A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on May 13, 2018.
Scripture reading (which you may wish to read prior):
Luke 24:44-53
and Acts 1:1-14
This sermon has a lot of numbers in it.
If you like that, great!
If you tend to gloss over numbers,
That’s ok too…just listen for the overall point.
The point isn’t in the numbers
It’s in what they are trying to suggest.
Our reading today is from the Acts of the Apostles
And it records one of the most interesting stories about Jesus.
Jesus, after he was found to be alive following his death,
In a closed room, out on a busy road to a neighboring town
On a lakeshore in galilee
Jesus continued to lead and teach and guide his disciples
His friends, you may remember, from last week.
But at some point, Jesus needed to go.
His ministry among them was nearing an end.
The Holy Spirit is going to come, and create the church.
That’s what we call Pentecost. That’s next Sunday.
Jesus needed to go in order for Pentecost to happen.
His return back to God we call the Ascension.
It has an unfortunate vertical connotation to it, I think.
Kind of like watching someone go up an escalator
Or in a glass paneled elevator.
I used to love those elevators, when I was a kid
when we were on vacation at some hotel.
We lived in rural Iowa and we didn’t travel very much.
so it was always an amazement to see those glass elevators.
I remember, at age 5 or 6 or something
Mesmerized, mouth a-gape, watching people go up in those things.
The realm of God, what we call heaven
Isn’t ‘up there’.
Its just a different sort of place, a different realm of being
It’s the domain of God.
But to an ancient people, with a quite literal worldview, or cosmology
Where Heaven is up and Hell is down
and all of the rest: is what we know
This place, the in-between, our home.
Jesus, as he returns to the realm of the divine, appears to ascend there,
Maybe on Jacob’s great ladder. Maybe on a cosmic escalator or glass elevator.
But the ‘up there’ is not really the point for us, today.
We’re looking for the point.
I invite you to listen, today, for God’s word
As it comes to us in the Acts of the Apostles:
In the first book, Theophilus,
I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning
2until the day when he was taken up to heaven,
after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit
to the apostles whom he had chosen.
3After his suffering
he presented himself alive to them
by many convincing proofs,
appearing to them over the course of forty days
and speaking about the kingdom of God.
4While staying with them,
he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem,
but to wait there for the promise of the Father.
‘This’, he said, ‘is what you have heard from me;
5for John baptized with water,
but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit
not many days from now.’
6 So when they had come together,
they asked him,
‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’
7Jesus replied,
‘It is not for you to know
the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.
8But
you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
and you will be my witnesses
in Jerusalem,
in all Judea
and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.’
9When he had said this, as they were watching,
he was lifted up,
and a cloud took him out of their sight.
10While he was going
and they were gazing up towards heaven,
suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.
11They said,
‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards 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.’
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet,
which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away.
13When they had entered the city,
they went to the room upstairs where they were staying,
Peter, and John,
and James, and Andrew,
Philip and Thomas,
Bartholomew and Matthew,
James son of Alphaeus,
and Simon the Zealot,
and Judas son of James.
14All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer,
together with certain women,
including Mary the mother of Jesus,
as well as his brothers.
And may God bless to us our Reading,
And our understanding,
And our applying of these words, to how we live our lives
///
So, there’s a lot of symbolism going on beneath the surface here
that we might as well just jump right into.
It has been 40 days since Easter.
This is on purpose, of course.
Many important things in the Bible happen in blocks of 40.
Numbers often convey meaning in scripture.
Groups of three suggest the triune God, God the three in one, one in three
God the creator, sustainer, redeemer.
Our friend Landon ends his worship services here, when he’s preaching
with a blessing in the name of
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God,
Mother of us all.
Three is important. It suggests the amazing reality and community of God.
Then there’s the number 12. That’s how many sons Jacob had.
Its the number of original tribes in Israel, one for each of those sons.
The twelve tribes are why there were twelve close followers of Jesus
The 12 Apostles.
Our reading today mentions them, the Apostles, at least the 11 that remain,
And the very next thing in Acts, if you keep reading
Is that they elect a 12th apostle
To round out the group, now that Judas Iscariot was no longer one of them.
Numbers are important in the Bible. They convey meaning.
Three persons, the expression of the one God.
Twelve tribes of Israel. Twelve apostles, the cohort of Jesus.
And then there’s the number 40:
40 days after the resurrection, there’s the ascension: Jesus returns to God.
Now: when you hear the number 40, think
“Hey, this is a great inflection point, an important moment,
where there will be some crucial transformation at the end.”
Noah steers his floating zoo for 40 days and 40 nights of rain,
and then, voila, the storms end and the ark hits dry land.
The Hebrew people, once slaves in Egypt,
wander in the sweltering wilderness for 40 long years,
not nearly enough food, or water,
if only there had been a Quiktrip out there somewhere
and then, after 40 years,
Moses goes up another mountain, and look, there it is,
He dies up there, and the people cross the Jordan River
and enter the Promised Land.
Jesus fasts in the wilderness for 40 days,
Immediately after his baptism, off he goes
he confronts his demons before launching his ministry.
And then there’s our reading today:
The Ascension of Jesus, 40 days after Easter morning.
What is the transformation that will happen next?
Perhaps the disciples had ‘40’ on the brain too
Knowing, as we do, that important things happen right about then
when they came to Jesus and asked him,
“Lord is this the time when you will restore the Kingdom of Israel?”
///
That question is so important.
For those who care about numbers,
And someone took the time to count:
Jesus was asked 186 questions in the scripture.
That’s a lot. People were asking Jesus questions all the time.
But he only gave straight answers to about 8 of them.
Instead, his practice was to answer a question with another question.
Jesus asked 306 questions back, in return.
How’s that for the Socratic method of dialog?
What is going on here?
First and foremost,
it shows the hope and excitement the disciples had after the resurrection.
Jesus, who was dead, is now alive.
All that ancient teaching about the messiah coming back
and putting their country,
their people back on top, back in power,
it all seemed to be coming true.
Change is coming.
And if you were a follower of Jesus, and you listened carefully,
You would have heard him teaching a lot about the kingdom.
For three years Jesus taught, “The Kingdom of Heaven is near.”
He taught them to pray, to God almighty:
“Thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.” The Lord’s Prayer.
In Matthew,
right after teaching them this Lord’s Prayer
Jesus offers several parables to illustrate what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
It’s like a tiny Mustard seed.
It is like yeast.
It is a Great Banquet where the poor are invited.
It is sowing seeds,
It’s a pearl of great price.
Jesus opens the heavens and says the realm of God is near to you, right now—
29 times he mentions that in Matthew’s Gospel alone.
So the disciples are excited about this message, after their experience of Easter,
After the resurrection.
But here’s the thing:
they did not ask about the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven.
Did you catch that?
Instead, they asked, “Is this the time you will restore the Kingdom of Israel?”
///
And here, I think, is one clue about the point of all of this:
Jesus never even once said he would restore the Kingdom of Israel.
That belonged to the Herodian Dynasty.
Jesus is all about God’s realm.
His followers, they’re stuck in the past.
Old paradigms die hard.
The disciples are still thinking the old narrative-
the Messiah will come,
throw out Rome,
bring down Herod
and restore the righteous line of King David.
In fact, just a few years before the Gospels and the Acts were written,
some people in Israel tried to do exactly that,
they staged a rebellion.
It lasted about three years
before the legions came in and crushed it.
Here’s something for us to pay attention to:
It is really important to know when to let go of an old paradigm
and embrace a new one.
You have heard it said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
True enough.
I love history.
But those who try to hold on to history in the present
are doomed to lose what they have.
There is no way to recreate a moment in time, or to rebuild a bygone era.
It can only live in our memory.
Or as Jesus put it, “those who try to save their lives will lose it,
but those who lose their lives for my sake will save it.”
The very nature of change, every change, is about death and resurrection.
We have to let the old die, then the new can be reborn.
Reborn – it resembles the past, but it is something new.
Note well: Jesus does not chastise his disciples for asking this question.
There is no eye rolling,
No condemnation or shouting insults about their bone-headed question.
He simply replies,
“It is not for you to know the times or periods
that [God] has set by [God’s] own authority.”
Jesus does not temper their genuine, if misguided, enthusiasm.
He instead is going to try to attach their desire for change
not to the past,
but to something to come.
There is still a kingdom coming, just not quite the one you thought, Jesus is saying
///
There is an important lesson here:
When we make a decision to move into God’s future,
we don’t get to know the outcome ahead of time.
It’s Up in the Air.
This is called Adaptive Change
Where we have to adapt who we are along the way.
It would be so great,
when we make a bold decision, or take some sort of risk
it would be so great if we had understanding of what was coming
that our predictions would turn out to be correct.
If you are faithful to God, that you will get what you desire.
Or at least there should be a money back guarantee.
It would be great if there was an easy to follow blueprint of how
to build a successful church in the 21st century,
with 7 easy to follow steps to growth.
Church consultants write these books by the dozen, and if they worked…
well, lets just say the state of the mainline Protestant church
would be much different.
Jesus is gentle, but very clear with the disciples,
“It is not for you to know the times or periods
that the Father has set by his own authority.”
The future is always a leap of faith.
And for the faithful, God is going to be there
And when the future is about God, all about God
It will be ok: even if it all seems Up in the Air right about now.
///
We may not know the outcomes of our efforts ahead of time,
but we are not walking completely in the dark either.
The next words out of Jesus’s mouth are this,
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.”
Kingdoms have a power and a geography.
In the disciples mind: the location of the kingdom is the land of Israel,
and the power is the king, the Temple and the Law,
most likely backed by an army.
Those are the features of an earthly Kingdom.
Jesus says the power in the Kingdom of Heaven
is going to come through the Holy Spirit who moves in you.
This Kingdom will not come from the power of kings, laws and armies;
it will come through preaching the good news to the poor,
healing to the brokenhearted,
from forgiveness,
it will come in doing justice, in loving mercy.
It will come from faithfulness. From living God’s life here, and now.
Living as if the Commonwealth of God were all around us.
In other words: living what Jesus was here to teach us.
The Kingdom of Heaven also has a different geography.
It is Jerusalem, certainly,
But also Judea, and Samaria and the ends of the earth.
Note well: not just Israel, but the ends of the earth.
They didn’t even know the ends of the earth yet.
They thought it was flat,
and it would be 15 centuries before human beings would know differently.
Even Rome did not know the geography of the ends of the earth.
By the way the ends of the earth includes Samaria.
Samaria!
They worshiped on the wrong mountain,
in the wrong way,
and as far as disciples knew
there was only one hypothetically good Samaritan
who would actually help a person in distress.
The spiritual geography of the Kingdom of Heaven
is not about drawing lines on a map between us and them,
it is about crossing them to embrace the people with whom we disagree,
reconciling with those whom we have fought wars,
healing the divisions of disagreement
and opening ourselves to those who worship and think differently than us.
That is what Samaria represents.
And if you can cross those boundaries,
then you can possibly go to the ends of the earth.
So this is how Jesus answers the disciples’ question
about the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel.
“You don’t get to know how it all turns out,
the power you want will come from the Holy Spirit, not from worldly power,
and your geography is too cramped.”
And then, without apparent warning or even so much as a “Good luck”
There he goes
When he ascends straight up into heaven.
He leaves them with their mouths hanging open in wonder!
Until the guys in the white robes come telling them the production is over
The exits are at the back of the theatre:
Men of Galilee, why are you standing their looking up into heavens?”
///
The Ascension of Jesus.
This is such a fun story, such an important story, for all of us.
We have to let go of the past to make room for God’s future.
We let go of the past by living, fully, lovingly, into the future God lays before us.
When we see it, its striking in its beauty and its possibility.
Like the story of James Shaw, Junior.
He’s the guy in the Nashville Waffle House last month
Who wrestled an assault rifle away from an assailant at 3 o’clock on a Sunday morning.
He wasn’t even supposed to be there.
He and his buddy were out at a club and needed a place to go after closing time
And the Waffle House of choice was too full,
So they went to another one.
Shaw has been interviewed time and again by people
who want to know about his heroism
something he rejects: I just wanted to live.
Fair enough.
But news came this week about how Shaw set up a Go Fund Me Page[i]
And has raised just about a quarter of a million dollars
To help shooting victims. Far and above his original goal of $15,000.
“This has been a heartwarming reminder” he said
“of what is possible when we come together to care for one another.”
Or what about those two men
Arrested in a Starbucks in Philadelphia[ii]
For no reason, other than hanging out there, and being black
They brought charges against the city, its police force,
But settled: for one dollar
And a commitment from the city to put resources
Into underserved communities
And to invest in real anti-racism training.
This Kingdom of God will not come from the power of kings, laws and armies;
it will come through preaching the good news to the poor,
healing to the brokenhearted,
from forgiveness,
it will come in doing justice, in loving mercy.
It will come from faithfulness. From living God’s life here, and now.
Living as if the Commonwealth of God were all around us.
May we, my friends
Be open to God’s dynamic spirit
Pushing us to something new
Something Up in the Air, something we can’t always foresee
but something that is God’s thing, God’s amazing, wonderful, beautiful thing.
May we point to little moments where we see it
And say there it is! The Realm of God
And put our energies there, so that this church of God might be a part of it.
The future God has for us is promising.
Lets see where God is leading us.
May it be so.
Amen.
—-
[i] From https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/us/waffle-house-hero-victims.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cu (accessed 5/12/2018)
[ii] For more information: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/05/02/african-american-men-arrested-at-starbucks-reach-1-settlement-with-the-city-secure-promise-for-200000-grant-program-for-young-entrepreneurs/?utm_term=.230bfc15f4cf (accessed 5/12/2018)
photo credit: mayrpamintuan Up, Up and Away via photopin (license)
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