WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

(Preached on Sunday, May 20, 2007)

While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.  They said, AMen 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.@                                                                                               -Acts 1:10-11

 

A successful businessman had built up his corporation from a whim and a dream to a global economic powerhouse.  His story was the American dream, and he liked telling it.  By the time he reached his mid-fifties, he had become an internationally best-selling author and a hot ticket on the speakers= circuit.  A few folks had marked the journey with him, including his trusted administrative assistant.  She knew him so well, in fact, that not only did she log his calendar and make his travel arrangements, but she even prepared his speeches, for she had heard so often the things that he said people wanted to hear from him.

 

One afternoon as he breezed through his office again, in between yesterday in Tulsa and tomorrow in Tampa, he grabbed the sheaf of papers she had neatly stacked on his desk, took the files and the tickets, stuffed everything into his briefcase, and tossed her a tiny nod as he rushed off to the airport.  The next morning he walked up to the podium at a large convention center amid anticipatory applause, and opened the file marked ATampa Speech.@  Quickly, he gave a brilliant introduction that got the crowd laughing and hanging onto his every word.  He was good and he knew it.

At the bottom of the page came the transitional line, Aand now we shall discuss these things further under seven separate headings.@  But when he flipped to page two, only five words were printed boldly on an otherwise blank sheet: AYOU=RE ON YOUR OWN NOW!@  In that moment he realized how much he had taken his administrative assistant for granted, and just how much he had underpaid her.

 

While the circumstances were very different for the first disciples of Jesus, their reaction to his ascension must have stirred the same feelings.  The worst was behind, the future was bright.  Then, in an instant, he was gone from them.  In stunned silence, all they could think about was the gnawing void of his absence.  Around them a world taunted their feeble hearts and quivering knees: AYOU=RE ON YOUR OWN NOW!@

 

This story is a story of transition.  It is signaling the completion of Jesus= physical, earthly ministry and the start of his disciples= ministry.  Though it appears to be about Jesus leaving, it is not that he leaves, but that he moves into a new way of being with them.  Where he was physically restrained in his earthly life to one physical location, he is no longer restrained in that way.  This story is not an historical account of some UFO alien outer limits twilight zone event.

It is a metaphor for the exalted position Jesus now occupies.

It is an expression of the paradoxical truth that Jesus went away from his friends that he might be always with them.

Here Afar@ means very Anear.@  He did not go far up above them or far beyond them but nearer to them.  This story is not about Jesus leaving us, but his becoming an intrinsic part of our lives in a new and radical way.

 

We need to take hold of the vital truth of this metaphor.

Otherwise the whole story will remain either an empty myth, or one that pushes Jesus and heaven to the extremities, far out of human reach.  In the ascension, Jesus moved from the time-bound to the timeless, from spatial limitation to unlimited availability, from earthly shadows to eternal light.  For all eternity he is around about us, Acloser than our breathing, and nearer than hands or feet.@  Jesus went away that he might be fully with us.

 

As almost all transitions are, it was a very unsettling time for Jesus= followers.  We know all about the queasy feeling in our stomachs during times of transition.  Students graduate and they are filled with joy, pride, and apprehension.  Two people close-out a period of courtship by moving into a life-long commitment of marriage and they are both deliriously happy and extremely anxious.  Nine-months of nausea and back-aches, waiting and anticipation end for new parents with relief, joy, and often the question, ANow what do we do?@

 

We are at one of those moments of transition today as a church.  For four-weeks we have been talking about our stewardship, our partnership with God in sharing love.  We have been examining our financial commitments to the work of God through this church and now we have made those commitments for another year.  Perhaps you are like me and are exhaling a sigh of relief, AThat is done and over with for another year.@  But at the same time, the question rises up:  ANow what do we do?  Just what are those plans that God has in store for us?@ 

 

The tendency for many of us is to wait and see.  We wait for something definite to come along.  We wait for a sign that will verify that what we do next is what we are supposed to do.  It=s almost funny, in a very tender kind of way, that the Atwo men@ whom the writer includes in the narrative have to tell the ascension observers to close their mouths and get busy!  After all, Jesus= last words, still ringing in their ears, should have been pretty clear to them.  AOnly God knows how history will ebb, flow, transition, and be culminated, so leave that to God, and instead of worrying about that, brace yourself for a new empowerment by God=s Spirit within each of you.  This will allow you to get busy spreading the news about God that I have shared with you with every person who will hear you all over the world!@

 

Those were Jesus= word=s to his followers then.  And they are his words to us today as we stand at this transition time and wonder AWhat now?@  What Jesus told his disciples to do he also tells us to do: Be witnesses.

 

Witnesses, to what?

Not the one-time death and resurrection of Jesus, but the many instances when his risen life has overcome the hold of selfishness, sin and spiritual death on ourselves and others.  In other words, we do not proclaim an idea but a reality we have experienced for ourselves.  The good news of our Christian faith is grounded in lived experience.

 

We continue to experience the effects of his life in our world.  That is why we invited some of you to share your witness with us these past few weeks.  And we heard some powerful stories about sharing love.  We heard how Jeanette was moved to the simple act of sharing a few dollars with a stranger ahead of her at the grocery check-out who did not have enough money, because of the love she had received over the years through this church.   We heard how our welcome and caring supported Saralee during a most difficult time of transition in her life, moving to Florida at the very time of her mother=s death.  We heard how our welcome of Andy and his family helped them find new directions for their lives and claim the gifts and talents God had given to them.  We heard how Graham feels the movement of God=s spirit in his heart each week as he gathers with the rest of us to worship God in this place.

 

We each have our own stories of how God=s love has been shared with us in and through this church.  And there is a world beyond these walls that needs to hear our stories.  Statistics consistently demonstrate that people in this country believe in God, as high as 90%, but they don=t attend church, less than 48% on any given Sunday.  People are genuinely hungry for spiritual inquiry yet reject religion at the same time.  For many, because they have been laden with guilt, shame, and abuse or because they never saw the church doing anything meaningful.