Ascension Day sermon

In this liturgical year that seems to be on fast-forward because of the early start of Lent, then cascaded into an early Easter, Ascension Day also lands early with some interesting juxtapositions. In the secular world, today is International Workers’ Day. If we had been in France today, we would have been handing out lily of the valley to one another. If we had been in El Salvador, we would have marched in some parade.

And in the United States, today has been National Prayer Day, a day designated by our Congress since 1952 to be for anyone of any faith to pray. In 1988 President Reagan designated the first of May as the official day. However, the chair of the task force is Shirley Dobson, wife of James Dobson, founder of Colorado-based Focus on the Family, a major component of the Christian Right. Indeed, on the prayer day task force website, a volunteer’s qualification must include a ‘commitment to Christ. A volunteer must be an evangelical Christian who has a personal relationship with Christ. [They must state] I acknowledge that I am working for the Lord Jesus Christ and the furthering of His Work on earth and agree to perform my work with the highest standard of Christian faith.’ So while the national day of prayer in theory is open to all faiths, all people, it really is not. Even within the Christian faith, who dominates the leadership of this movement, there is clearly an ‘in’ and ‘out’ group. With this group, I wouldn’t be accepted in.

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Somehow when Jesus ascended into heaven saying, ‘Lo, I am with you even unto the end of the ages,’ I cannot believe that he ever expected that Christianity would have become as fractured and policitised as it has.

Jesus’ words to the disciples at the time of his ascension were pretty straightforward:

‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’

In other words, it’s not for you to know when the Messiah is coming or when the Parousia, this time between the first and second resurrection shall end. You have one simple thing to proclaim: repentance and forgiveness and your belief in me, Jesus the Christ.

But oh how that message has gotten twisted and distorted over the ensuing two millennia. Jesus’ proclamation of repentance and forgiveness, his message of liberation and justice (as found in the Beatitudes and in Mary’s song of thanksgiving, the Magnificat) has gotten torqued into purity codes of who can be a follower of Christ and to what extent they can participate in bringing about God’s commonwealth. Jesus’ motley band of followers has fractured into more and more distinct and fighting groups. Even within our Anglican Communion and Episcopal Church, we have different groups laying claim to Jesus’ message. Even I have differentiated myself from one group or another.

So how on this feast day of the Ascension do we return to that simple and straightforward message which Christ charged us to communicate? How do we return to that sense of awe, wonder and perhaps anxiety, as the disciples who stood looking up into the sky at the disappearing feet of their saviour?

Perhaps if we remember that as Christ ascended, he left us with the Holy Spirit that might help us ‘return to message.’ The Holy Spirit that animates us, moves our being, and gives us the words enables us to be witnesses to Christ. To me, being a witness to Christ is less about judging others — that task lies to God and is between God and the individual — and more about proclaiming Christ’s love for us and our love for Christ. Sometimes, that proclamation is through words but more often than not, it is through living in the Spirit.

There’s the story of the novice who wanted to pray with Saint Francis. One morning, very, very early Francis told the novice that they could go out and pray. So the two of them walked around the city for a couple of hours but never once stopped. When they got back to their starting point, the novice said to Francis: But we never prayed! And Francis replied that their entire walk had been prayer, manifesting Christ through the ways in which they engaged people on their way.

That form of witness carried out day-to-day is far more powerful than a once-a-year prayer day. That form of witness carried out day-to-day is what the departing Christ charged us to do.

May we go forth to the world in peace, looking up to Jesus, who was wounded for our transgressions, and bear in our lives the love and joy and peace which are the marks of Jesus upon his disciples, us.
[blessing attributed to Canon Alipayo of Acholi]