May 12, 2013
Ascension Sunday
Mother’s Day
by Rev. Emma Chattin
Lighting the Chalice, Reading
We remember our mothers, those who bless us with their presence,
those who have gone on before us, and the mothers among us today,
our Mother Earth, and those who give birth to new things
all over the world, and everywhere in our universe.
We lift our gentle thoughts in gratitude,
letting them rise above our being,
as the flame rises and ascends
from the cradle of the chalice.
First Reading ~ Acts 1: 6-14
While meeting together they asked, “Has the time come, Rabbi? Are you going to restore sovereignty to Israel?†Jesus replied, “It’s not for you to know the times or dates that Abba God has decided. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth.†Having said this, Jesus was lifted up in a cloud before their eyes and taken from their sight. They were still gazing up into the heavens when two messengers dressed in white stood beside them. “You Galileans – why are you standing here looking up at the skies?†they asked. “Jesus, who has been taken from you- this same Jesus will return, in the same way you watched him go into heaven.â€
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, John, James, and Andrew; Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James ben-Alphaeus; Simon, a member of the Zealot sect; and Judah ben-Jacob. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.
Second Reading
~ from Fr. Richard Rohr in Everything Belongs
All spiritual disciplines have one purpose: to get rid of illusions so we can be present. These disciplines exist so that we can see what is, see who we are, and see what is happening. On the contrary, our mass cultural trance is like scales over our eyes. We see only with the material eye.
If we are to believe Jesus, nothing is more dangerous than people who presume they already see. God can most easily be lost by being thought found.
Most Christians go on a yearly journey, hearing witness of the birth, the life, the lessons,
the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus. And how do you top a resurrection?
Clearly… with an ascension.
And that’s where many Christian churches will be focused this morning.
I believe the stories of all religious traditions are significant and have much to teach us,
regardless of where we may be on our own spiritual journey.
The ascension of Jesus is mentioned in only two Gospels, Luke and Mark, and only very briefly at that, one verse. Some theologians even question the authenticity of the Mark verse, and as for the Luke verse, the author may have been the same or sourced from the same as today’s passage in Acts. In short, the Acts passage today pretty much stands alone. And yet, the Ascension is a part of Christian orthodoxy, affirmed by the Nicene and Apostle’s creeds, and is a general part of the Christian theological belief system.
For me, this passage of Acts is a rich vein to be mined for meaning.
It’s very visual, and thick with subtext and unspoken thoughts
that seem to sift out from between the words.
There are a few things that really stand out to me,
and I’d like to share them with you this morning.
The disciples were gathered together, and what did they have to ask Jesus- out of all the many things they could have asked? They asked, “Hay, is it time now for you to do that thing? You know, that thing … that thing we want you to do?†(that is, restore the sovereignty of Israel)
For the disciples, it was all about the disciples, all about us, All about what WE WANT.
The tangible, external, the material…. All about what they wanted Jesus to do for them.
Jesus says, “Ah, back with the thing again? Didn’t you get anything else from my time here with you? Well, soon enough, perhaps you will get it, and you will become witnesses of my work.
And with that… Jesus went up up and away.
The image here, of the disciples standing, looking upward…
Well, if you know anything about poultry farms, and I’m assuming this morning that some of you do, the resemblance to domesticated turkeys, heads up, appearing to look blankly at the sky during a rainstorm.. well… it’s a comparison that simply cannot be escaped.
And it is not a very flattering look.
When some people want to see Jesus, their field of vision all too often goes exactly to the place….
where he is not.
In some ways not unlike a throng of people witnessing an amazing event…
Many of them holding up a cell phone to record the event,
watching it through a small window, in their very human desire
to capture what is actually happening right in front of them…
missing the fleeting beauty of that very moment.
As a result, they cease to be present at the very event they are trying to see.
What a human response to a mystical experience!
The desire to capture it and to contain it, in the hopes of repeating it at will.
(Which we never will.)
I think some of us are seeking God, looking for Divinity, some desperately… some longingly… for many reasons, for our own reasons… but in doing so… we often miss the moment… badly.
Perhaps because we’re not seeing things as they are, or we’re looking in the wrong place.
Perhaps we’re not present in the moment… perhaps we’re asleep.
A few years ago, an American Poet died. Perhaps best known for his composition, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televisedâ€. He had a remarkable way of seeing the world, and he was wide awake. His name was Gill Scott Heron, and I actually heard him eulogized as an angry black poet. I think that’s unfair and overly simplistic, but anger was also a part of the time of some of his most provocative work, the late 60’s and early 70’s, and it was a time when many good people were angry – with good reason – and change often starts with a spark of anger.
Heather mentioned one of his works to me, and when she did, I recalled it from that time… but I will tell you now that it was not a poem that I could hear then with the same ears that I hear with now.
The poem is about an event that took place about 44 years ago … when those of us who were around at that time were indeed looking up in stunned amazement…
The poem begins….
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey’s on the moon)
I can’t pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still.
(while Whitey’s on the moon)
It was an eye opener then, and still is now.
We need to look around us at the things that are important that we may be missing.
The work of the church is not to gaze upward and wonder where Jesus went,
but to be hands and feet of Christ in this world.
I don’t think it matters what you are seeking.
Has your search for it become more important that that which you seek?
If you’re seeking truth,don’t simply look for the truth, or look in the last place you saw truth,
but become a witness to the truth…… BECOME the truth.
If you seek justice, don’t look where you found justice,
BECOME justice here on earth, be a witness to it.
Brothers and sisters, where are we looking these days, and what are we seeing?
The church can’t own God, control God, the church can’t expect Jesus to do that thing for them,
you know, that thing they thought he was going to do…. (hate the same people they hate, destroy a country, give rise to a nation on earth, fiddle with the political balance of the world… etc.).
The church cannot domesticate the Divine to do their bidding.
But it seems many churches try to do just that.
And that is what I hear in this passage of Acts.Jesus placing some distance between himself and his disciples. He was saying, “I’ve left the building, people.†And the robed messengers were saying, “Move along folks. Nothing to see here.â€
I do not mean to make light of the disciples in that moment, for surely it must have been painful and hard for them to see someone with whom they had shared so much simply leave them so quickly, so suddenly, so unexpectedly. But leave them he did.
There is a beautiful quote by Ranier Maria Rilke. It is often used at weddings, but I think it fits wonderfully here as well:
“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest souls infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them…. which makes it possible for each to see the other…. whole against an immense sky.”
We must learn to see differently. This is how we change the world.
One of Richard Rhor’s often quoted lines is:
“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living.
We live ourselves into new ways of thinking.â€
You see, all too often it seems that we come to worship that which we seek
rather than becoming its witness, bearing witness to its presence here on earth.
We worship the journey that our teachers made, rather than making that journey ourselves.
We worship the path, rather than follow in the footsteps.
And in doing so, we fail to live ourselves into new ways of thinking, new ways of seeing.
And we miss experiencing the very transformative moments
which we are supposed to be witnessing and professing to others.
My first question to you this morning for your own reflection is:
Have you begun your own ascension, rising above this earth,
seeing things more clearly, becoming more aware, being awake…
watchful… to what is happening around you?
Are you standing around looking for a savior?
Or have you begun your own ascension? Becoming the savior?
Life is short. Act now.
The second part of the passage I want to touch upon this morning is what the disciples did next. What did they do? They gathered together, and they prayed. They meditated.
They focused on being present in the presence of the Divine.
That’s what prayer is.
I would suggest to you that this time that they passed together in community
was the breath that blew on the coals of the Spirit
that turned into the flame called Pentecost.
I think this communal time of retreat and reflection was a necessary component,
a catalyst, an incubator for the birth of the church that was soon to follow.
Almost immediately, in fact.
It’s called Pentecost, which most Christian churches will celebrate next Sunday.
A wise teacher once told me:
The last experience of God…
is frequently the greatest obstacle
to the next experience of God.
I have known people who have had such a powerful vivid experience…
that they are unable to get beyond it.
They just cannot move beyond their big moment.
They are stuck there, looking for what they are seeking… right where they last experienced it.
They are trying to replicate the conditions.
But you see…. it doesn’t work like that.
Now you see God…. now you don’t.
Prayer and meditation can help us move beyond those moments.
And while we may not always reach the domain of the Mysic,
who is awake and aware, living fully each moment in the presence of the Divine,
prayer and meditation can at least move us forward on our journey,
help us to grow UP, evolve, rise up, call us up and out beyond our comfort zones,
into thin air, take us to the edges of our own spiritual frontiers…
The disciples did this together, as a community.
Prayer and meditation can help us reach places beyond our own judgment,
places where we no longer question ourselves or others, but see clearly through the eyes of love, places where we experience the warmth and illumination
of the flame of the living Spirit
burning on the altars of our hearts,
and feel ourselves falling
into the arms of the Divine.
The final thing I want to touch upon today
are two words that rise out at me from the scripture.
After a string of names we hear,
“All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women… â€
“Certain Womenâ€
Doesn’t that sound a little funny to you? A bit odd?
An acknowledgement of the presence of others,
but yet, conveying the feeling that the others were not important enough to name?
(barely enough to mention)
“Certain Womenâ€
There is a sermon there.
There is a book there,
right in between those two words
(and someday I may try to write it).
But…. I want to suggest that we look at it differently,
that we see with open eyes what is happening there,
understanding that the phrase might encompass those who were marginalized.
And if we look today with those same eyes….
who are the “certain people†in our own lives?
Who are the people whom you do not name? Dare not name?
Who are the people you cannot name?
Do you think you could gather with those people?
Do you think you could include them in your place?
Mentally embrace them in your thoughts?
And if you did, what might happen to the coals of the Spirit
glowing deep in your own soul?
“Certain peopleâ€â€¦ “Certain othersâ€â€¦
Those who have always been pushed off to the sides, never a part of the center.
In some cases, those certain others may have been us,
we whose names were rarely or never spoken at family gatherings.
Finally, in closing, I would like to offer you two things to ponder.
Are you willing to be a witness, a messenger?
Are you willing to ask your brother or your sister what they’re looking at?
Why are they looking where they last saw their teacher?
Where they last saw justice? Truth?
Why are they looking where they last experienced Divinity
and not looking around here at each other?
And the second thing… if this community is ready for its own ascension?
Ready to be transformed and to transcend the things that hold it down?
Ready to rise up above and to see more clearly?
Ready to begin moving beyond looking for something more,
rising above the search for something bigger,
to becoming more like that which you seek?
Are you ready to take up that work, not looking up,
but side by side, in partnership,
seeing each other whole against an immense sky?
There is always a point in our journey
when we stop looking for something more
and become more like that which we’re looking for.
Wake up. Take a look around you.
Think about what you see.
And become more like that which you seek.
Become more like what you’re looking for.
May it be so.