Archives for May 2020

By Minister James Rach

If we get anything from our reading in Acts today, we might have to point out that at times, it seems, angels can be a bit insensitive. While the disciples stand and by accounts dazed and broken by the ascension event, these two in white robes suddenly appear not to console them, but to challenge them. “Why do you stand looking up towards heaven?” I mean, the angels know why, or at least they should. The disciple’s eyes are glued to the very spot in the heavens that just devoured Jesus. And the disciples are trying to keep their eyes on Jesus. That has been a somewhat difficult task in recent weeks. They already lost him once, they didn’t want that to happen again. But now he is gone. For the second time in just six weeks. Once again they are powerless to stop him, and now, all they have left is a limitless empty sky. The second wound stinging even as the first wounds are still fresh in their minds.

Holy Week had affected them deeply. They had just stood by and watched as he was dragged away and killed on a cross. And they thought they would never see him again. But, three days later he returned. And their grief was replaced by a strange mix of terror and joy and confusion. It made no sense, it was nothing they expected. But Jesus had returned, and all the pain seemed to go away. The disciples now thought on this side of the resurrection they would have a sort of invincibility. Their leader was risen from the dead, a proof he could show every doubter by the wounds in his hands and feet and side. Every opponent would fall at his feet. Every sceptic would now receive their gospel message with eager gladness. He was back and they were ready.

But now forty days after the resurrection, the disciples are staring blankly at the sky and Jesus once again has left them with all of their dreams withering away. Of course they were just standing there looking up toward heaven. There was nowhere to go. And then two men in white robes question jarred them out of their daydream and back into reality. There was nothing to see in the sky, there was nothing to see in the heavens. It was time to refocus. To lower their gaze.

It seems a strange thing to say but we celebrate Jesus exiting. Not only do we celebrate it in the church calendar, but we find it in our creeds, and we find it in our prayers. In some ways the ascension lives at the heart of the Christian faith. That we celebrate Jesus’s ascension in this present time, would probably surprise those eleven disciples who watched him leave. This event, to them, did not seem like a cause for celebration. Why not just stay?

And if I was one of the disciples wondering what this strange event meant, I would probably have tried my best to remember the words he had last said, looking for clues. What were the last words Jesus said? After all of the profound sayings and timeless parables, what was the last words he went out with? “You will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.” And that is the answer, that is why the ascension. That is why he left.

You can take a tiny drop of concentrated food coloring and drop it in a sizable container of water, and when it dissolves it forever changes the color of that water. Jesus left so that his presence would grow. So that the love that once dwelled in a single body, might cover the earth, might fill the universe. So the message would spread, that the gospel would move out to all the world. Jesus leaves, but that is not the end of the story. As he goes up, he sends us out. We have the green light, and we have to get going.

Because the message doesn’t move if we don’t move. The message doesn’t move if the church stands staring at the sky. We are not meant to die looking up, we are not meant to die just waiting. We are sent out. Jesus leaves us with this dismissal. And the dismissal is always a call to mission.

But the truth is most days it is easier to live with our heads in the clouds. Because down here on the ground, it is impossible to avoid the pain and struggle and suffering that will inevitably leave scars on your heart and soul. Down here in the mud, you will see things no one should see, and hear things no one should hear, and think things no one should think, and feel things no one should have to feel. And to escape the chaos down here on the ground you might turn your eyes toward heaven. Maybe you’ll even hum so old spiritual like ‘I’ll fly away’ as you look up and dream of your escape from here.

They say that in heaven there are no more tears. And no more crying, and no more pain. There, children do not die as collateral damage in conflicts, and loved ones do not succumb do a senseless death from a strange pandemic. And peace replaces the anxiety that seems to flood our lives through computer, cell phone, and television screens.

Heaven is the best distraction from this world yet created. And it is easy to turn our eyes away from the things that haunt this earth to the dreams of some distant heaven. But heaven is not interested in your interest. At least not just yet. The angels are quick to break our gaze with their question “why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” And Jesus is quick to remind us that we still have work to do right here on earth.

And it turns out those very things that want to make us divert our attention, the pain, the struggle, the suffering, and the chaos of this world, are the very reason the angels break our heavenward gaze. We want to look up because this world is filled with terrible things. But we are called by Jesus to look into the terror, into the pain, into the suffering.

Jesus did not ascend to hide in the sky. He did not leave to avoid the messiness of this world. Jesus ascended into every broken heart that would offer him a place. He ascended so he could fill every empty space, hold every suffering child, comfort every mourning parent. He ascended so this anxious word could live and move and have its being in the sacred heart of Christ.

The ascension is not an escape. It is God raining down divinity on this world, so no one, no one, would have to suffer alone again.

And we are the witnesses. Jesus is sending us out with this story, this story we have lived and experienced in our lives. And so, we can not stand staring at the sky, we cannot dream away our days thinking about heaven, our mission is on the ground. On street corners, and at crossroads, and at dead ends. Our mission is here, where sometimes our bended knees meet cold pavement, where bodies are broken, where tired souls long for rest.

It is time for the church to lower our eyes. If we are looking for Jesus, he’s not hiding in the clouds. So why do stand looking up toward heaven? If we are looking for Jesus, perhaps we should lower our gaze. We are much more likely to find him down in the muck.

By Minister Jim Rach

It started like no other story, I’m sure you remember it. It started with the rushing wind and then the flames of fire dancing on the heads of those patient followers of Jesus. Those followers who stuck with Jesus through death, resurrection, and ascension. And then were even willing to live in a one room loft, in first century Palestine, with one hundred and nineteen other people, no shower, for what turned out to be a week and a half. And then came the languages, a bunch of uneducated Galileans spontaneously speaking languages so fluently that the crowd thought them the most impressive drunks that they had ever encountered. And if that day were not memorable enough, a fisherman best known by his holy week betrayal, and his many names, Simon or Peter or Cephas or Satan depending on what kind of mood Jesus was in, launches into an elegant, convincing sermon that stirs the crowd. And at the end of the sermon, at the end of the day of Pentecost, that little community of one hundred and twenty, saw their numbers increase by almost 130 times in the water of baptism.  That is a memorable day.

And imagining where the young church would go from there boggled the mind. The momentum was unprecedented. How would the church capitalize on such a dramatic outpouring of the Holy Spirit; there were endless possibilities? They could take this on the road, from Jerusalem to Rome. Within a short period of time the entire Mediterranean could be exposed to the Holy Spirit. And so, what to these followers of the risen Christ do next? They make a church. The non-believers had to be just rolling their eyes at these people.

But the truth is every day can’t be Pentecost. Pentecost was the start of something, it got people excited, it got the movement out of the room. But the church cannot live in that moment forever, anymore than Jesus and his inner circle can pitch their tents forever on the mount of transfiguration. Flaming heads everyday a burnt-out Christian will make. And the church was not meant to be a short story. In needed a next chapter the question then becomes is this the next best step? To hunker down, to fall into a routine.

What they do after the Pentecost moment is devote themselves to the apostles teaching. Some Bible studies here, some sermons there. And they devote themselves to fellowship. And devote themselves to the breaking of bread, following Jesus commandment to do this in remembrance of him. And they devote themselves to the prayers.

Unlike the mass hysteria of Pentecost, the devotional practices that follow feel  to us very familiar. We are not recreating Pentecost on a weekly basis, but most churches can still offer a message, coffee hour and a prayer or two. A little more tortoise than hare perhaps. But, at what cost? Routine and ritual are important, essential, good for the soul. Without routine and ritual everything becomes a short story. And the work of the Holy Spirit in and through the church, in and through every one of us is way too important to be anything other than necessary. We need our rituals, they sustain us. But the comfort of the familiar also threatens to strip from our memories the radical nature of our rituals. We get comfortable and forget how really strange this early Christian community really was. And when we lose site of that. We tend to forget we are called to be just as strange as they were.

When they walked out of Pentecost these early Christian followers of Christ did not set out to establish an institution that would run on committee meetings, fundraisers, schisms, or denominational politics. The first leaders of the church were not looking to be memorialized, or establish a legacy, or get their names on churches.

Instead, they were pretty convinced that the Holy Spirit showed up telling them to do one thing. To carry on the work of Jesus. And the work of Jesus was to usher in the kingdom of God. So, they weren’t looking for an institution, they were looking for the kingdom.

And that kingdom was not to be found in the palaces of Rome. It was not same politics that they held in common. They were not looking for political influence or forcing people to adopt their religious ideology. If Pentecost made anything clear it is that the Holy Spirit was calling them to something new. A new way of living in this old world.

The God of resurrection life was ushering in a reality that undermined the politics of division and death that for so long had dominated. And rather than work through their old systems with their old kings supporting their old forms of injustice and oppression, a new spirit was blowing in a strange new kingdom.

And these lowly followers of a crucified criminal were the ones God chose to be about this kingdom work. And this is what they did. This was their radical move. This was the way of their strange new kingdom. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. They held all things in common, they sold their possessions and took care of each other. They formed a family, a family in which love was more important than power. In which friendship had higher value than money or stuff. It was a strange kingdom indeed.

It might seem a little naïve, a little strange, this kingdom with it’s crucified king, and alternative values even ruffled a few feathers. This kingdom did not come to play nice with the established order, this kingdom did not come to cozy up to politicians or powerful people. The kingdom is God’s assertion that in the words of N.T. Wright, ”the world of death, the world of injustice has come to an end. And it was this new church, established by the Holy Spirit, that God chose to model the new kingdom of forgiveness and love that will rise in its place.”

The church is not called be some stale institution or political player. The church is called to put flesh on Jesus prayer ‘for the kingdom to come’. To live the values of heaven in this messy world. By devoting ourselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers, to devoting ourselves to each other, sisters and brothers through the waters of baptism, we provide an alternative to all those things in this world that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. An alterative to the isolation that plaques our world. An alternative to the separation that confines people to the lives of loneliness. An alternative to the cold individualism that harms the soul. An alternative to the selfish consumerism that reduces people to the value of their bank accounts. Am alternative to the fierce nationalism that denies the image of God in people beyond our borders. An alternative to the racism and prejudice that violates Jesus commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.

The work of the church is to start living the kingdom of God right here and right now. To give the world a vision of what can be. The kingdom of God is not a one-time event. The kingdom of God is not a short story. The kingdom of God only comes by stubborn efforts of devoted people. People who believe the darkness of this world will give way to the reality of God’s dream. Devoted people who keep showing up, who live the kingdom even when the dream seems like a mere fantasy. Who live in the kingdom because they believe this kingdom dream will one day be this world’s reality.

Those first Christians, they were strange. They dreamed strange dreams of a strange kingdom. The church, at its best, is strange. Still dreaming dreams of God’s kingdom. You are committed to a gospel that commands you to love your enemies, forgive those who hate you, welcome the stranger, and lose your life, that’s strange, that is not a popular message. You are called to take in a new family, break bread with people who don’t vote like you do, to pray to a God you cannot see, to worship a man killed 2000 years ago, and to live as if God’s dream for this world could possibly come true. You are called to hope when things seem hopeless, you are called to dream the dream of God’s kingdom.

Strange dreams, Pentecost was a memorable day and a lot of people came to Jesus on that day. Pentecost was a good first chapter. But it was after Pentecost, the next day, when the church started acting like the church, being about the mission of Jesus, stubbornly living out the kingdom of God, that’s when things really got good.