Category Archives: Ascension

Unanswered Prayer – Sermon on John 17:20-26 for Easter 7C

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We are caught in a time warp. This is the final Sunday in the season of Eastertide, and throughout this season we have been listening to Jesus’ talk with his disciples on the night before his crucifixion. We are still in the upper room, and the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday haven’t happened yet. We are caught in a time warp between pre-crucifixion and post-resurrection. When you think about it, this sums up our lives as Christians. We are caught in the already/not yet of the Kingdom of God.

The gospel readings for Eastertide come from John, and only John gives us the full account of that last conversation around the table. Jesus has been distilling the last three years worth of teaching into these final words. And now, Jesus shifts from teaching to praying, from giving his disciples information to offering intercession for them. And us.

“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Have you ever listened while someone prayed for you? How did that make you feel? Was it awkward, or were you overwhelmed with the sense of being deeply loved? Were you surprised at the words said on your behalf?

As you think about that experience, let me ask you something else. Would you rather have Jesus talking to you or praying for you? There’s no “right” answer to that question, and your answer might be different today than it will be tomorrow.

In chapters 13 through 16 of John’s gospel, Jesus has been talking to his disciples. But when we get to chapter 17 he’s said all he can say, so Jesus closes the meeting in prayer. We call this the Priestly Prayer because Jesus is interceding for others to God, just as a priest would do. And this prayer follows a progression from the very specific to the broadest possible generalization.

First, Jesus prays for himself, and on the surface, it sounds like a pretty bold prayer. He is certainly not in the kind of agony the other gospels describe as Jesus prays in Gethsemane. He asks the Father to glorify him, the Son, with the glory the Father has given to him, so that the Son can glorify the Father (vv1-5). But the glory Jesus is talking about is the glory of the Cross. It’s the glory of giving himself up for the sake of the world he came to save.

If we want to identify with Jesus, are we really ready to claim that glory?
Are we willing to suffer for someone else’s sake?

Then Jesus prays for those seated at the table with him. We might expect him to pray for God to give them comfort in the loss they are about to experience, or to keep them true to their purpose of spreading the good news.

But Jesus prays the same prayer a mother prays when her children are out late at night, or they drive on their own for the very first time, or they start hanging around with friends she doesn’t quite trust. It’s a prayer for protection. (vv 6-19)

Jesus says, “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled” (vv 11-12). And then he goes on to say, “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one” (v.15).

Finally, he prays for everyone who will be touched by their witness – and that includes you and me. This prayer is for one-ness.

Lucy Lind Hogan writes, “It is a prayer for community. Jesus prays that, ‘all may be one.’ To be a follower of Jesus is to be a part of a greater whole. According to Jesus there are to be no solitary Christians or spiritual ‘Lone Rangers.’ … We are one in Christ whether we agree with each other or not. We are one in Christ whether we like one another or not. To become a part of Christ is to become a part of the community; a part of the one.”[1]

Throughout this prayer, John engages in some Greek wordplay. The only difference between the word “one” and the word “in” is a tiny diacritical mark, a little tick above the vowel to indicate that the word meaning “one” has an “h” sound at the beginning. Four times Jesus calls for one-ness, but that unity is more than solidarity. It comes from the seven times he says “in” – I in you, you in me, they in me, you in them… One-ness comes from being ‘in’ Christ.

This prayer harkens back to chapter 15, where Jesus was talking about the vine and branches. Abide IN me. Remain IN me. Now he is asking the Father to make us all one with God and one with each other.

Theologian Miroslav Volf calls this “mutual interiority,” where two people each maintain their own personal identity, while opening themselves to each other and allowing the other to be included within their personal space.[2]

But we don’t really need to use a fancy name. Jesus invites all who believe in him into the one-ness of the Triune God. And this one-ness is grounded and rooted in love that gives its all.

This is the kind of self-giving love that is more than a feeling. It’s a choice to reciprocate the love God offers us. It’s a choice to love God back by loving each other. This kind of love challenges us “to be enough of a self to engage in self-giving love.[3] Any failure to live in unity is usually a failure to reciprocate – a failure to love God back.

I mentioned this love Christ wants us to have for each other a couple of weeks ago, when we heard Jesus give the new commandment to love one another as he has loved us. This love binds us together, even when we disagree on important questions of how to be the church, how to be followers of Jesus Christ. I pointed out that right now, the United Methodist Church is struggling with Christ’s call to unity, because we can’t agree on the topic of human sexuality.

Sometimes an illustration is more powerful than the concept it is being used to describe. Instructional researcher Madeline Hunter used to say, “don’t bring an elephant into the room to demonstrate the concept ‘gray.’” And for some of you, questions surrounding how we minister to the LGBTQ community make a pretty big elephant.

But the point isn’t just that we need to talk about homosexuality. The point is that we need to hold all our conversations in the framework of Christian unity. Christ prayed for that nearly 2000 years ago, and he is still waiting for an answer to that prayer. Think about that. On his last night with his disciples, when he pours out his heart to them and for them, he prays this prayer – and it hasn’t been answered yet.

We keep becoming more and more disunited instead of more and more … one. The unity Christ hoped for isn’t necessarily a call to agreement on every issue. It’s simply a call to commit ourselves to sticking together, and to keep loving one another in the midst of disagreement.

It’s a way to show the world how to disagree and love each other at the same time. This is the reason why our unity is so important to Jesus that he asks for it four times in two and a half verses. It isn’t just for our benefit. It isn’t just for Christ’s benefit. Christ’s prayer for unity has only one goal: that the world would know God has sent Jesus into the world.

And so it’s important for you to know that when you start talking about someone’s sexual identity as being an abomination to the Lord, there are people in this room you are hurting. There are people in this community you are excluding from God’s grace, people who are hungry for the church to accept them as beloved children of God, made in God’s image. And the world is watching.

And by the same token, whenever you say things like, “that’s not what the Bible really says,” or “we ignore other parts of scripture we don’t like, so why can’t you ignore these six verses?” you are hurting people for whom the Bible is of primary importance, to whom Scripture is the only rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct. You are attacking everything they hold dear about the centrality of Scripture. And the world is watching.

So, it’s not an either/or and it’s not even a both/and – the question is: how can we talk together about these things in a way that shows love? That’s the bottom line. That’s what Jesus was asking for when he asked the Father to make us one. This has little to do with denominational polity, sexuality, or crafting some kind of compromise to keep us all together. It is about sharing this one message: Jesus is the Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. My sins. Your sins. All sin.

I am convinced that Satan would like nothing better than for us to be distracted by debates over what the Book of Discipline says about homosexuality. Satan would like nothing better than for all our energy to be spent arguing with one another, so that we have no energy left to share the good news that Jesus is Lord, that he died for all, and that grace abounds for those who will claim it.

But we don’t have to let Satan get his way on this one. I think there is much to be gained by discussing how we, as a church, want to live out our calling to offer hope and healing to a broken world. Our main concern should be deciding how we can minister to people whose primary identity has not yet become “faithful follower of Jesus Christ” – whatever their primary identity currently happens to be.

Let us do that with grace and love for one another, so that the witness we bear points others to Jesus, and Jesus alone. Only then can Jesus finally expect an answer to his prayer that we might be one, even as he and the Father are one. Only then can the Kingdom of God become fully real. Only then can we gather around this Table, offer one another Bread and Cup, and rejoice as we hear once again the reminder that, because we who are many partake of the One Loaf, we have been made one in Christ Jesus.

[1] Lucy Lind Hogan, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1637

[2] Miroslav Volf explores the idea of ‘mutual interiority’ in his book, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Abingdon, 1996).

[3] Geoffrey M. St. J. Hoare, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, 542.

Right Here, Right Now – Sermon on Acts 1:1-11 for Ascension B

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Video

It’s time to go back to the beginning. Sometimes, we need a little refresher course in why we do what we do, who we are, and what our mission in life truly is. It’s easy to get off track. It’s easy to get lost in the details of day-to-day activities, and forget what our purpose was for doing those things in the first place.

The gospel writers knew this. As the church was forming and reforming in those early years, it was important to stay focused on the gospel, the Good News. It was important to know what to believe, and even more important to remember who to believe. The best way to keep things straight was to write down everything, from the beginning. Continue reading →

Now It’s Your Turn – sermon on Luke 24:44-53

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Ascension Sunday
May 22, 2022
Video

We began celebrating this season of Resurrection on Easter Sunday, with the first few verses of Luke 24. Today, we hear the end of that chapter. The gospel writers aren’t clear on how much time passes between the joy of Easter morning and Christ’s ascension into heaven. In fact, only Luke and Mark actually describe Jesus’ final leave-taking, and Luke gives two different versions of the story. But all four Gospel writers agree that Jesus gave his disciples an assignment before he left them. He passed the baton, so to speak. “I’ve done what I came to do,” he tells them, “Now it’s your turn.”
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Can I Get a Witness? – Sermon on Luke 24:44-53

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Artwork from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

What do The Rolling Stones, the Temptations, Dusty Springfield, and Marvin Gaye (with the Supremes singing back-up vocals) all have in common? At some point over the span of a year, they all recorded “Can I Get A Witness?” – a gospel-style hit that got its start in 1963. While the song didn’t have remarkable lyrics, and the melody only consists of about three notes, it put Marvin Gaye on the Billboard 100 top songs list. The hook that inspired such popularity was the refrain that sounded like a revival preacher’s chant, repeated over and over: “Can I get a witness?” In other words, can anybody out there affirm that I’m telling the truth? Are you with me here? Can I get an Amen? Will you say it with me, over and over? Can I get a witness?

As Jesus talked with his followers in the days after the resurrection, he found himself repeating the same words over and over for them, too. As we heard a moment ago, in the story from Acts, they still didn’t fully understand how his reign was supposed to work. “Okay, Lord, we get it that you had to die, and be raised from the dead to prove that even death has no power greater than yours. We get it that you came to offer forgiveness of sins. That’s great. But now that you’ve done all that, isn’t it about time for you to overthrow the corrupt Roman oppressors? Can we get on with the revolt, Lord? Isn’t it time for you to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

The disciples were still trying to make Jesus into a military hero. They still didn’t understand that Jesus had come to save the whole world. Time was growing short. Jesus knew he would not be with them much longer. But the only way to help them see the truth was to tell them again and again, over and over. So, just as he had done before, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus started at the beginning.

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.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and 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. And 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.”
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God. (Luke 24:44)

Last week, as we witnessed our confirmands declaring their faith, and as we welcomed them into the full life of the church, we recited the ancient words of the Apostles’ Creed. The creed is organized around God’s identity as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but the central part of that creed focuses on the work of Jesus Christ, from the moment of his conception through his ascension and heavenly reign. As often as we say those words, I wonder if we really pay attention to the mystery they describe. I wonder if we realize how each element of the life of Jesus affirms both his divine and human natures, how each phrase we repeat when we say, “I believe” connects the earthly life of Jesus to everything that had come before, and everything that would follow. That narrow band of time when Jesus walked on earth was the turning point of salvation history, and this final moment Jesus shares with his disciples falls into a similar pattern: a narrow band between what was, and what will be.

First, Jesus repeats what he has been telling them – and us – all along: since the beginning of creation, God’s plan has been clear. Jesus is the culmination of the whole story up to now. Every bit of his life and ministry is the answer to Old Testament questions, the fulfillment of Old Testament promises. It all comes down to this: Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of the world.

Like the disciples, we might say, “Yes, Lord. So what now? Now that you have topped every miracle in the history of God’s people, now that you have even defeated death itself, what are you going to do now? Are you finally going to restore the kingdom?”

But Jesus lifts up his hands as Moses did when he blessed Joshua as the one who would lead God’s people into the promised land. He lifts up his hands in blessing, as Elijah did when his successor, Elisha, asked for a double portion of Elijah’s prophetic spirit. Jesus lifts up his hands, with the marks of the nails still showing, and he blesses his followers. Then he says, in effect, “It’s up to you. You are going to be my witnesses.” And he’s gone.

I don’t know about you, but if I had been standing there, looking up at the soles of Jesus’ feet disappearing into the clouds, my gut reaction would probably have been something like, “Wait a minute! What?! How can we possibly do that?” Just like Thomas in last week’s reading, when he blurted out, “We don’t even know where you are going! How can we possibly know the way?” I would be dumbfounded. How could Jesus expect so much of me, when I am so clueless?

But that isn’t what the disciples did.

Instead, “they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God” (vv 52-53).

Every time I read this passage, I wonder about the transformation that happened to the disciples between Easter morning and the ascension. They have become completely different people. This is even more amazing when you realize that in this version of the ascension, Luke still has us gathered with the disciples on Easter night, not 40 days later, as we find in the Acts version of the story (Acts 1:3). We have scarcely made it back to the room where the disciples have gathered, we have only just heard Cleopas and his friend, who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus. We have barely just seen Jesus reappear in our midst and ask for a piece of fish to prove he isn’t a ghost.

Now I know this version of the story doesn’t agree with the other gospels, or even Luke’s own later writing, and scholars can’t agree on why Luke might have collapsed all the events between the resurrection and the ascension into less than 24 hours. To me, it isn’t really the timeframe that matters. It’s what happens to the disciples, those followers of Jesus who were scared out of their wits on Easter morning, and here we find them worshiping Jesus, returning to Jerusalem with great joy, and continually blessing God in the temple. They had already lost Jesus once, on the cross. And their sorrow at his death is completely understandable. But now, when they lose him a second time, they rejoice! What happened to them in the meantime?

They became witnesses.

They knew they had seen God.

When Luke says they worshipped Jesus as he ascended, he doesn’t use that word lightly. In fact, this is the only time in Luke’s entire gospel when the disciples worship Jesus. These were good Jewish kids, remember. They knew that first commandment backwards and forwards. “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:2-3; Deuteronomy 5:6-7) They knew that only God deserved their worship, their praise, their adoration. So when Luke says, “they worshipped Jesus” he’s really saying, “they finally knew Jesus was God.”

This new understanding that Jesus is God required a completely new understanding of who the disciples had become. Not only did the disciples become aware that God was redeeming all of Creation through Jesus, they also realized they had a role to play in that redemptive work. “You are going to be my witnesses,” Jesus tells them. You are going to show the world what you now know to be true.

“But how can we possibly do that?” you may be wondering. Well, notice that Jesus didn’t say, “Go do witnessing.” He said, “You will be my witnesses.”

God is not asking you to add more things to your To Do list. God is asking you to make a new To Be list. Not that you need more items to check off, but that each item on your To Be list makes you more like Jesus.

So, instead of going to more Bible studies or reading more chapters and verses each day, Christ calls us to be more hungry for the Word of God.

Instead of signing up for more projects, participating in more programs, and doing more work, Christ calls us to be more aware of the needs we see around us.

Instead of attending more prayer circles or reading more devotional books, Christ calls us to be more present with God, and more attentive to God’s still, small voice throughout the activities and routines of our day.

Instead of doing more work for the church, serving on more committees, teaching more classes, organizing more events, Christ invites us to be more of who God created us to be.

Instead of doing more for Christ, we are to be more like Christ.

And that is our witness.

But we cannot be witnesses on our own. In fact, we can’t be Christ’s witnesses under our own power at all. If we depended on our own strength and will, we would only be witnessing to ourselves, not Christ.

Jesus told his followers they would be “clothed with power from on high.” In a couple of weeks, we will celebrate that initial baptism in the Holy Spirit that came like a mighty rushing wind on Pentecost. The same power that Luke ascribes to God, Jesus, and the Spirit throughout his Gospel becomes evident in the lives of the apostles in Luke’s second book, Acts. Remember last week that I told you, “becoming a member of Christ’s church gives us a lot of power. Christ expects great things of us, and has given us the Holy Spirit to accomplish that work.”

This is the central theme of Ascension: Jesus has completed his work on earth. Now it’s our turn. He leaves, but not without saying a proper Goodbye. He leaves, but not without reassuring us that this is not the end, but the beginning. Just as our confirmands last week affirmed that they are at the beginning of a life of faith and faithfulness, so the church is at the beginning of a new age of ministry.

Christ calls us to live into our faith, willing to share good news, certainly, but aware that our very lives are the witness we bear. How we live shows Jesus to others. We have not been given this grace to keep it locked up inside this building, despite the sign on the front door that says, “do not open this door.” Despite the stained glass windows that prevent us from seeing out into our community unless we go outside, we are called to be witnesses. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are witnesses to what we now know: that Jesus is the Son of God, who calls us to repentance and forgives our sins.

So the disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple, blessing God. Isn’t than an interesting way to put it, “blessing” God? Jesus had blessed them as he left their sight. Now they were blessing God in the temple, as they waited to be clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit. That narrow band of time, the bridge between what was and what will be, has come to completion. What lies ahead is the Kingdom of God, in which we all participate, to which we all belong. As our lives bear witness to this good news, we are called to receive Christ’s blessing, to accept the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through us, changing us as it did those first disciples. And we are called to worship Jesus, the only Son of the Living God.

Can I get a witness?