Sermon: Looking Up, Looking Down

Today our scripture readings turn us toward the ascension of Jesus, that I believe is a pivotal moment for the disciples in their faith journeys. The ascension is a mind-opening moment when, the disciples make a change from looking up toward God, to looking down into their own lives to see how being followers of Jesus has transformed them.

As scripture describes, Jesus “was lifted up, and the cloud took him out of [ ] sight”. Jesus is lifted up in a cloud of holy mystery to be with God. This image of a holy cloud would have been very familiar to the ears of 1st century believers. They would have remembered in Exodus when Moses went up the mountain to receive the 10 commandments. High on the mountain, “the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name, “I am.” (Exodus 34:5). This powerful moment, probably the most powerful moment of knowing God by name and receiving the new law, when God renewed the covenant with Israel. Who could forget that! The image must certainly have been ringing in the ears of the listeners to the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts that we just heard about Jesus. Here was Jesus ascending in a cloud, too, just as God had done with Moses. What great mystery, or knowing of God, or knowing of themselves was being shown to them?

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Powerful witness moments are suspended miracles. It is like where the crosshairs of time and space intersect, in that pin point connection, time expands and feels very large, even though it is only but a moment in time, that eventually comes back together and we continue on the path of life. But the memory of that moment transforms us in unique and powerful ways.

Witness moments are powerful moments because they gripping. When everything aligns and when we so awake, or alive, or a truth is revealed to us in a new way. When we look up toward God, and then down to see God reflected in our own lives.

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I want to tell you a witness moment of my life. When I saw, and I noticed, and I realized, God was there in a whole-body, whole-spirit sense as a young child. Allow me to describe the experience…

Around age five, I was living on the prairies in a village in south-western Manitoba. My father encouraged me to play outside and gave me alot of freedom to explore the natural world around me. One of my earliest and fondest memories is of playing outside in the tall, tall grass around my home. I would walk in it, the grass swishing around me. The wind in the grass waved like an ocean. It was beautiful! I felt surrounded by creation in that grassy field, in ways I could see, feel, breathe with and move with. I experienced a feeling of being surrounded and filled with awe, and beauty, and joy at being part of God’s field! I realized, “God made the oceans, and the mountains and the fields, and here I am standing in one of those fields. I am in God’s creation!” said to myself. I was so happy to discover that what I had learned in Sunday School was true! and that God was real! I suddenly understood myself as a child of God living in God’s creation… and was filled with true joy, that makes me happy to remember even today!

Writing this sermon made me so happy because it asked me to remember all those ways that the God or the Spirit of Christ has touched my life and changed how I relate with the divine and how I relate with myself and others. This example I’ve told you was a big moment for me, at age 5. When I looked up to God and then looked down into my own life and understood how I fit in. That was big and life-altering. This feeling of realizing or God revealing to us how we are connected everything, I know can be more subtle and sustained too, like a constant and steady love we know in God over time. Or it could be something else entirely that I haven’t experienced but that you have.

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I wonder which it was for the disciples? What was their turning point, when the disciples looked up at God, saw themselves reflected in God’s eyes.When did they become aware that God was gazing upon them too?

When did they realize that the Messiah who they were expecting to come to restore Israel, had a dream bigger than they could ever imagine that required partnership with humanity? They have a hard time getting it…

They asked, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

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Have you ever seen the movie Shrek? It was quite popular a few years back. It’s an animated movie, about a princess who meets an ogre, the twist is that at night she becomes an ogre too. Together Shrek and the princess learn to accept and love themselves and each other just as they are. Warts and all.

Well, I remember watching Shrek and being so surprised at how Princess Fiona challenged the princess stereotype about needing to be rescued. The actress who was the voice of the Princess said, “Princess Fiona’s personality ‘shattered’ the perceptions of princess characters from the moment she was freed from the tower, when she explained that she had always been capable of freeing herself. But she remained in the tower for several years [only] because she was ‘following the rules of a fairy tale book.’” The actress went on to say, she considered the character of “Princess Fiona to be an empowered, positive role model for young girls [and] boys, explaining, ‘She’s never depended on anyone to rescue her, which is a different message from Snow White and Rapunzel… instead the Princess took on Shrek as her partner rather than as her rescuer… which was ‘the biggest stride in her evolution as a character.'”

(From “Princess Fiona”, on Wikipedia. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_FionaO

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I know it’s a long shot: comparing 1st century followers of Christ to a 20th century animated movie… but… I think this illustrates the huge mental leap that Jesus was asking his followers to make. They had to have eyes to see the invisible rule book of life, and to understand how the rule book mentality was limiting them. Waiting for a savior, Jesus says, is not the option he’s offering. I am going to empower you with my spirit, with the Holy Spirit, to give you eyes to see the rule book and I am going to empower you with the permission to question the rules, and rethink your place amongst them. Your place is as my witnesses of the gospel for the good of all of God’s people.

So when they had come together, and they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied… only God knows, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in [not only Jerusalem], but also to your enemies, and actually to everyone on earth.”

Jesus is saying, you don’t need a hero. I call you to be my partners. You will know power, you will understand the true power of love, when you see God working not only in your holy places, but when you see how God is working in your life, in the lives of your enemies and when you reconcile with your enemies, and why stop there, when you see how God works in everyone’s life on earth and in all of creation. No more clans or tribes, one body, one love shared with all. I have given you an empty book, it is for you to write upon it the stories of your lives of love, justice, forgiveness and peace.

As we look up, into that cloud of mystery, so Christ asks us to look down into our own lives on earth, to create “on earth as it is in heaven”.

This is the last Sunday of the Easter season. From the moment when Jesus ascended, from then on the disciples couldn’t walk with the physical person Jesus anymore, or sit beneath his cross, or wait by his tomb, or break physical bread with him in the upper room as they had for the 40 days following his death. From this moment forward, from Christ’s ascension forward, the disciples and we are now in relationship Jesus who is present to us in Spirit and in each other.

The disciples have come to a place where they have to admit their humanity. They are only human, after all. They are ordinary, imperfect human beings. Looking toward God, and giving thanks that we can see a vision of their own lives reflected there. Encouraging us to witness down into our own lives and actions, and to share our stories of how we have been moved by the grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Spirit.

Amen.

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This sermon was written for Wesley United Church (Montreal) for Ascension Day on June 3rd, 2019.

Scripture: Acts 1:1-11, Psalm 47, Ephesians 1:15-23, Luke 24:44-53