Following the Instructions, Following Jesus: Sermon for Ascension Sunday B

We are in the midst of a season of transitions. We've had some several changes in our own parish in the last few months: beloved parishioners whose health required them to move closer to relatives; others who have had hospital or rehabilitation stays; parishioners who have passed away. I will preside over my uncle’s burial tomorrow, and this summer we will lay my brother to rest. Yet there are also wonderful transitions happening all around us. We also have new members who have come to join us, as well, or who are seeking baptism, and we are blessed by their presence and their commitment to walking the path of faith alongside us.

For those of you who are students, or who have children or grandchildren who are students, there's prom, which my sister helped supervise at her school district last night, and I hope she is soundly asleep right now. And after prom, of course there are graduations. My dear friend Pamela's daughter Annabel graduated last week with her juris doctor degree from the University of California at Davis, and I look forward to seeing how she will use her knowledge of the law to make the world a better place, for I am certain that that is her intention. There are high school students preparing in a few short weeks to head off to college, and college students who are preparing to come home for the summer.

And thus, we also face some practicalities: the taking apart and putting together of dorm rooms and apartments and living spaces. So I have a question: Who here among us has ever attempted to put together a piece of furniture from IKEA, or from any foreign country in which the instruction manual, if you have one at all, reads as if it was written by a Martian?

I asked this because our daughter Lauren recently regifted us with an IKEA bed that we had originally bought for her when she was living in Chicago. She gave us this bed about a month ago. It may surprise none of you to know that this bed is still sitting in pieces in one of our spare bedrooms. Why is it in pieces, you might ask? Because even though we made sure that we had every piece that we needed for the bed’s structural integrity, we forgot about the special tools, and we forgot about the instructions. And since it has been years since we last put that bed together, we no longer have the memory of how we did it the first, second and third times we assembled it.

We've got all the pieces we need, but it is possible we may spend the rest of our lives trying to put this bed together. And every time I walk past the open door of that bedroom and see that bed in pieces, it occurs to me that it is the perfect metaphor for our lives as disciples, made especially more poignant on this Ascension Sunday.

In our readings today we hear Luke's two accounts of Jesus bodily ascension into heaven. Now, unfortunately, we get them in reverse chronological order. As you may know, the author of Luke wrote both he gospel, and then a sequel: the Acts of the Apostles. Both of these documents were addressed to a person Luke called “Theophilus,”-- which is a symbolic name that literally means “Lover of God.” So both of these writings are addressed to us.

With a strict economy of words, Luke's gospel account ends with reminding us that Jesus, one last time, explained all the scriptures to his followers, and then took his disciples to Bethany, a town two miles outside of the gates of Jerusalem, said farewell, and ascended into heaven. In the gospel account, they respond to this shocking event with great joy, worship, and witness in the Temple.

Apparently, Luke was dissatisfied with this terse description, for he begins his sequel with that same event, but in more detail. The account in Acts specifies that Jesus’ post-Resurrection sojourn among his friends lasted 40 days, 40 always being a significant number of periods of learning and transition in scripture. We also hear Jesus’s instructions not to leave Jerusalem just yet, and actually informing us, his readers, about political questions the disciples had for Jesus. Then Jesus ascends on a cloud, while his friends and followers stood there gaping and staring up at the sky for so long that God finally had to send two angels to nudge them out of their shock. Our reading closes with the implication that the angels are telling them to get to work.

With that, the incarnation of Jesus in human flesh is complete here on Earth. Yet Jesus’s bodily ascension into heaven is a pivotal point, because he continues as both human and divine, seated at the right hand of God. In ascending, Jesus brings his embodiment into the community of the Trinity. Human experience, human joy, human suffering, now enter into the very existence of God. When Jesus intercedes with us when we pray, for instance, he does so as the Son of God and the Son of Man.

But Jesus’s ascension is also a huge turning point in the lives of those who are disciples of Jesus, who call themselves followers of Jesus, for those who were yet living to witness it and those of us in the centuries since who have only second-hand accounts like the reading from the Book of Acts to go by. What does the Ascension mean for us today, symbolically and practically? And that leads us to the heart of the matter for us to consider yet again: why was it necessary for the Son of God to become incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth in the first place?

Over the first few years, when people expected Jesus back at any moment, the answer was very particular and specific. Jesus came to take our sinful nature upon himself in a transaction: Jesus removed our sins supposedly so that we could go to heaven when we die—heaven, where, Jesus reminds us in a gospel passage commonly read at funerals, God’s mansion has many swelling places and Jesus goes to prepare a place for us. And that was fine—when, like children, Jesus’s followers depended upon Jesus as their teacher and their savior to do everything for them.

Yet even during Jesus’s earthly ministry, he repeatedly insisted that his presence among us was NOT merely transactional. In fact he came to demonstrate to his followers that God’s love for us and for creation is NOT a transaction, that god was NOT keeping a great big ledger book ticking off every unkind thought that entered our heads. One of the greatest concepts Jesus emphasized was that we can’t earn our way into salvation. The insistence that grace, not merit, brings us within the embrace of God was a core teaching of Jesus—one that unfortunately gets drowned out too much in the loudest parts of Christendom, where depictions of hellfire and brimstone are excellent ways to distract us from the WORK we as disciples are called to do right here on Earth.

Jesus ascends bodily into heaven because HIS specific work here was finished. That may shock us—how can it be, with all the wars, and disease, and suffering, and genocides, that Jesus’s work on Earth is done?

The answer is simple: because Jesus’s work was NEVER just transactional. Jesus’s work was transformative, and relational. ALWAYS. And the transformation he most centered on was with US. To teach us how to LIVE, and live with each other. Not how to continue on in the ways of the world turning a blind eye to the need around us. The transformation Jesus calls us to continue as his followers is now, because eternal life is NOW.

The heart of Jesus’s ministry on earth was not to teach us how to die, but how to live. Specifically, Jesus’s own life among us was meant to show us how to live a God-centered life—and most of the time, that didn’t simply mean spending time in worship—in fact, during his life Jesus dissuaded his followers from worshiping him. Instead, he called his disciples to FOLLOW him—to emulate him as they could. Jesus insisted that a faithful life was not about separating people into camps of the worthy and the unworthy, sinners, and saints, but to go out and DO as Jesus did in the world to the best of our ability. To both embody Christ’s love and compassion in ourselves, and to see Christ’s face in others. Jesus gives us both the proper tools, and the complete instructions.

The fact that much of the world claims not to see that same love and presence is an indication that we, as Jesus’s followers and witnesses, need to take Jesus’s instructions to us more seriously. The instruction manual has been right there all along. It’s up to us now. But luckily Jesus is still with us, for he is still a Risen, living Savior, calling us to keep learning, to keep growing, to keep being symbols of hope and reconciliation contrary to the tug and pull of human systems based on oppression, exploitation, and callousness that washes over our modern societies in all their structures. The instructions are simple: to oppose systems and leaders who build their power and influence on oppression, dishonesty and contempt, and instead embody God’s love for the life and hope of a better world.

The Ascension reminds us that Jesus’s instructions were quite clear, and that Jesus’s Ascension has real significance for us as disciples. Those instructions, as we were reminded last week, were, are, and aways shall be based on one commandment: LOVE. Not as an emotion, but as an action and a way of life, not just for those we know but for those we don’t know, not just for those WE decide are worthy but for everyone, especially those we would like to turn our backs upon. Turning our backs on people or on the care of the world is NOT God’s way—it is exactly the kind of thing Jesus repeatedly told us to STOP doing.

The Ascension removes our training wheels and anoints us to continue Jesus’s work of reconciliation and healing in the world, of witnessing physically in all we do to the goodness and love of God. Jesus has given us all the knowledge we need, and modelled for us a concrete example of what a God-centered life, a fully human life, entails. That life is 99% witness and living and loving as Jesus did, which is the hard but oh so rewarding and transformative part of a Christian life. Worship, as important as it is, means nothing if it does not energize and empower us to build our lives around Jesus’s instructions.

Christ has risen, and has ascended! Alleluia! Now we get to follow the instructions and BE Christ for the sake of the world and for the sake of living lives of wonder, purpose, and transformation. Thanks be to God!

Readings:

Acts 1:1-11 

Psalm 47

Ephesians 1:15-23

Luke 24:44-53

Preached at the 505 and the 10:30 am main service of Holy Eucharist, May 11-12, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

God's Concerto: Sermon for Easter 6B

This weekend, Bill and I were able to hear Yo-Yo Ma perform live with the St. Louis Symphony. Together, they gave a stirring performance of Sir Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor. Bill and I and hundreds of others in the audience sat enthralled as we watched the master cellist bring to life the beauty of this musical composition. Because this was a special, gala performance, Bill and I were not in our usual seats, in the second row right in front of the cello section, which is my favorite spot, as someone who played cello starting in 4th grade, through youth symphony and a college music scholarship myself. Instead we were all the way over on the very edge of the fifth row at the rear of the first violin section.

But no matter. Perhaps this was even a blessing, since if I had been sitting right in front of the great master, I might not have been able to take my eyes off Mr. Ma to perceive the entire experience. There were moments I could even close my eyes and focus on the skillful weaving of sound and silence, of melody and harmony, of soloist and ensemble, of individual sound and combined chords that is music.

We humans seem driven to break things down into their constituent parts. And that is natural—that’s the way we learn how some things happen, and gives us an appreciation for even the smallest of things. And at first, my attention flitted from one sensory detail to another.

From my vantage point, my lack of ability to focus on the great Yo-Yo Ma visually, allowed me to experience a profound truth: the performance of a concerto, or any piece of music, is never about just one thing. Music starts with sounds—and silences. It is timeless yet held together logically in each specific moment. In between those sounds and silences there are sounds that are fortissimo, and sounds that are so soft you miss them. There’s the great master, playing the melody on his cello—and then that melody is handed off or harmonized or even held in opposition by the players of other instruments in the orchestra and the appreciation of the audience. 

Every single person on that stage is vitally important for the piece to flower into its fullest potential beauty—and since this is a world-renowned orchestra, everyone from the concertmaster to the last chair of the second violins to the lowly timpani player who spends 95% of his time counting silently are in their own rights incredible at their instruments and contributors to the whole. All this is held together by the depths of knowledge and the sensitivity of the conductor, who is himself actually being led by the soloist and his interpretation of the piece. Each performer is also a listener, responding to those around them. The production of the piece of music is collaborative, unified, organic, bound within a set duration of rhythm and time yet transcending those limitations to lodge in the imagination of all who receive the gift of that music.

We see the same truth from observing the soloist himself. He holds against his body a hollow wooden box, upon which wires have been fastened and tightened in specific ways. The length of those wires has been expanded by the addition of a stick upon which the strings can be shortened through pressure upon them at specific places along the stick. The great soloist pulls sound from that box through the use of his fingers, a bow made of wood and horsehair made grippy with cured tree sap. But the precise placement of the hands—perfected through thousands of hours of practice, produces nothing without the strength of the arms, the firm planting of the feet and gripping by the knees, yes, as well as the prodigious memory (for he used no sheet music for either his performance nor for his encore), but also, most importantly, with each breath and beat of his heart. 

Yet the training and control of the gift of his body is not enough, for—and this is clear with such a great artist as Yo-Yo Ma—the very beauty of his spirit and soul are just as much engaged in the depth and richness of the music he makes: his humanity, his generosity, his activism in the promotion of understanding between cultures and world peace. This humanitarianism is evident in the choice of this concerto, which itself was created by the composer as a plea for peace after the horrors and aftermath of World War I. Yet even if we are unfamiliar with the context of the particular piece of music being performed, as we attend carefully to the swirl of sound around us we begin to make sense of it, to discern certain phrases or themes that get repeated, and that expand through variation and expansion to form the whole, just as a vine is inseparable from branches, just as the wave is inseparable from the ocean.

What if we applied this organic understanding as appreciators of music as a metaphor for our common life together—our common life together, that itself makes music possible? Then the sounds and the silences produced in those brief moments on Friday night become holy reminders of God’s image in all of us, of the wonders of the human soul and imagination in seeking to create things of beauty like concertos and believing that the sounds and silences in music can actually call us to contemplate our mutual humanity and our place within the web of creation. 

The same hands that drew music from their respective instruments were being employed in the cause of beauty and peace, rather than division or hatred, as is implied in today’s psalm that insists that creation is joined in a concerto of praise and love for and by God. And the magic is, even though music works in partnership with time, even though it has a beginning in time and an ending in time, the beauty and sensation the music produces lingers long after the last note has faded away. All works together for the sake of the whole, and in so doing, becomes far greater than the sum of any of that concerto’s constituent parts.

It is, my friends, the same thing with our lives together in this world. Perhaps you have been sitting here wondering about why this preacher is droning on and on about a classical music performance and engaging in flights of fancy making everything perhaps more complicated than it has to be. Perhaps you have been sitting here during the last few minutes looking at the readings for this Sunday and wondering how many MORE times we can hear the word “love” repeated as often as the notes in a concerto during our readings? I mean what is this-- week three already of hearing the word “love” ricochet throughout the week’s chosen passages? Isn’t this constant harping on this theme indicative of a profound lack of imagination on the part of the lectionary developers and the authors of our scripture passages?

It is at this point I want to urge ourselves to step back a bit from the atomistic dismissal or cheapening by repetition of that word “love.” With our hearts, let us look to the whole, instead. Let us be led to begin to recognize the wonder and glory of the beating heart of the gospel that has been being presented to us by the various passages we have been reading and hearing not just in this season of Easter but throughout the scope of our lives as human beings and disciples and members of the ensemble of creation, if we attend properly. 

These last weeks we have been being presented with the core theme of the ministry of Jesus upon this Earth—a ministry that seeks to reveal to us who God is, and, getting a small glimpse of that, who that then makes us? Jesus became incarnate and lived and worked and healed and especially LOVED in order to get us to lift our eyes from our own narrow perceptions and divisions to instead focus on something as richly profound as the beauty, the glory, the unity of our existence. There is a beautiful theme or melody running through our lives that we are often too fragmented, too distracted, and yes, too afraid to acknowledge unless we do have it repetitively placed before us, over and over again.

That word “love” is a single note in the concerto that has been shot through the universe since God originally sang all that is into being.  Our psalm for today begins with the command, "Sing to the Lord a new song, for god has done marvelous things." Yes we are called to sing just as God sings – God sings this universe, this planet, this human family and all that lives and moves into being with the same lyricism and joy in the creative act that we get a glimpse of in the face of a musician who is a master at their craft. Moving from the parts to the whole of the gospel, and perceiving it organically as we seek to perceive any work of art or music leads us to one theme that rings out repeatedly, handed off and shared in the various genres of scripture—in stories, in analogies, in prophecies, in proverbs and parables, in poems and songs, and in bald-faced statements.

We may think that the end and purpose of religion, of being religious, is to love God. And some people emphasize what they describe as the “loving God” part so that they can somehow de-emphasize the loving each other part. Like that is less-than. Like that can be separated from the melody and theme of our existence as beloved children of God made in God’s image. But God insists that the way we love God best is to love one another.

We may look at the imperative of the gospel, and desperately try to find the limits of the demands God places on us through love. We may want to slice and dice and divide things into parts, or worse, “sides” that are in competition with each other. 

But the life of faith calls us into the truth of the Mobius strip that I used in the children's message a few moments ago. The Mobius strip shows that the two loves we are called to embody-- love of God and love of each other-- is actually ONE love. Trace your finger around a Mobius strip, and you see the two "sides" are all one continuous loop.

There is neither beginning or ending for God’s love for us, and we are called and created to love as God loves. Like a Mobius strip, in the faithful performance of our lives lived in concert with God and each other there really aren’t two sides of existence, the worldly and the spiritual, the sacred and profane, the Godly and the human, that compete with each other. There is just ONE side that flows together infinitely. There is one melody that binds all existence together, and calls us all to play our parts mindfully, intentionally, and collaboratively, understanding that we are all part of the whole, conducted by God.

God IS love, our readings insist again. God is relational. There is no personal love of God without lending your heart, your body, your very essence to The theme, the melody, is this: “love one another.” That commandment is repeated more than any other in scripture. It repeats in those specific words, that boldly and that insistently, fourteen times between the gospel of John and the letters of John. And when we take a step back, we see Jesus insistently MODELLING that commandment in all the spaces and actions in between. Love one another. Love one another. Love one another. Love one another. Love one another.

Love one another when they are similar to you. Love one another if they are wildly different from you. Love one another whether you judge them worthy or not. Love one another in words, but love one another in action. Love one another loudly when the world seeks to silence love, and love each other in the silences and the gaps when all that comes at us tries to drown out this thread, this melody that holds all things together. Love one another when it costs you nothing, but love one another even when it means laying down your life for another.

We humans are certainly driven to break things down into their constituent parts. We get too caught up in breaking things down into sides. Once again, this is how we try to make sense of all the data and sensation coming at us. But when we use that breaking down of things from the whole to the part in order to place limits on this foundational obligation in the life of faith we reduce the beauty of God’s love within us into discordant notes and cacophony, rather than the demandingly beautiful coherence and unity of playing our parts within God’s concerto of creation.

Readings:

Acts 10:44-48

Psalm 98

1 John 5:1-6

John 15:9-17

Preached at at 505 on May 4, 2024 and the 10:30 am Holy Eucharist on May 5, 2024 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.