Joel D. Kline
Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren
May 8, 2005
Ascension Sunday/Mothers’ Day
Since last fall our two Wednesday Bible study groups have been studying the Gospel of Luke, and we have been reminded, again and again, that the early disciples did not easily grasp the full character of Jesus and what he was really about. With some frequency the disciples—and other individuals along the way—are portrayed as asking of Jesus, “Who then is this?” And a much-related question often remained unspoken, “What is Jesus up to?” For Jesus did not readily fit into the commonly-held expectations of what a Messiah would be like. While the people of ancient Palestine yearned for One who would overthrow the hated Roman oppressors and place Israel in a position of glory and prominence, Jesus came speaking of loving your enemies, praying for your persecutors, and going the extra mile in relationships. While the people hoped beyond hope for a Messiah who would come wielding the sword, Jesus spent the bulk of his time compassionately healing the broken and embracing those who had been pushed to the margins of life.
Even after the resurrection of Jesus, as it gradually dawned on the disciples that there was much more to Jesus than they could have hoped for, still it was hard to shake long-held notions of the kingdom as exclusive property of the Israelites. The accounts are rather sketchy, but Luke tells us that, after the death of Jesus, Jesus appeared to his followers a number of times over a period of forty days, continuing to teach and proclaim new understandings of life in the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3).
Still, it seems apparent that the early disciples fail to recognize just how inclusive is Christ’s vision of God’s realm. “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” the disciples question in this morning’s lesson from the first chapter of Acts. In the original Greek, the verb form used would suggest that it is a question the disciples asked more than once. The text does not say so, but I can picture Jesus shaking his head, wondering if the disciples will ever fully grasp what he is about. We do know that once more Jesus responds by reminding the disciples that the future is in God’s hands, while their calling is to live in the present, to be open to the Spirit’s power and presence while serving as Christ’s witnesses. Recognizing that their sense of Jewish nationalism will not easily die, Jesus nevertheless urges his followers yet again to expand their perspective. God’s love is not something to be held tightly to the disciples and their own, but shall extend to the ends of the earth.
And with that final admonition, Jesus is lifted up. But the story does not end with the disciples gazing into heaven. Rather, two men in white robes, likely angels, immediately question the disciples, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” It is a call to reorient their focus, to shift from heaven to earth, from future to present, from the sweet bye-and-bye to the here and now. Indeed, is this not how the book of Acts got its name—with its focus on the actions, the doings, of the early church—The Acts of the Apostles.
New Testament scholar J.B. Phillips in the preface to his book The Young Church in Action asserts that one cannot study the book of Acts without being both stirred and disturbed. Stirred, says Phillips, because we are seeing Christianity, the real thing, unfolding for the first time in human life. Yet disturbed, suggests Phillips, for we begin to sense the church as it is meant to be: “vigorous and flexible, for these are the days before it ever became fat and short of breath through prosperity, or muscle-bound by over-organization.”
Nevertheless, those first Christians struggled, as do we, with the nature of faithful living. N.T. Wright suggests that it was as if those first believers were just beginning to sense that the whole universe pulses with a new knowledge—the truth of God’s amazing grace in Jesus Christ, a gracious love to be shared with all creation, a grace announced as Jesus is proclaimed Lord of all life. And once those early believers began to grasp the remarkable truth of God’s love in Christ, they began to live from a new center, a new perspective; they had found something to count on, something that made all the difference for them.
Some chapters later in the book of Acts, the people of Thessalonica complain about the followers of Jesus, crying out, “These people who have turned the world upside down have come here also” (Acts 17:6). Those who proclaim Christ as Lord are out of sync with the world around them, because now there is a new song, a new symphony, within them. And that new song, God’s hidden music, cannot be squelched. For it is a song of a love that knows no limits, a song of a love that moves us beyond obsession about who’s in and who’s out, a song of a love that instead reaches out to embrace all manner of people.
Anne Lamott in her book Traveling Mercies tells the fascinating story of a young man named Ken Nelson who, dying of AIDS, began to attend her church. Shortly after Ken began coming to church, his partner died of the deadly disease. Several weeks later Ken told the congregation that soon after his partner’s death, Jesus slid into the hole in his heart that had been created by his grief, and has been there ever since. Anne describes Ken as having “a totally lopsided face, ravaged and emaciated, but when he smiles, he is radiant . . . . He says that he would gladly pay any price for what he has now, which is Jesus, and us.”
Anne goes on to describe a woman in the choir named Ranola: “large and beautiful and jovial and black and as devout as can be.” But, shares Anne, Ranola was initially a bit standoffish toward Ken. “She has always looked at him with confusion, when she looks at him at all. Or she looks at him sideways, as if she wouldn’t have to quite see him if she didn’t look at him head on.” Ranola, explains Anne, was raised in the South by Baptists, taught that persons such as Ken are abominations, and it is hard for her to break through her upbringing.
Continues Anne,
But Kenny has come to church almost every week for the last year and won almost everyone over. He finally missed a couple of Sundays when he got too weak, and then a month ago he was back, weighing almost no pounds, his face even more lopsided, as if he’d had a stroke. Still, during the prayers of the people, he talked joyously of his life and his decline, of grace and redemption, of how safe and happy he feels these days.
So on this one particular Sunday, for the first hymn . . . we sang “Jacob’s Ladder,” which goes, “Every rung goes higher, higher,” while ironically Kenny couldn’t even stand up. But he sang away sitting down, with the hymnal in his lap. And then when it came time for the second hymn, the Fellowship Hymn, we were to sing “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” The pianist was playing and the whole congregation had risen—only Ken remained seated, holding the hymnal in his lap—and we began to sing, “Why should I feel discouraged? Why do the shadows fall?” And Ranola watched Ken rather skeptically for a moment, and then her face began to melt and contort like his, and she went to his side and bent down to lift him up—lifted up this white rag doll, this scarecrow. She held him next to her, draped over and against her like a child while they sang . . . .
Then both Ken and Ramona began to cry. Tears were pouring down their faces, and their noses were running like rivers . . .
It was a moment of grace, the kind of moment too easily missed when we assume God’s love only reaches to those just like us. Ranola’s act of gracious love was the kind of experience Anne Lamott describes later in her book this way:
Grace is unearned love—the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from the isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.
Kenny and Ranola had experienced what it would take the early church many more struggles to discover, that God’s love knows no limits. Each of us—no matter what our life experience, no matter what our background or race or gender—each of us is a person of value in God’s sight. Each of us is a child of God, created in God’s image, needful of one another’s love and compassion. Each of us, in losing our lives in service to Christ and one another, finds genuine life and love. We find something worth staking our lives on, something to count on.
Henri Dunant was a wealthy Swiss banker in the 19th century who was sent by his government to Paris to call on Napoleon. His mission was to work out a mutually agreeable financial deal between the two nations, but when Dunant reached Paris, he discovered that Napoleon was off doing battle against the Austrian army. Dunant set out after Napoleon, arriving just in time to witness a bloody and gruesome battle. When the fighting finally subsided, Dunant stayed on to assist the doctors as they treated the seemingly endless number of wounded, who were carried to neighboring farmhouses in hopes of receiving care.
Durant eventually returned to Switzerland, but he was never the same again. His experience left him with two obsessions: abolishing war and aiding the suffering. Because banking no longer held his interest, Dunant lost his fortune and his business. But through his efforts at the first Geneva Conference, the first international law was passed, abolishing war. Dunant was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize, and though by this time he was penniless, he nevertheless donated the prize money to further the causes that had become his passion. The former banker died in 1910, poor, unknown, and forgotten, but Dunant left behind the Red Cross. Part of Henri Dunant died while witnessing that gory battle, but out of death there emerged new life. There emerged an organization dedicated to compassionate service, an organization that has demonstrated, to the very ends of the earth, the goodness of our God and of God’s people.
We too are called to risk something new, to place our trust in the One who promises to take our hand, even in times of trial and storm, and empower us to live faithfully and compassionately. With those first believers, we need not spend our time looking up into heaven, for God’s Spirit is among us—here and now—upholding, encouraging, guiding, strengthening. Thanks be to God—we have found something to count on; even more we have found Someone, Jesus the Christ, to count on. Amen.
O God of healing and wholeness, you who are able to make our wilderness times of life burst forth with color and vibrancy and hope, touch our hearts anew. Turn the barren areas of hurt and fear and stress in our lives into opportunities for reconciliation and new life. Where we have been bound by suspicion, bring your Spirit of healing and grace to bear upon us. Where we have known discord, unite us now in the pursuit of peace. Where life has become dull and routine, open our eyes—and our hearts—to the richness of your creation.
Thanks be to you, O God, for the promise of new life, for the assurance that we need not remain caught in our times of brokenness or despair forever. Loving God, renew us. Transform us. Redeem us, that we might walk in paths of gratitude, celebrating the gift of life itself and the joy of relationships. Thanks be to you, O God, for calling us to be a part of this church community, and for the varied ways we experience support, encouragement, strength, and challenge from one another.
We are grateful God, on this Mothers’ Day, for those who have nurtured and cared for us. We thank you for mothers who have frequently given selflessly for our growth, while we also pray for those who find this day difficult—perhaps because there is estrangement in relationship with their mother, perhaps because they are mourning a mother’s death, perhaps because there is brokenness in relationship with their children, perhaps because they have not been able to have children of their own. Gracious God, comfort those for whom this day carries struggle, and deepen the level of compassion within those for whom this day brings joy.
Hear us now, holy God, as we pray for those experiencing wilderness times of illness and pain. We hold before you now . . .
God of all creation, take us from the wilderness of injustice and warfare to the living waters of peace and hope, opened before us though Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom we pray. O Lord, hear our prayers . . . Amen.