CHANGING THE FOCUS OF THE LIGHT

(Preached on Sunday, May 8, 2005)

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.                                                  -Acts 1:8

 

A story for Mother’s Day.

In one church, when a Bible is presented to a third-grade child, the child recites a passage of Scripture.  On one occasion, everything was going well until the pastor came to one little boy who couldn’t remember his name, much less a Bible verse.  The little boy’s eyes frantically searched for his mother, who was seated very near the front.  When he finally spotted her, he was greatly relieved when she whispered, “I am the light of the world,” to which he immediately bellowed, “My mother is the light of the world.”

 

Did you celebrate last Thursday?  It was a holiday.

No, not Cinco de Mayo, but Ascension Day.

The forgotten holiday in the Protestant Church.

Christmas gets notice from all the world, even secular society still shuts down for the most part.  Easter certainly brings out many people to church who don’t show up any other time.  Next Sunday, Pentecost, even that day will receive special attention in many churches.  But Ascension Day came and went without barely a notice from most of us.

 

The story of the Ascension of Jesus makes most of us modern, scientific people uncomfortable.  In our world, nothing goes up but rockets and the cost of gasoline.  And, since we started shooting those rockets into the heavens and they began circling the earth and traveling to the moon, we are just not sure anymore where “up” is and where Jesus might really have traveled to on those clouds.

By focusing on the pre-scientific details, we miss the point of the story.

The Church never worried about the story being scientifically true.

The Church’s only claim was that the story was eternally true.

And the truth the story was trying to convey was an attempt to change the focus of Jesus’ followers.

 

In this story it is worth noting how terribly human the disciples remain.  Being witnesses to the risen Christ has not made them into perfect stained glass figures.  They are still very much the same blemished bunch that we see throughout the gospel stories.

Jesus has been speaking to them “about the kingdom of God” and yet the foremost question on their minds is whether “this [is] the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel.”

They say old habits die hard, and so, too, do old understandings.

After all the time listening to Jesus’ teaching, after the events of Holy Week, after the resurrection, still the disciples are thinking in terms of the earthly kingdom of Israel being returned to former glory.

Nothing gets in the way of and impedes our devotion to God’s agenda like our devotion to our own agenda.  This does not mean we are evil, but rather it is just the way we are as human creatures.

We clearly see that in this story.

First, the disciples ask the wrong question, so Jesus, infinite in patience, corrects them by reminding them that is not their concern, but rather their concern is their role as witnesses for Jesus and his teachings.

Still, they don’t quite get it, especially since as soon as he says this he is taken away from them into heaven.

The picture painted for us is of Jesus gone, and the disciples standing there, squinting up to the heavens, gawking.  So much so, that two men, presumably divine messengers, appear to ask them what they are doing and point them in the direction they need to be moving.

Which is back to life, in the real world, to get ready to receive power from God and get on with what God is wanting them to do.

 

Twice in this story the focus of Jesus’ followers receives a correction.

First, from Jesus as he directs them about their mission.

Jesus tells them that their mission is not so narrowly focused on Israel.  “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Then he leaves them and the restrictions of time and space of this earthly existence to entire the cosmic realm of God, not bound by time and space, where he can direct their mission from a divine perspective that takes in everything at once.  That is a significant truth of this story, that what God is about in Jesus is not just for some backwater nation, but for all the world, all the universe, for all time.

 

The second correction comes from the angels who now shift their focus from heaven to earth.  Yes, Jesus went up, and his mission is truly cosmic, but he had directed them to return to Jerusalem and their mission was specific.  They are to be his witnesses in this world; in their daily lives; in this time and space.

 

So what do we see this little band of followers do in response?

They return, as a group, to the place where they were staying in Jerusalem, to wait as Jesus had told them.

The key word here is “group.”  They did not each go off on their own, to do their own thing, but they formed a company, a community.

They are bound together by their common experience and their common faith in God.

The Christian faith is lived in community or it is not lived at all.

That is part of what the angels were saying to the disciples.

Jesus and God are discovered not by staring into the heavens, but by looking around us, at one another.  Jesus showed us that God is concerned about daily life and flesh and blood humanity. Jesus showed us that if we want to discover God that we look into the eyes and the souls of those people around us, for that is where God resides.

 

Anne Lamott tells in her book Traveling Mercies why she makes her son, Sam, go to church.  She started going to St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in San Francisco early in her pregnancy.  One Sunday at the end of the service she stood up and told the congregation that she was pregnant and people cheered.

She was not married and she did not expect that reaction.

She reported that even people raised in Bible-thumping homes in the deep South clapped and clapped.  Even the old women whose grown-up boys had been in jails or prisons rejoiced with her.

They reached out their arms and adopted her.

They brought clothes and blankets for the new baby.

They lugged in casseroles that she could freeze and use later.

The church members kept telling her that this new baby was going to be part of their church family.  And then they began to slip her money.

A bent-over woman on Social Security would sidle up to her and stuff her pockets with ten and twenties.

Ancient Mary Williams always sat in the back and brought Anne baggies filled with dimes week after week.

Anne brought Sam to that church when he was five days old.  Church folk stood in line and called him “our baby” and “my baby.”

People in that little church kept her going.  They cared, reached out, prayed, and loved her and saw her through some hard days.

She says Mary Williams still gives her bags of dimes even though she is doing much better financially.

Anne says she gives them to homeless people.

But she writes, “Why do I make Sam go to church — none of his other friends go?  I make him go because somebody brings me dimes.”

For when Anne looked around her she saw the face of God.