our journey with him began. He is absent, distant again; and we find ourselves, and sometimes people in the world around us, again expectant of his coming. And yet, we find him still uniquely present to us in word, in sacrament and in the sacramental fellowship of we his people.

And so, by his absence and through our expectation, we discover Jesus again among us, in the only way that we can find him, in the way that only he can be found. As he and the Father are one, we find Jesus again, he within us and we in him; in the world but not of it, we living the life of the faith that we have in Jesus, and Jesus living the life of the faith that he has in you and me.

And so may Almighty God, who unites us in the holy bond of truth and peace, of joy and charity, so grant to us the gift of faith that it may overflow our own, and bless the hearts and lives around us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2008, James V. Stockton

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