A Few Words
“A Few Words”
Luke 24:44-53 John 17:20-26 Ephesians 1:15-23
Seventh Sunday of Easter – Ascension Day, Year C, May 29, 2022
Pastor Andy Kennaly, First Presbyterian Church, Sandpoint, Idaho
Today we have a triple theme, and we could focus on Memorial Day and the sacrifice of our beloved dead killed in military service. We could look at Ascension Day, which many countries observe as a national holiday, as last Thursday marks 40 days after Easter, when Jesus leaves the disciples with the promise of God’s Spirit to come. We could wrap up the Easter Season with Christ’s amazing message of unity. Or we could do what many churches are doing this morning and add another theme given the gun violence that seems so prevalent in our nation in the last while.
To me, all these themes overlap and inform one another, but to really explore in depth is not possible during a few words of sermonizing. So, I’ll say a couple things about a couple things and then we’ll see where that leads.
The passage in Luke, for example, focused on Ascension, is filled with the message of Messiah, gives focus to the importance of Jerusalem as a place, has vivid images of Jesus taken up into heaven, and the disciples worship him. Or not! Although the hymn we just sang emphasizes these doctrinal aspects, each of those references have a footnote. Each of those are missing in other ancient manuscripts.
A few words make a big difference; can change the tone, not only of an entire passage, but of one’s religion. Luke without those words:
44 Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ 45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations. Beginning from Jerusalem you are witnesses of these things. 49And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’ 50Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them. 52And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53and they were continually in the temple blessing God. Amen.”
Subtle differences but the dynamics shift. To see the tone of this, a recent devotional Brian McLaren writes helps illustrate the difference.
He says, “Christians very much like to call Jesus the Son of God. Jesus much preferred to call himself the Son of Man (or son of humanity). There are many layers of meaning to the term. But the simplest and most obvious is this: a son of humanity is a human being. If you want to put a finer point on it, son of means the essence of or perhaps a new generation of. Jesus is saying that he represents the essence of humanity, a new generation of humanity, a new kind of human being. In this light, his constant invitation, follow me, means imitate me and join me on my journey toward a new way of being human. . ..” (Brian McLaren, Center for Action and Contemplation Daily Devotional, based on Micah 6:8, https://cac.org/daily-meditations/living-our-faith-in-all-circumstances-2022-05-27/).
Reading the Luke passage one way spiritualizes it, a pie in the sky in the sweet by n’ by, while another way makes it more accessible for us. One focuses on heaven as a separate place and God as distant and we just wait to be saved. It highlights Jerusalem as a place of importance, and it is. But reading it in another way allows the human qualities of Jesus to speak in realistic ways to us as an invitation to transformation, to a new way of following Jesus as a new humanity emerges.
Jerusalem isn’t the focus, it’s the disciples who have been changed. This is why Pentecost is important as the Holy Spirit brings full-fill-ment, and God’s creative power unfolds in new ways.
That’s one thing that caught my eye this week, how paying attention to the footnotes can affect the trajectory of the biblical message and our participation, or interaction, with the Good News of the Gospel.
But there was another thing that literally caught my eye this week. Sometimes when I’m looking for space, a quiet time to lose track of time, I’ll visit my beehives. I needed to do a few things with the most active hive, so I put on my protective clothing and veil and started. The bees of that hive got agitated after a while and somehow, one of those bees worked her way up the inside of my jacket and emerged to flutter on the inside of my veil. She crawled around my face, in and out of my ear, all around the veil, but before I could get her out, she stung me on my forehead. The sting didn’t hurt, and I thought I was fine. But overnight my face swelled up.
Even my attempt to relax from the stresses of the week backfired. There it is, backfired. That’s a word used when shooting goes bad. Even terms in the English language are based on the use of weapons, and we can’t get away from the struggles.
The violence in our world has been a heavy weight to carry, with wars, rumors of wars, climate catastrophes, and our own nation suffering in so many ways.
This weekend, a holiday weekend, is based on Memorial Day, designated to remember those who died in military service. Their sacrifice can never be reversed, only honored. But maybe their deaths can inspire us to find new ways to solve disagreement. Maybe the costs of war, the destruction, the loss of life, will move humanity to a clearer reflection of our true nature as peacemakers, as a species that is at it’s best when we collaborate rather than compete, when we come together and give of ourselves for another, so everyone benefits rather than seek selfish gains at another’s expense. But it seems this isn’t how people think about violence, or the use of weapons. Even many Christians don’t view war as the spiritual problem it is. Religious people can be quite good at compartmentalizing.
I recently saw a Presbyterian interview in which the person talked about how we don’t need to view guns as a moral issue because they are never mentioned in the Bible. Of course, they must have overlooked the fact that guns didn’t exist when the Bible was written. Jesus does talk about weapons. He would have been familiar with other scriptures that talk about such things as swords beaten into plowshares and spears turned into pruning hooks. These weapons are transformed from tools to kill into instruments for growth and harvest. Jesus himself mentions that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. Also, when the disciples take violent action to defend him upon his arrest, he sternly commands them to put their sword away. Jesus even heals the oppressor who was injured. Nowhere does Jesus ever use a weapon of any kind, nor harm another. Nowhere does Jesus promote use of violence. Christians did not serve in the military for the first 325 years after Jesus, not until the Romans under Constantine made it a state religion aligned with Empire. Jesus himself modeled non-violent, active resistance, even as he prays for those who kill him, for they know not what they are doing.
That’s a statement of consciousness, of unity, and Christ in our midst. His enemies were of a warrior mentality and could not understand what Jesus embodied as a new type of humanity. Even his followers need to be shown, like Jesus does as Luke shares regarding the disciples, “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” Or the words Paul uses for the Ephesians, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you,”… and it goes on.
What “are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe,”? What does the “working of his great power” mean for us today?
To have a spirit of wisdom and revelation, to have the eyes of our heart enlightened, to have hope as a calling from God, these are gifts of God, things God does to us that we cannot do to ourselves. If we could do them ourselves, then they wouldn’t be divine gifts. In following Jesus, we discover that our role is to remain open, to invite God to do these things, and in this unity, to receive with humility and gratefulness, to reflect the love of God into love for others. This does open the eyes of hearts, through which one discovers that Christ is in all things, and all things are in Christ.
This is countercultural. Our society does not promote or accept this teaching. Even institutional religion cannot get you beyond traditional approaches that protects the ego in status quo, a judging mindset of dialectic thinking, of dualism. Like that bee in the veil, what was intended to function as protection can become a barrier that entraps us.
May we take seriously the description Paul uses. We are the body of Christ, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” May we allow the inner transformation of unitive consciousness unfold a new humanity. As we follow Jesus, the Risen Christ, the Essence of a new generation of humanity, may the blessings he gives inspire great joy grounded in the love of God, now, even as forever. Amen.