Ascension--Huh?

                                          photo courtesy of Let Ideas Compete / flikr

Ascension came and went last Thursday. Did you miss it? A whole lot of us Reverends skip over the word and rush own to more sacred things like what’s for dinner tonight? At the end of the Jesus’ story after Calvary and Easter morning he appeared to his disciples several times. He held out his nail-scarred hands. And over and over Jesus whispered a word that we still need to hear. “Peace,” said, “Peace. And the book of Acts begins by saying Jesus just slipped away. 

Acts says suddenly he was gone and they just stood there in shock. Slowly Jesus ascended through the clouds and those that had followed him through so much kept squinting their eyes, staring up and the blue sky and the clouds. And two men in white garments appeared before them saying: “Why do you stand there looking up toward heaven.” Good question then and now. And through the years so many in the church have focused on up there—heaven. A whole spate of books have appeared talking about heaven and those with near-death experiences let us know what it’s like up there. Reinhold Niebuhr once said, “I refuse to talk about the fires of hell or the furniture of heaven.” But a whole lot of Christians are sure they have it all worked out. 

Which brings me back to Ascension. Maybe we still miss the point because it is more comfortable talking about the up there than what we find down here. Today looking around us is hard. We’ve all been through a terrible time. We have lost almost 600,000 of our brothers and sisters because of this awful word, coronavirus. We’ve been trapped more than a year at home mostly. Our world has been turned upside down. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        photo by Dimitris Caloris / flikr

No wonder some of us, hands above our eyes long to look somewhere than where we are. Maybe Ascension means it is time to change our focus. From there to here. From heaven back down to earth. And we can’t turn away from this hurting world as much as we would like. 

The world then and now convulses with enormous problems. Yet we have been called to take off our blinders and see what is here. This is our work. Not sugar-coated promises. No “it will be better before long.” The two angels said, “For God’s sake look around you.” This is our work. Abraham Lincoln used to tell this story that came out of the Civil War. It seemed that a very pious chaplain moved through the ranks asking soldier after soldier: “Brother are you saved?” One soldier knee-deep in mud, trying to push a stuck cannon out of that mess, snarled back at the Chaplain, “Don’t ask me any riddles I’m stuck in the mud.”

Ascension forces us to deal with the mud. Not us but them. We’ve reversed the order. This strange gospel shines the spotlight on the them’s. Jesus said we really do save our lives by losing them. Taking a towel and washing some very dirty feet. Bob Dylan sings mournfully, “You gotta serve somebody.” Them.

Of course we have to take care of those nearest to us. Those at our breakfast table. Those we send off to school. Those we would lay down our lives for. Taking care of us and ours.

Burt the Ascension gospel won’t let us stop there. We keep bumping into this cursed word, them. The outsiders. Immigrants. Blacks. The different. The poor and the rich. The Transgendered. The Gays. Those old folks in nursing homes. The people who live down your street whose names we do not know. 

Surely we have to keep our eyes on all that lies around us. This is our task. Ascension has passed but it’s challenge remains. Why do we stand gazing toward heaven when there is so much to do around here?

Wendell Berry reminds us: 

                                               “Make a story

                           Show how love and joy, beauty and goodness

                                     shine out amongst the rubble.”

                                   --Roger Lovette /rogerlovette.blogspot.com