"Returning to Return", June 5, 2011

Acts 1: 1-14
Ephesians 1: 15-23
What do we believe? Of all the elements of faith, this is the one that gives rational people fits. We can explain away, how God created all Creation in seven days, speculating that as time was not yet created, there were more than 24 hours/ day, and as we have wished more than 60 minutes in an hour. We can conceive how Moses and the Israelites escaped through the Red Sea and survived for 40 years on Manna in the wilderness; how the blowing trumpets and prayer could bring down a City's walls.
We can even imagine that because God So Loved the world, that Almighty, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Ubiquitous God could take off divinity to be INCARNATE in Jesus Christ. We can listen to all the miracle stories, including the resurrection from death upon the Cross to life ever-lasting. For the last 40 days, we have read of his appearance and teaching the disciples after the resurrection of Easter morn, with proof of the resurrection in that he broke bread, cooked and ate fish with them, and they physically had touched his wounds and suffering. But that Jesus' body then stepped upon a cloud and flew into heaven, takes a suspension of reality most of us have difficulty understanding.

Faith is not about understanding HOW, unpacking those realities is a matter of science and physics. Faith gets at THE WHY of what else goes on in life. When a good friend develops dementia, we can hear explanations about the quantity of Seratonin and Neoponephran in the brain. When a loved one dies, we can have an autopsy done to determine causes of death, and how often we abuse ourselves questioning what we could have done to prevent this. But these do not address the hole and void we feel, at their being gone. Just as when a couple fall in love, we can interpret how differing experiences and stimuli were right to bring these two together at precisely this moment in their lives, but that does not explain love. All these do not address the WHY of the meaning of life.

To every person, there come points of realization, that as much as we try to control our lives, as often as we inadvertently attempt to make every circumstance about ourselves, there are limits to our control and influence, and we know there must be, has got to be, something greater than we ourselves. Whether the intricate complexity of the universe' intelligent design; the humility of another's compassion; or awe at the mystery of birth, with the beauty of cuticles and eyelashes; or simply the need for companionship in the dark nights of our souls, we need God. Not physical idols created by our hands, not gods of war, gods of love and gods of mountaintops, but need of God who is above all and in all, the source and judge of all life, who cares about each of us. Even more, that nothing in life, not Angels, Governments, or Armies, not Economies or Quarantines, not even death, nothing can separate us from the love of God, which was demonstrated for us in Jesus Christ! But as proof of his humanity, Jesus' body died and rose again.

The Ascension settles three things for us.
First, foremost, that all that Jesus experienced, knew in life and death and resurrection is not lost, gone. Generations afterward, we have the words of Lincoln; we possess the thought of our Nation's Founding Fathers, and the purpose of the Supreme Court is to interpret and apply their expressed intent in the Constitution to differing circumstance today; we possess the words of Shakespeare and every actor and director find ways to make the words come alive differently. However, the Ascension is faith that Jesus Christ is alive, able to feel, to suffer, to know. Not interpreted and applied, but that the same Jesus lives. Second, that the Messiah sits at the right hand of God. God may be able to be at all places at all times, the Holy Spirit is able to be felt and change the lives of people everywhere, but Jesus had a physical body, which atoned for our sin, which is right in front of God. Is there anything, in all of life, that God cannot forgive, seeing the witness of Christ continually before God's face?
He stepped upon a cloud and floated, we cannot explain, except that as Christ came from God, he returned to God, that he can return at any point in our lives, in our suffering or in our love, there will always be forgiveness.

What the Ascension does for us, is to allow us to believe spiritually, theologically, to think not only with our rational minds, but our relational selves as well. The Enlightenment is less than 500 years old, described as an experiment, to attempt to describe and to know the rules governing the natural world. But humanity knew of life long before the Enlightenment, before Descartes and Sir Francis Bacon, before Ben Franklin, before Isaac Newton. Somehow, we have come to believe that life was an either/or proposition; either we can believe in Natural Law and Natural Order, or we can believe in things spiritual. But as much as we have proven, as much as we can know, there are always exceptions to every rule.

The Letter to the Ephesians is delightful for so many reasons, chief among them, that it begins: “I have heard of your faith in the Lord and your love toward all the saints.” There is a difference between publicity and reputation. Publicity are those things we put forth about ourselves, for others to know. I have even had those, who so desired to control how people thought of them, that they left word for what was to be said at their funeral after they were dead. Part of the joy of celebrating weddings is working with couples listening to what they want their marriages to be. Reputation is how others describe us, what happens outside of our ability to control.

Yesterday, it poured rain, and the bride fretted about how to control the heavens. There was also a wedding across the street, and how to orchestrate parking. Yet, at the appointed hour, everyone came together, and as the bride stood with her groom, the two year old flower girl cheered “YEA!” And in that their day was also the anniversary of their parents' wedding, we had the parents stand and renew their vows as well. One of my favorite memories of any wedding, was the one where at the end of the wedding, I raised my hand for the Blessing of the Couple and the bride seeing my arm in the air, High Fived the minister. There is a spontaneity to life itself, far beyond our ability to explain, to document, to plan or to control. Far more important than what publicity we tell others about ourselves, are how we are known.

It would be easy for us as a congregation to publicize that in addition to our annual budget which designates 15% for Mission, we have created and partnered with others to create non-profit corporations funding a Clinic in Sudan, an affordable Seniors' Residence and Food Pantry, and so many other causes locally that together generate 4 times as much being given to Charitable Causes as we spend upon ourselves. But giving up CONTROL and trusting the Spirit, it is far better to hear others describe, “When my mother died, the church were there for her and for our family.” “When my daughter married, and her sister wanted her children baptized, the church found ways to make their dreams come true.” When the clinic was built, “Miracles took place” the day we discovered the well had run dry, a well driller came to a wedding in the village. In the past 8 out of 10 babies died, 50% of mothers in labor and delivery, and today infant and maternal death is seen as rare and preventable. Presbyterians in Central New York, particularly people from Skaneateles, are not usually known for our faith in miracles; but such experiences have changed us... empowering us to look at life and at one another differently, that this Reality is God's creation. That there is Forgiveness. That in addition to Forgiveness and making amends, there can be true Redemption. That in addition to our individual relationships with God, we also have a communion among ourselves, that as we are forgiven we are changed and brought closer to God, we also are brought closer to one another in Christ's love.

Each of the Four Gospels tell the events of Jesus' Life, Teachings and Ministry in slightly different order. I have always thought that the conclusion of the Road to Emmaus actually belongs with the Ascension. That he took bread and giving thanks to God, broke it, and their eyes were open but now they saw him in many other places in life.